A shady tale...

Let me tell you the sad tale of a lampshade that had seen better days.  The lovely white linen lampshade had let the light shine in my home for several years, until one day when a candle was placed a little too close to it.  The heat from the candle warped one side of the shade, making it forevermore a bit wonky.  What's a girl to do?  With a lampshade that is a solid color, the wonky side of the shade stood out like a sore thumb.  Sure, a new shade would have been rather easy to purchase.  But, a crafter knows better!

By adding a print (or creating a print by stamping the shade), the sad lamp shade took on a new life as a custom and one of a kind accessory (wonky side and all).

Here's what I did.

I took a large stamp that provided coverage with a pattern that I liked.  Here, a typewriter style print gave me the graphic look I wanted, but any stamp will work!

I took a brown fabric paint and a craft foam roller to evenly coat the paint on my stamp (for details, check out my last two posts that goes into this technique in detail).  However, this will work well with ink or staz-on ink as well.  Since my lampshade was a linen type fabric, I wanted to use a fabric paint to get better coverage.

I made the decision ahead of time that I didn't want each side to be the same and that I wanted a little overlap and some angles to my print (the stamped image not all going in the same direction).  This really liberated me to not worrying about "mistakes" so to speak.

The only tricky part? I recommend placing your free hand underneath the area you wish to stamp so you steady the shade and help the surface of the shade to be a little easier to flatten.  

For the sides of the lampshade, I simply angled the stamp a little and rocked it around the edge of each side.  As I wanted some angles in my pattern, this looked intentional!

Once the typed stamp design covered my lampshade, I took a much smaller script stamp and stamped some random images over the typed design in a blue shade (this was leftover mixed fabric paint from my curtains with white fabric paint and Pool Party ink refill mixed together.)

Let this dry, and then add back to your lamp.  Voila!  The previously sad shade is now a happy shade once again!