Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Make a Fabric Covered Pleated Lampshade

K did a fantastic makeover of Anna's room, sort of a "design on a dime" but she didn't really spend a dime since she used leftover paints and scrap wood for everything. She used plates and bowls to draw big polka dots on the walls and painted them with various shades of purple, green and blue. Very cute!

The last thing on her wishlist was a little bedside lamp. I found a little white candlestick lamp base and this beat up shade in storage under the stairs. A check of my stash turned up the perfect lavender polka dot print and some purple pom pom trim to add a little fun.


I wanted to do a gathered pleated shade cover so I used the whole width of the fabric.

Measure the height of the shade and add about 3 inches.

Cut a strip of fabric the whole 44" width of the fabric. This is a small table lamp, if your shade is larger around you will want to use another strip to make it longer. Seam the two strips together using a 1/4" seam allowance. You should be able to easily hide the seam in the pleats.
Turn under 1/2" of one long edge of the strip. Turn under again and stitch along bottom of folded edge to form a casing.

Turn the the bottom edge under and hem it too.



Cut a piece of 1/4" elastic to fit snugly around the top of the shade.

Thread the elastic through the casing using a small safety pin. Secure the ends of the elastic with pins and measure it on the top of the shade to make sure it fits snugly.

Using a 1/4" seam allowance, seam the short ends of the strip together.


Put a fairly thick bead of tacky craft glue around the top edge of the shade and fit the elastic over it. Push it down to get a good tight fit.

Allow the glue to set a while then pull the bottom edge under the shade and glue it as tight as you can get. Work the pleats into place as you go.

I let the glue dry and then actually put the shade over the end of my ironing board and pressed the pleats down.

Embellish with beads, buttons or bows!
 
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