lamp revamp and lamp shade tutorial

By Kelsey Bang January 9, 2012 1 Comment 3 min read

I have had this lamp in our bedroom and have been getting kinda tired of it. I bought it a few years ago and DI (Desert Industries…its like a Goodwill) and originally put fabric around the lampshade to match my old room. It hasn’t matched Jake and I’s room for a year now, and thought its finally time to change that 🙂

We got a new lamp shade at Walmart for $15.00. They have a variety of shapes, sizes, for all your needs. I havent found as good a selection of shades anywhere else. Let me know if you have! I knew what color I wanted the lamp shade I wanted but I didn’t want to use burlap because I feel I am seeing that way to much in my house now….so I looked at my stash of crafts and found this hemp. It is about 1/8 inch thick. You can purchase it at Hobby Lobby, Joann’s or Michael’s and you will probably need 2 of them depending on the size of your lamp shade. Dont forget to use your 40% off coupon at any of these stores. For this lamp shade it took me 1 and a half of the hemp rolls.

All you need for this project is hemp, glue gun and lamp shade. I started by gluing the beginning of the hemp on a corner of the lamp shade. That way the end of the rope will be hidden and wont fray.

Glue around one edge at a time, or if you are using a circular shade a small section at a time so the glue does not dry up on you before you get your hemp on it. Keep glueing around the lamp shade over and over again….

If you run out of hemp and need to start a new roll, put the end of the hemp down on a corner.

Then take your new hemp begging and a cross it over and glue it down the end of the other hemp end. That way as you continue to wrap the hemp around the ends will be covered and not seen and will not fray.

As you come to the end of the lamp shade you might find some places are not getting covered and some are. I think this is because the hemp is not equal thickness all around. But thats what makes it cute! So keep going around your lamp shade, just glueing the hemp to the hemp above if there is no more lamp shade to glue it till until your whole lamp shade is covered!

Ta da…you are done! Wahoo! Doesn’t it look like a basket? Maybe that would be easier….take a basket and cut a hole in it, and put it on top of your lamp 🙂

On the feet of the lamp, I super glued around the edges and put felt on it, and cut around it (dont know why I choose blue felt..) so the lamp would not scratch the paint on the dresser its on.

I also painted the lamp to give it a new look! You can either use spray paint (which I have used before and it turns out great!) or use a paint brush and a can of paint like I did on this lamp! I think I may add some crackle to it later to! Well see..