Mrs Crafty B: How to Make a Lampshade Using Wallpaper

A while back, I shared a post on how to make your own lampshade with a lampshade making kit. The kit and tutorial was based around using fabric. The lampshade proudly hangs in my front room and I decided that I liked the idea of having individual handmade lampshades in all rooms. Of course this means that I don't actually have any shades anywhere *doh*.

After painting the Little B's room I took down their old lampshade that was more suited to their old nursery and ordered myself another kit. I wasn't really feeling any fabrics for the project and as we didn't have a 'theme' in mind I asked Baby B what he would like. Of course his answer was 'superheroes' and I remembered the test piece of Avengers wallpaper that I had picked up before we started decorating. I wondered whether I could make this work; and so the experiment began!

I collected together my lampshade making kit, a lampshade diffuser (which I bought alongside the kit), a cutting mat, a craft knife and the wallpaper. My first job was to create a piece of paper that was large enough to wrap around the frame with a continuous pattern. The print on the paper was upright and so I cut two pieces from the top the same width and I used precision (and lots of patience) to pattern match and secured them together with a piece of double sided tape. I didn't remove the baking at this point.

I then followed the steps in my past tutorial to create the shade. You can see the full tutorial for making a lampshade here. I did realise (a little too late) that it wasn't easy to remove the kiss cut edges once they were stuck to the paper so I had a very thin edge to roll over the top. It is worth noting that if you are using paper, you should remove the kiss cut edges of the panel before sticking it to the paper. The paper should be cut to the size of the panel with an excess the same width as the edges you removed. I also removed the backing of the double side tape holding together the pieces as I stuck the panel down.

What do you think? My only issue is a very slight gap in the paper where I joined them (very very slight and you can only see it when the light is on...if you squint...and I point to it!) and I would recommend using very thick wallpaper but otherwise I am happy with the result. I plan on using the last of the paper to create a picture for their wall.

Have you ever made a lampshade? What other projects have you worked on using wallpaper?