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Thank you for joining me on the journey to complete our guest bathroom renovation in the next eight weeks for the One Room Challenge! If you’re new here, I’m Sasha. My husband, Matt, and I purchased our Victorian home almost two years ago, and have been slowly renovating it ever since.
In case you missed them, my previous posts are linked at the top!
This post will be a little different than my previous updates because I will be sharing tips for making pleated lamp shades! I just finished the second shade for the sconces in my bathroom on Sunday, which is what prompted to share these tips.
How I Got Started
I developed a bit of a passion for making lamp shades last year. I purchased a pair of Visual Comfort sconces for our bedroom last spring. After staring at them for a few months, in awe of their beauty and the incredible deal I got, I realized that something was missing.
Decorative lamp shades! So I got on Etsy and began looking for the perfect shades. Two things struck me almost immediately – lamp shades are very expensive and the fabric options for ready-made shades are limited. It was then that I began imagining what I could create if I made one myself. I had an idea in my head how it could be done, but decided it best to use a tutorial first.
One of the perks to being a fabric hoarder is that I had plenty of spare fabric to use to create my prototype. So, after a quick trip to the store for a cheap, plain lamp shade, I was ready to go. Instead of going with my gut and using the method I had in my mind, I went with the method many other tutorials had proposed. The result – a hot glue mess. As you can see in the picture below, it looks just fine from a distance, but if you look closely you’ll still see hot glue strands and frayed fabric, despite my best efforts to clean it up.
However, I was determined to figure out a better way to do it so I have been finetuning my technique since then. Now my house has a litany of colorful lamp shades.
Tips for Making Pleated Lamp Shades
1. Choosing a Fabric
Choosing the correct fabric for your project is one of the first steps to success. To choose the correct fabric, you must first decide whether you would like your shade to have a more relaxed or structured look.
If you’d like a relaxed look, the best fabric for the project will be lightweight, 100% cotton fabric. If you are going for a more structured look, it is best to choose either a medium weight cotton fabric or a cotton blend with a low percentage of linen.
2. Calculating the Amount of Fabric
As with the type of fabric, the amount you’ll need is dependent upon your choice of pleating style. In general, the length of fabric you need will be between 3 to 4 times the circumference of the shade. If your shade has a different circumference for the top and bottom, base your calculations on the bottom circumference. For a shade with structured pleats, I aim for around 3 times the circumference for for a shade with relaxed pleats, I aim for 4. To calculate the width to cut your fabric to, measure the distance from the top of the shade to the bottom, along the outside of the shade. Cut the fabric to that length. There is no need to allow for excess. It will just mean more to trim later, which can result in fraying fabric.
3. Creating the Pleats
Instead of adding fabric pleats to the shade, pleat by pleat, with copious amounts of hot glue, pleat the fabric before you attach it. This concept was a game changer for me! It is what I initially envisioned doing but chose not to try it for my first attempt because I didn’t see others using it in their tutorials. I recommend using a heavy weight embroidery thread and a large eye sewing needle to create the pleats. This allows you to rearrange / alter all of the pleats on the shade at the same time, rather than ripping them off of the shade, after they’ve been hot glued on, to adjust the pleat spacing. Another advantage of this method is reducing your hot glue use, which can get rather messy otherwise.
I hope these tips help! I will be sharing more of the details that went into creating the sconce shades for my One Room Challenge bathroom renovation on Instagram later this week.
This Week’s To-Do List
Here is a brief snapshot of this week’s to-do list. In case you’re wondering why I suddenly added a mirror project to the list for the last week of the One Room Challenge, the answer is that apparently I just love torturing myself. Just kidding. Although my arms are still killing me from sawing apart the frame to fit the space on Sunday. I realized that the scale of the first mirror I found did not work with the artwork so I picked up a new mirror for $45 from Facebook Marketplace.
- Touch up paint
- Make curtain
- Hem shower curtain
- Finish adding gold leaf to mirror
- Decorate
I will be sharing more throughout the week via Instagram stories so please join me there as well. Make sure you check out the other One Room Challenge participants here. Good luck to everyone with your renovations.
See you next week for the big reveal!
