How to create a beautiful, fabric DIY flower lampshade…
DIY flower lampshade supplies:
- Circle cutting tool
- fabric (choose something semi-sheer, thin and inexpensive)
- hot glue/hot glue gun
- lampshade of your choice
- patience and a bit of time
Why patience? Mostly because those shades took me H.O.U.R.S. (like around 3 per shade) to make, but in terms of difficulty, it’s certainly not a hard project at all.
You just have to embrace the monotony of cutting out hundreds of fabric circles.
DIY flower lampshade video tutorial:
how to make a DIY flower lampshade:
STEP 1. BUY A CIRCLE CUTTING TOOL.
Do not pass go without purchasing a circle cutting tool. Or go ahead, and try this with your scissors, but don’t say I didn’t warn you 😉
I bought the OLFA rotary cutter. Will run you about $14-16. There’s even a YouTube video (actually a page of them) on how to use it. Watch one before you start your circles.
STEP 2: BUY YOUR FABRIC AND CUT (And cut. And keep cutting):
As far as fabric goes, that’s obviously a matter of taste, but keep in mind, this is going on a lampshade, and the purpose of a lamp, of course, is to let in light, so very light and sheer fabrics work best.
The fabric I used is a very light, inexpensive polyester semi-sheer. Ran about $2-3/yard, and I purchased 2 yards for two drum shades that measure 14″ in diameter x 10″high. If the material you choose is also inexpensive, buy a little more yardage just to be on the safe side.
Now, decide on the size of your circles. My flowers are made of six circles each, the largest diameter being 6″ (the largest my circle cutter will make), and the smallest being approx. 1″ in diameter.
STEP 3: ASSEMBLE YOUR FABRIC FLOWERS.
After you’ve made a sizable stack of your circles start assembling them. For me, this step involved a lot of hot glue burns. If you come up with a better way, FANTASTIC.
I’m too lazy to take precautions (which is why I have no nerve endings left in my hands).
Stack your set of circles, largest on the bottom, smallest on top. Grab the stack from the center of the bottom circle by pinching the whole set of circles together (this material is NOT what I used for the project, just using this for illustrative purposes).
Now dab some hot glue here and there, between the layers, staying toward the centermost area. Hold that pinch until the glue starts to set a bit (only about 5-8 seconds).
Release, and voila! You have a flower. Don’t get too excited here because you now have to repeat that step about a thousand times.
STEP 4: GLUE FLOWERS TO LAMPSHADE.
Again, be miserly with your hot glue because globs of hot glue can show through the shade if you’re not careful.
I glued just the very center of the flowers, plus, if there were areas where the outermost layers of the flower were “flopping” in a way I didn’t like, I would put a teeny, tiny amount on the edges to hold those in place on the shade as well.
On my DIY lampshade, I ended up with 10-11 flowers per “row”, and three rows (top to bottom) total, per shade.
This will vary, depending on size/shape of your shade. Play with how dense you make the flowers, as that will definitely change the look of your end result.
STEP 5: ENJOY the “light” at the end of a long, but worthwhile DIY project tunnel!
I love these DIY lampshades. And although they have some stiff competition for attention in this room from our little chandelier, and of course, Bessie the cow..
I still think a DIY lampshade like these adds some beautiful texture, depth and interest to this space. Hope you’re inspired to try your hand at this project too! And if you do, let me know how it turns out!
Want more DIY lampshade ideas? I’ve got you covered! Click here for 20 awesome DIY Lampshade Ideas…
And here are even MORE great DIY Lighting ideas!
Pin this post for later! And if you make one, leave a comment (or better yet, a photo) on the pin! That helps others know whether they want to try this project, too!
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judy says
Love this! Where did you get the cow print? thanks
Donna says
This is so pretty! Pinning to my “must do hacks”. And I LOVE your bedroom!!
Jessica says
Just made mine! I used too few flowers unfortunately so it doesn't look as good but I'm still happy with it. I'd upload a photo of I could!
Heather says
AWESOME!!! Any tips for anyone else you can think of?? Go upload a pic on my facebook page! I want to see!!