DIY Lamp Upgrade

Many months ago (like I think we were still living in the townhouse, so probably a couple years ago), I purchased a boring white lamp from Target to use on our desk.  It cost about $15.  It has been a good lamp to us.  It made its way over to our new house and proudly took up residence on our desk in its new room.  I always liked the shape of the lamp, but let's face it...it was BORING, and so boring, it kindof looked as cheap as it was if we're going to be 100% honest (which of course we are).  See?

Out in blogland, I have read several stories of people recovering fabric shades with a new fabric and having beautiful new lamps.  I have known for a long time that this little lamp would be the perfect candidate for such a project.  (Spoiler alert: I was right!).  I kept putting the project off, mainly because I didn't have any fabric that would work.  Well, last week I was strolling the aisles of AC Moore when I found a packet of 4 quilting squares in my yellow, black, white combo...JACKPOT!  The whole packet was only $10, so I scooped it up not yet knowing where/how I would use it.  Until I remembered my lamp...

Now if you stalk blogs like I do, this project is probably not going to be earthshattering to you, but this is how I recovered my lamp.  There are probably tons of ways to do so, but this was really darn easy, and you probably have most of the supplies on hand.  I used:

• fabric
• glue gun
• Stitch Witchery
• iron

To start, I ironed my fabric to make sure there were no creases.  Then I just lined the Stitch Witchery up on the top of the lamp shade.  Leaving a bit of extra fabric at the top, I laid the fabric over the Stitch Witchery and existing lampshade and ironed.  Obviously as I moved across the top of the shade, it became a little easier because the fabric was where I wanted it. 

 Once I had completed the whole top, I cut off the extra fabric from the bottom and repeated the same lay Stitch Witchery, put fabric on top (with a tiny bit of extra), and iron.  I used my extra cut off fabric to fill in the gap, but obviously you may not need to do that.  If you do have a gap like I did, you can also iron a piece of Stitch Witchery along the seam.  Once everything was ironed on, I went back through the top and bottom with my glue gun to affix the remnants. 

Ready for the grand reveal? 

I am in.love.with.it.  Usually, I am a little more ho-hum about my projects but this one really makes me happy.  In fact, I'm already on the search for more lamps I can recover in our house.  What about you all?  Ever recovered an old lamp shade?