Categories: Crafts & Hobbies

How to Make a Hand Beaded Lamp Shade

This simple beaded lampshade craft project is a great way to remake any old lampshade into a new design feature in your home. You can use any old or damage fabric lampshade as the base for this project to save money.

To make a beaded lampshade you will need:

Fabric Lamp Shade
Floral wire or 20 gauge wire
Lots of Glass Beads
Needle Nose Pliers
Wire Clippers

The first step is to completely remove all of the fabric from your damaged or existing lampshade. Start by poking some scissors through the fabric, then cut away. Once you have the body of the fabric removed then start working on the material wrapped onto he wires. This will take some time, but is a great way to save a little money and salvage and exiting lampshade.
Tip: If you don’t have a damaged or existing lampshade you want to get rid of you can buy these wire frames of a lampshade at any lampshade store. Some arts and crafts stores will also sell them.
Now, you need to cut a bunch of 20 gauge or thick floral wire to make up your new lampshade. Start by measuring the distance between the top and bottom wires of the shade. Add on about 3 inches and that is how long you piece of wire need to be. You will need to decide how many of these you need.

Now, take you first piece of wire. You should bend the end up, about an inch up the wire. Now, thread on the first glass bead. Wrap the end wire around it. This will keep all of your beading form falling off the wire.

Now, start threading on your glass beads. You can mix and match glass bead colors and designs. You could create a pattern by using two colors of glass beads. Rotate colors as you put then on the wire. Start with the opposite color on every new thread of wire to create a checkerboard pattern. To make horizontal lines of color on your lampshade than start with the same color every time on a new wire gauge. As you can see the possibilities are endless.

Now, this beading work can take a while; so you make want to turn on your favorite TV show while you bead your lampshade.
I like to bend the finished end of the wire down temporarily as well to keep the beads from falling off the wire.

Once you have enough wires filled with glass beads you can start attaching them to your lampshade.

Simply loop the extra floral wire or 20-gauge wire on each end around the top and the bottom wire of the lampshade. I like to start at the top of the lamp. U se you needle nose pliers to wrap the wire around and around the wire lamp frame.

Pull the string of beads straight down and repeat the process on the bottom wire lamp frame.

Now, continue repeating this process all the way around the lampshade. You can space them however you would like. I recommend placing the strings of beads directly next to each other with no space in between them. This way you won’t fid yourself staring at the bulb of the lamp.

You could also cut a paper insert to fit inside of your lamp. Glue it in place with some hot glue after you have applied all of your strings of glass beads. Choose some great handmade parchment paper or even some vellum from the art store. They have huge selections of paper that would be absolutely perfect for this simple craft project.