GW lampshade redo...

{Fabric Covered Drumshade}

I found an AWESOME deal at GW recently......a lampshade for $1.97!! Now, mind you, the lampshade that had been on my floor lamp was a wedding gift!! So it was almost 15 years old.....had moved between at least 3 states and even more residences because we rented and owned in some of those states!  The poor thing was ready to retire!

My Materials:

Fabric

Cheap drum shade fixture

Trim

Spray Adhesive  (Note to self....do not get on fingers!!)

Okay......so I am going to tell you the right way to do this, not show you because in doing this I made ALOT of mistakes!  I now know how to do it the right way, but I was not about to rip off the fabric ONE MORE TIME!!

Piece of advice #1......if this is your first attempt at covering something circular choose FLORAL fabric and not stripes!! Stripes become annoyingly crooked as you go around an object!

If you ignore piece of advice #1, then I would suggest that you cut TWO strips of fabric.  One long strip of fabric just gets wrinkled when you try and make it go around something circular....I think that it probably has some mathematical tie to circumferance? pi?.......one of those circular math concepts that I chose to ignore in 6th grade......

Because I am totally and completely lazy, I didn't "measure".  I just folded over the fabric leaving an allowance of about 3 inches on each side and cut. 

Now.....if you choose to ignore my advice about cutting it into the 2 strips and you are still choosing to do stripes, then you need to leave ALOT more allowance than 3 inches! Probably like 6-10 inches......it's that whole circle thing again.....

While it looks like I had enough allowance to tuck under, I didn't!  As I went around to circle and tried to keep my stripes straight, I started to run out of fabric!

You can see from the picture above (and below!) how close I was coming to the edge of my fabric....

Using your spray adhesive, spray the drum shade and then carefully stretch the fabric to fit.  With stripes, you've got to make sure that they are perfectly straight......I was so wishing for flowers at this point!  Just keep working your way around the shade....spraying and stretching until you meet your starting edge.

{I discovered that if you move fast enough....you can actually remove the fabric if you have put it on wrong and it's crooked!}

Once you have the fabric adhered to the middle part of the shade, start to hot glue the top or bottom edge down, working your way around to circle.  Do the same for the other side

Don't be fooled by my photo.....the other side is a tad bit crooked and it has bumps....grr!  And I have absolutely no idea why there is a tiny photo within that larger photo or how to fix it!

Originally, I planned to put trim on the bottom, but when I started gluing it, it just looked stupid!  I'd like at some point to get beaded trim like Sarah did at Thrifty Decor Chic, but I'm going to need a coupon....it's kind've expensive!

Overall, I am really pleased with my cheap drum shade redo. At some point, I am going to probably go and buy floral fabric and try again! But I need to decide what color I am going to paint the walls first!