23 DIY Lampshade Ideas That You Can Make Today

Spare Fabric Lampshade

Are you looking to decorate a lampshade to better match a room's decor? Cover it with fabric.

Pick out a yard of fabric in your choice of color and/or design at a local craft store. If you're on a tight budget, rummage through your craft supplies to find scrap pieces of fabric you can use to decorate your lampshade.

Don't forget the spray adhesive. You'll need it to attach the fabric to the shade.

Button Lampshade

Use an excess of spare buttons to decorate a lampshade. With some hot glue, carefully glue the buttons onto the shade in a design of your choice.

To coordinate with a room's decor, pick out and attach buttons of similar colors and shades. If you're feeling creative, arrange and attach your buttons in a particular design, such as stripes, chevron, or even in an ombre effect.

Painted Lampshade

Update a dated patterned shade with paint. Liz Marie Blog spray painted both sides of this pleated thrift store lampshade in a creamy shade of white that complements the farmhouse decor of the room.

Leftover Wallpaper Lampshade

It's sometimes hard to find uses for leftover wallpaper. Instead of tossing it, save your leftover pieces and use them to cover the outside of an old and dingy lampshade.

Pick out a piece of wallpaper that matches a room's decor, and attach it to the lampshade with a spray adhesive or craft glue.

Temporary wall decals or peel-and-stick wallpaper works, too. Remember to let the adhesive or glue completely dry before putting the shade back on the lamp to prevent messes.

Stenciled Interior Lampshade

Do you love the patterns and designs of modern decorative lampshades, but not the price tag? Turn a plain lampshade into a modern staple item for any room in your home with a stencil and a little craft paint.

Pick up a stencil at your local craft store in your favorite design, such as damask, lattice, or honeycomb. You can also make a stencil out of vinyl or a thick piece of plastic. Dab on your choice of paint with a stencil brush or small foam pad. Remember to let the paint completely dry before re-attaching the shade to the lamp.

Washi Tape Lampshade

Whether it's foil or washi tape, you can rescue any old lampshade with color and design. Add a striped, chevron, or checkered design on a plain shade of any size to match the decor of your room.

Gold Leaf Lampshade

Create a glitzy lampshade with gold or silver leaf. Or, use gold or silver spray paint. to transform a plain or dingy lampshade. Cover the outside but don't forget about the possibilities of the inside of your shade.

For a dramatic change, spray paint the interior of the shade either gold or silver. Then spray paint the exterior of the shade matte or glossy black for an elegant result.

This technique looks especially lovely when used on a drum or bell lampshade. Spray paint can work well on knife-pleated paper or fabric shades (use a foam brush to touch up any bare spots).

Leftover Ribbon Lampshade

Reuse an abundance of leftover ribbon from other craft projects and gift bags to quickly and simply add color to your lampshade.

Attach ribbon to only the rims of the shade to add a little color, cover the entire shade with a single color ribbon, or use multiple colors for an added effect. You can wrap the ribbon around the entire shade in a crisscross, vertical, or horizontal design.

Washi Paper Floral Lampshade

With patience and skill, you can create a DIY floral masterpiece. Use washi paper "petals" on lampshades by layering them in clusters from top to bottom in varied designs. The color and shape are completely up to you.

Decoupage Lampshade

Create a colorful collage of florals or scenery using decoupage, one of the easiest methods you can use to update the dingy, dreary surface of a drum lampshade, for example. Don't be afraid to experiment.

For example, if you have a flat fabric drum shade, decoupage thin rice paper or even colorful napkins onto the surface. Find free artwork online to create a collage. Cut out shapes you'd like and use a decoupage medium to glue it in place.

Rope-Covered Lampshade

If you need a hint of boho decor in a room, grab some macrame cord or rope, leftover twine, or any other chunky, textured roping that's just too good to toss. Wrap it around a shade and hot glue it in place.

You don't need to cover the entire shade. See how much roping you have and create a border design on the top and bottom rims or just the bottom rim.

Cane Lampshade

Caned accents have made a comeback in recent years, and it's easy to see why.

Discard the old lampshade on your recent thrift find and replace it with caned webbing to instantly elevate your end or console table.

Embroidered Lampshade

If you love to embroider, use a lampshade as your canvas. Consider embroidering right on the shade itself if there's a layer of plain fabric on which you can stitch a simple design. Intrepid cross-stitchers are known to transfer a pattern right onto a paper shade and embroider directly onto the surface.

Another way to use embroidery on a lampshade is by first enhancing a piece of cut-to-fit fabric with needlework, and then gluing the finished piece onto the shade.

Beaded Mosaic Lampshade

Hot glue comes to the rescue once again to place a beaded design. If you have tons of tiny beads, lightly draw out a sinuous mosaic-like design with a pencil and fill it in with beads.

Attach larger, chunky, or elongated beads around the rim. You may even have some old earrings, pins, or other costume jewelry no longer worn that can add unexpected visual and textural interest to the design.

Fringed Lampshade

Hang teardrop crystals or fringe (or both) on the bottom rim of a tired old shade for a glamorous touch. Or, if you have smaller crystals, hang them from either the top edge so each one lays flat against the shade or dangle them from the bottom rim so they move ever so slightly in a breeze while catching the light of the bulb.

Upcyled Sweater Lampshade

Do you have a beautiful sweater that you can't bear to part with but can't wear, either (maybe it shrunk by accident)? Turn it into a cozy textured cover for a lampshade. It's simple to transform the sweater.

Make a straight cut under the arms, then put the hem of the sweater on the top of the shade and glue it down for a finished look. Wrap the rest of the sweater under the bottom rim and glue that down, trimming excess fabric so it's neat on the underside of the shade.

Custom Fabric Lampshade

Use custom fabric to create a personalized DIY lampshade that can be coordinated with curtains, throw pillows, tablecloths, and other textiles.

The House That Lars Built ordered fabric in a preexisting pattern from Spoonflower as a shortcut, covering a plain lampshade in a vibrant raindrop pattern.

Embroidery Floss Lampshade

Make a DIY striped lampshade using multi-colored embroidery floss and a hot glue gun to give a thrift store lampshade a new look, like this simple project from The Merrythought.

Doily Covered Lampshade

Repurpose a damaged vintage lampshade by stripping it of the old paper and stitching vintage doilies to the frame, like this project from A Beautiful Mess.

Floral Lampshade Crown

For special occasions, repurpose vintage lampshade frames by stripping them of old fabric and embellishing them with fresh flowers, like this project from My 100 Year Old Home.

Flowers are attached to the base of the shades with green floral wire attached to foam flower bricks. If you don't have a bunch of vintage lampshades gathering dust in the attic, source them inexpensively at flea markets, yard sales, or online.

Textured Cotton Lampshade

If you're looking for simple fabric shades for a wall sconce or table lamp but feeling discouraged by the price, check out this simple tutorial from The Merrythought.

This tutorial will show you how to recover a lampshade with simple fabric like the textured cotton seen here, making it look as polished as the store-bought variety without breaking your budget.

Naked Lampshade

Give an old lamp a new identity by removing old fabric, painting the lamp base and finial in black paint, and leaving the lampshade frame bare to show off a cozy Edison bulb for an industrial farmhouse feel, like this project from Liz Marie Blog.

Beaded Chandelier

If you're feeling ambitious and have the patience and the skills, take the DIY lampshade concept up a notch by making a showstopping beaded chandelier.

This DIY project from The House That Lars Built was inspired by a more expensive model from Pottery Barn, and came in at a fraction of the price.