I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be cool to make for Eden’s room. We had an old lamp at home that had a silver base and wasn’t too dated. I figured the lamp itself would fit with the decor, but in order to pull this off, I needed to find a “drum shade” (one that has the same diameter at both the top and bottom without tapering). Strangely it was hard to find one. I finally found a brand new one on Kijiji for $5. It didn’t fit well, but I simply flipped it upside down and glued a rubber washer to the bottom edge. This slipped over the light bulb socket and the rubber made for a tighter fit, so the shade didn’t wobble. Once the bulb was screwed in, it was pretty much secured in place despite it not being a custom fit.

City Scape Lamp Shade:

Materials:

• black drum shade
• image of a city skyline
• pencil
• needle/pin or even a cake tester (something pointy)*

Method:

To make the city scape, I found a silhouette image on-line and then copied it and traced it onto my red shade. I was actually doing some trial and error because I did not find a tutorial for making it, just a picture of the finished product. I wasn’t sure if I should put the holes through the recovered shade or just have it shine through the holes of the red. So, I initially traced my picture on red and then poked holes through the red before I covered it in black. (In the end, I had to make the holes through the black as well as the holes weren’t very visible, so don’t do this as it was a waste of time. However, because the red would not be my finished surface, I traced directly onto the fabric. If I had already covered it, this would not have been an option. Instead, I would have cut out the city scape and then taped it to the shade. I would have then used it to create negative space without tracing.)

Once the city skyline is taped in place (in my case it was traced on red shade), begin to poke holes along the entire sky line almost like you are tracing it with pin pokes. I was a little tentative and made the holes quite small at first, but ended up going over them all a second time so that they allowed enough light to pass through. You need to create the skyline with the holes before adding random poke holes throughout the “night sky”. Basically your buildings become negative space and there are no holes in this portion, but you can randomly add holes anywhere above that line. Although I didn’t make an exact line across the top, I generally tried to keep a 3/4″ no poke zone that looks a bit like a top border even though the pokes are still random at the top.

Because mine was red and the colour wouldn’t work for the project, I picked up a few dollars worth of black taffeta at the fabric store. I used spray adhesive I had on hand and simply sprayed the shade lightly and then carefully laid the fabric over it to get even coverage. I folded over the top and bottom edges and then added a little rim of ribbon with my hot glue gun, along the inside edges. The finished ribbon edge sat just under the lip on the top and just above the lip on the bottom. It really isn’t visible from the outside, but gives the edge more of a finished look. The interior is still red, but it works because red is in fact the accent colour in her room.

The finished effect is a bit underwhelming, but I love how it adds to the overall theme in such a subtle way. It really adds to the ambiance of her sitting area.

*When poking the holes, I found that if the tool was tapered, it was easier to poke through and you could get a better hole in the end. I also found that my fingers got sore after a while and that the cake tester with the rounded end on it was easier to push through that the needle.