I made a DIY modern pleated lampshade for my office. I’m sharing a step by step tutorial for how to get this look in your home! It’s an easy DIY that can be done in a day.
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SUPPLIES
- 2 yards of fabric (cut to height of lampshade – 11″ for me)
- Stiffen spray
- Hot glue gun
- Iron
THE PROCESS
Start by laying your fabric on a long piece of cardboard. My fabric was 2 yards wide by 11″ tall. Generously spray fabric with stiffen spray. Let dry – about 2 hours. After fabric is dry you may need to spray another round of the stiffen spray – you want the fabric to feel slightly crunchy, stiff, and hold its shape.
Generously spray fabric with stiffen spray so fabric is crunchy when dry.
After the fabric is dry and stiff you are ready to iron the pleats into the fabric! Start by folding the fabric in an accordion pattern, with each fold about an inch wide. Iron each individual pleat fold so that the pleat line is crisp and holds it shape. This part is a little time consuming. Ironing the pleats took me about 2 hours start to finish. I’d recommend watching a show or putting a podcast on while you work – it makes the time go much faster.
After the entire piece of fabric is ironed into 1″ pleats you are ready to hot glue the fabric to the shade. I chose an empire style shade.
I hot glued only a few carefully spaced dots to the top of the shade at a time (it dries fast!) and glued the valleys of the pleats to the shade. I worked in sections of a few inches at a time, so I would glue the top and then I would switch and glue the bottom. Making sure the pleats were level vertically. This part of the process went pretty fast – I was able to glue everything in about 30 minutes.
After it’s all glued and dried the shade is ready to be added to your lamp of choice!
