Revamp the Lamp

I'm a reader, I love to read and have since childhood. I blame this on my mother, in part because she was a reader too and if she had no book she would tell my siblings and I stories that she had memorized like Little Red Riding Hood, and The Three Little Pigs, or she’d recite poems to us like Little Boy Blue, or Jack Sprat. She would even tell us funny stories from her childhood. I also blame my love of reading on my father, not that he ever read to us (not that I can remember anyhow) and not because I ever seen him reading, but because he enabled me to be a reader. He purposefully installed a lamp above my bed on the bed frame so that I could read into the night without bothering other family members (my sister in particular whom I shared a room with). I couldn’t imagine life without reading, and so I set out to instill that same love of reading into my boys. Royce started out H-A-T-I-N-G to read; he struggled through learning the process of reading and found books dull. By third grade, he seemed to get a better grasp on it and found a book series that he enjoyed, but in fourth grade, he found a series of books that struck a true cord within him (Thank you, Rick Riordan for writing Percy Jackson & the Olympians). Anyhow, he is now at the stage where he’d like to read a bit before bed, which always irritates his younger brother because Royce wants the light on and Giovonnie wants it off, so I found that Royce could use a bedside lamp. I found a base without the shade at a thrift store for $1.00, and then found a lampshade for $.50. I thought I could revamp the shade to help dim the light coming from it, as well as to help it match the boy’s room a little better.

 

Do It Yourself:

The Items You Need:

1. Material of your choice

2. Old lampshade

3. Lamp base

4. Spray Adhesive (I used 3M Spray Adhesive)

5. Hot Glue Gun

6. Glue Sticks

7. Scissors

How to:
 1. Gather the Materials that you will use to recover the lampshade.




Here's what I started with: 1 pair of old blue jeans,
 a lamp base, and lampshade.

 

I thought I'd use these old blue jeans that
my son Giovonnie cut up for the material to cover the lamp  .
(I've been holding on to them for weeks)

 2. Cut the fabric to size.

 

Cutting the legs off of the jeans, then to the size of the lampshade.
I cut these in different sections to cover the shade properly.
I also cut the bottom hem of the jeans off, to make a
finished edge on the top of the lamp shade.

3. Spray the Spray Adhesive on the back of the Fabric.



4. Place the Fabric onto the lampshade, line up the bottom edge and smooth over so that there are no bumps in the cloth.





I used the inside seem of the jeans as the finished edge for the
bottom of the lamp shade.



 5. Trim the excess material from the top of the shade.

6. Aline and hot glue the edges, so they stay in place.

7. If you used jeans: Cut a back Pocket around the edge (leaving it a pocket).



8. Hot glue the back of the pocket and place it on the lampshade. 

 

 9.  Use the bottom hem of the blue jean leg and hot glue it around the top of the lamp to give it a finished edge.

The pocket can be used to store pens, bookmarks,
or other little things.

Here's how my Lamp Revamp turned out.