Updating Lamps with Drum Shades. How to Cover with Fabric.

I love easy and inexpensive updating/decorating projects that produce a big impact! I've been on a mission lately to update some of the lamps and shades throughout our home. The lamps on the console in my living room really needed to be updated:





I love the lamp bases but I really needed to toss the shades and come up with something fun and updated for new shades. I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate fabric into the shades for some color, and drum shades are the perfect shape for adding fabric for big impact.

So, for the last few weeks, I have been on a mission to find the best large drum shades. I finally found them at Walmart of all places, for $14.00!









My rug in my living room has a lot of reddish/orange in it and I was looking for ways to add more of that color throughout the room. Covering these drum shades is a great solution and I love how they turned out:








Covering the drum shade in fabric is really easy, here's how:

1) Turn the shade on its side and match up the seam of the shade to the beginning of your fabric like this (I'm using poster board to give a better visual of where to cut the fabric):




2) Draw a line an inch and a half from the top and bottom of the shade to give ample fabric to work with:





3) Roll the shade over and over and continue drawing your line top and bottom until the seam of the shade comes back around:





4) Because a drum shade is not equal size top and bottom, your fabric piece will go up at an angle and the end. So, if you are working with a pattern fabric, you will want to start your shade rolling template at an angle so the pattern will be fairly straight on the front of your shade.


5) Cut out your fabric and fire up the glue gun:






6) Begin by hot gluing the end of your fabric to the line of the seam of the shade leaving your excess fabric at top and bottom:






7) Use binder clips all the way around your shade to perfectly position your fabric onto the shade and ensuring that you have plenty of fabric on the top and bottom to fold over and glue:





8) Add a small amount of hot glue right at the base of the wire frame at either the top or the bottom and immediately fold over your fabric and press down into the nook of the wire frame and hold until secure and glue starts to cool:














9) Hot glue all the way around the shade top and bottom until you reach where you started and fold over fabric to create a nice line/seam and hot glue. (If you have too much excess fabric, trim until you have an inch to fold under your seam:










10) Trim the excess fabric where you hot glued (inside of shade) all the way down to the glue:






11) Use hem tape or any kind of ribbon or trim (I use the same color of the interior of the shade) and hot glue on top of your fabric on the inside of the shade to cover the ends of your fabric:












I just love these easy and inexpensive updating projects that really make a big impact!

That's it for now but I will be posting several projects this week that are finally ready, so check back. As always, thank you for your sweet comments, emails and notes! I really appreciate your feedback.

Have a great week friends!

Cheers!
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