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DIY Lamp shade

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I was in a shady contest… As in a lamp shade contest, ha! And I’m back today with the DIY lampshade tutorial.

How to make a balsa wood lampshade

Let’s start with the inspiration shade from Pomp and Circumstance. It’s awesome and made out of balsa wood.   lamp shade Of  course, I wanted to make the shade my own, and I’ve been really into mixed woods lately. I made a jewelry organizer out of leftover floor samples last year and decided to go for the same multi wood shade look with the lamp shade. CRAFT Jamie Dorobek

For the contest, lamps.com gave each of us this free shade for the contest:

diy lamp shade
Here’s what you need to make a DIY lampshade

  • 7 strips of as wide and thin balsa wood that you can find  (I got mine from Hobby Lobby. 7 strips cost me $17)
  • brown acrylic paint and water
  • bowl
  • scissors
  • hot glue gun

First, I painted my strips of balsa wood with acrylic paint. I painted a few strips a darker color, then watered down the paint, and painted a few more strips, etc…
diy lampshade

Here are my painted and dried balsa wood strips ready to be cut.
lamp shade makeover

I used scissors to cut each wide strip into multiple pieces. This saved money! I made my strips all different sizes. The thin balsa wood can easily be cut with scissors!
lamp 12

Now it’s time for assembly. Be patient, it will get frustrating. First, hot glue one piece of wood around the top and bottom of the shade. If you have a large shade, like me, one piece will not fit… cut up another one and  do a little patch, like so…

lamps shade diy

I only glued the edges of the balsa wood down. You need to be able to tuck the ends into each other. Also, only the first few strips can be put on all in one piece. After that I started cutting the strips to fit specific spots and go under/ over certain pieces. I tried to keep the pieces as tight to the shade as possible.

diy lamp shade

The weaving process takes time and patience! My mom helped me a lot… I was getting frustrated! Many of the pieces in the pic below are only a few inches long. It’s not going to be perfect… it has issues… and that yellow wall was not helping the color in this picture either : /

lamp shade

Here she is full view, and you can’t really see the issues. I’m love her. She’s pretty. I’m hoping one day she might be a pendant light! We’ll see…
lamp

Jamie Dorobek

Once upon a time I was in another lamp contest… this was to win the ugly lamp award, ha! I also recently did a lamp makeover with paint and water and gave it a giant yellow shade. Anyhow, what do you think about my balsa wood beauty queen? I smitten with my new shade, and I hope you are too. Oh and if you liked this lampshade makeover, check out 22 more really awesome lampshade makeover ideas!

Comments

  3. I absolutely love this idea – I think this would be fantastic to rework old lampshades. When my kids were teens it seemed like my lamps were always getting knocked about and I can’t tell you how many shades I had to replace. I think this would be great with ribbon, too. The jewelry hanger is gorge, too!

    Thanks for linking up to us on Throwback Thursday, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll bring next week! 🙂

    Mollie

    Reply

  5. What a fun and unique idea! Thanks for sharing it at The Pretty Pintastic Party! We enjoyed it so much we are featuring it at this weekend’s party. Stop by, grab a featured badge, and link up some more awesome posts!

    Reply

  6. Beautiful lamp shade! I love all of the different colors and the texture of the wood. I think I’m going to have to try to make something with balsa wood strips. Thanks for the inspiration. Pinning it!

    Reply

  8. Love this idea, so creative and looks beautiful! Thank you for sharing with OMHG Wonderful Wednesday Link Party.. Have a great day, co-host Evija @Fromevijawithlove x

    Reply

  10. I love this project! I’m gathering materials to try this myself, but could you be more specific about a few things?
    1. What were the dimensions of the shade you used?
    2. How did you estimate the amount of balsa wood needed? (Double or triple the surface area of the shade to be covered?)
    3. How wide & thick were your balsa wood strips/sheets before you cut them down?
    4. Did you have any issues with the strips snapping or breaking as you bent them around the shade?
    5. Was it necessary to heat or steam the strips to make them more pliable?

    Thank you for sharing your creativity & time, I look forward to hearing from you!

    Reply

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