Lampshade {Redo}

I feel like I am a million years behind in our holiday decorating. Being out of town for Thanksgiving weekend, Hanukkah being like the next day, traveling for work, redoing the storage system in our garage…I’ve got a million excuses as to why I am just starting to decorate for the season.! Better late, than never I guess.
I was walking by my entry hall table on my way to the powder room this morning (TMI, I know) and I just couldn’t take my eyes off the “well loved” lampshade that adorns the “handed down” lamp sitting on the table. Now don’t get me wrong, this lamp is very special, it’s a University of Florida library lamp, so it’s got a special place in my heart, but it’s not exactly what I was going for in my Holiday decor for this year. Maybe next year I’ll do navy and brass and cracked…but this year is Polka Dots and Preppy!
This is a VERY easy make over (that is totally temporary) that you can do to just about any lampshade you have sitting around your house or if you’re THAT person and you’ve had one too many, sitting on your head.

Here is what you need:

• lampshade in need of some love
• ribbon
• tape (transparent gift wrapping tape)

1. start by measuring the length of the lampshade from the bottom circle to the top. Mine was 6.75″ so I cut my ribbon into 8″ strips (although a little more length in the ribbon would have been a wee bit easier to work with.
2. pick out what ribbons you want to use, I wanted to match my ribbon wreath and ribbon trees (plus I had a lot of that left over). I would just stay away from organza ribbons or anything else that is see-thru (unless your original shade is white and not in need of some TLC)
3. using a measuring tape, or just using a ribbon or string or thread, measure the circumference of the bottom of the shade (unless you want to do some “Pi R Squared” math, I’ll leave that up to you). Mine was roughly 41 inches. So since I was using a combo of 1.5″ and 1″ wide ribbons I decided to not chance it and cut a total of 42 ribbons (although I have about 10 extra left). I wasn’t into dealing with halves/fractions today.
4. cut ribbons to the length and number you need
5. pre “cut” tape strips and line them up on a table edge (or your laptop)
6. line up your stacks of ribbon in the pattern you want to tape them

top edge

7. pick any spot on your shade, flip upside down and tape your first ribbon to the inside of the shade.
8. pull the ribbon tightly and perpendicular to the bottom of the shade, wrap the end over the top and tape it to the inside of the shade.

bottom edge

9. decide if you want to go left or right and with edges butting place your next ribbon on the bottom of the shade and tape in place.   Unless you are using a drum shade (which would make this easier)you will have to over lap the tops of the ribbons as you go, just make sure that you are always going straight up and perpendicular to the bottom of the shade, you don’t want to start going in a diagonal, which is easy to do (my husband noted that you could overlap at the top and bottom if you want to, but I didn’t want to, but it’s an option).
10. keep on going, and going, and going, stopping to make more precut tape strips along you laptop/table.
11. finish up by overlapping your starting point and taping down any crazy ribbon corners you have on the inside of the shade for a little extra security if you’d like
12. marvel at your craftiness
13. take photos of said craftiness and post them on my Facebook wall (see badge on the left side of my blog to “Like” me on FB)



the newest ribbon tree