Painting Lampshades

Good morning star-shine!
As you may or may not know, and you probably do because my friends are aware of this and to my knowledge my friends are the only ones currently reading my blog, but I have been quite sick this past week. It's been one of those sicknesses that's been completely different every day so I'm never sure what to expect, yet all the same I've been sick enough to have to stay in bed all week. Until yesterday...
Yesterday I found myself wide awake at 6am. I was trying to rest until 12, so you can imagine why this could be problematic. I did what I usually do when I can't get to sleep again, and went to Pinterest for a good hour or two. And when the sun began to rise off on the horizon somewhere- there was a thick layer of fog in the morning that turned into clouds for the rest of the day so I'm actually not even sure that the sun rose yesterday, but assuming it did- I had an epiphany. I decided that I wanted to completely redecorate my room.
I can't imagine what brought this on. Perhaps the fact that my room had been a mess that I was unable to clean for 5 straight days. Perhaps I was so sick of being sick that I had to do something drastic to balance my life. I accept both of those possibilities as truth, and so I went to work immediately.
My Friday mostly consisted of cleaning, reorganizing, and clearing certain spaces. But I did get to do something fun too. And by fun, I mean potentially messy.
I have a lamp that has been in my room for who knows how long, and the shade has been stained, for who knows how long. I don't even know how you stain a lamp shade, it's sitting on a stick high in the air all day! So I decided to finally take care of it and start shopping for a new lampshade. But wait- Pinterest said to me- why not DIY? And so I replied- Oh yeah, I just might do that.
I wasn't aware until yesterday that you could just PAINT A LAMPSHADE. I thought the shade must be made of some fire resistant fabrics and you mustn't dare toy with it or your family will burst into flames. Luckily, that's just a myth!
So let's paint that thing!

There's that stain. That eyesore of a stain.

The color I chose was charcoal, which is just a fancy name for light black. And I used acrylic paint because that's the only thing I had sitting in my closet in that moment. 

I used a full bottle and a half for about two coats over the whole shade.

Looking at other people's tutorials on how to do this, they were all using wall paint. I think that would have been a good option were I to do it again, and I'll show you why in a moment. 

To paint I used a sponge brush because again- all I had. It didn't work terribly though! I could tell it was soaking up a lot of paint which was a challenge because I was painting fabric which ALSO soaks up paint, but it wasn't too bad. The sponge was one of those 5 cent ones though so by the time I was done, so was the brush. With it's life. You picking up what I'm putting down?

Before painting, I taped the inside of the top and bottom. Mainly because I didn't trust myself to not accidentally paint in entire inside of the lamp shade, but it was also helpful for keeping the shade in place on the slippery garbage bag. 

And then I painted until I was happy with the results.

FINISHED AND BEAUTIFUL. Stain? Where are you? Oh yeah you're GONE. 

All done! See what a difference no stain makes? SAME.

And then I forfeited my artistic instincts and completed it, by human standards, not my own.

Half-way through I had almost run out of paint, and until I had more I wanted a clean stopping point, so I taped either side. My mom was already running to the craft store so I asked her to grab me another 70 cent bottle of this stuff, and so I finished painting. 

My little brother asked me to keep the tape there until I was completely done so the lamp would have stripes, so I tried it out, and I'm actually a fan!

It looked very clean, except for a couple blemishes at the base of the shade. Thanks little bro, you inspire us all.

And there's my new and improved lamp shade!!

Let me also insert a photo with the light on...

Poor quality, I apologize. Unfortunately I'm too lazy- or was it efficient- to go get another photo. So this will have to do. ;) Watch in 360, you'll be fine.

Okay so here's what I meant about the wall paint possibly being a better option. In the tutorial I found, when they were done there was no light shining through the shade whatsoever. Mine has some light coming through it, but I kind of like it because it looks like a lacy sort of thing. So take that info, use it however you need. 

I'm glad I left the stripes on either side too because it lets a little more light out. I didn't even think about how blacking out the shade would change the light it gave off. It's working just fine for me though. And I killed the stain, yay!!

So now that I have a new light, I'm a step closer to COMPLETELY CHANGING EVERYTHING ABOUT MY ROOM, MWAHAHA!! 

Next up, who knows.

Thanks for reading! 

-Lilly