Light Up Your Life With Photos

by Tina Maas
Photo Lamp Shade

Article rating: 3.91

This project is about creating a lamp shade from your chosen photographs that you can hang over any room light bulb and have it illuminate your photographs and create a very special atmosphere.

Here's What You'll Need:
  • Your chosen pictures (6 vertical photos or 3 horizontal)
  • Transparent tracing paper
  • Glue
  • Scissors or cutting knife
  • A whole punching device
  • Cardboard
  • String in your chosen color


Here's What To Do: Step 1

For the lamp you need 6 identical vertical rectangles. The length of those rectangles will determine the height of your finished lamp. I would suggest to start with using photos the size of 4 x 5.5 so you can fit 2 images onto one sheet comfortably. If you want to use horizontal images make them fit the size of 8.5 by 11 and cut each one in half. Print your images on acetate (transparent film) or color photocopy them onto the same material in a copy shop. The photos you chose will affect the color of light that they will emanate and thereby affect the room atmosphere that your lamp will give (just bear this in mind, a lot of red and yellow colors in your photos will result in a warm light but dominant blue tones will result in a colder light.)         

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 2:

For better visibility glue the transparencies to the tracing paper and then cut them out. Some bulbs are very bright and will be too intense for delicate images so the tracing paper (acting as another layer to diffuse the light), helps to bring out the colors in your photos. You can try the relevance of this effect on your particular image by holding your photos up to any room light with additional tracing paper behind them.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 3:

Make an equal amount of holes on both of the longer sides of all the 6 rectangles. There are several ways to do this. You can use a hole punch (but the holes are rather large and difficult to repeat exactly) or a hole punching device similar to scissors with adjustable sizes.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 4:

Use your string or thread to tie all the pieces together. Make sure the tracing paper is facing inwards. It looks nice to start at the bottom and have the two strings crossing over in a pattern. Cut the string generously because you should have about 6 inches left over when you reach the top.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 5:
When all 6 photo pieces are connected, tie all these loose bits of string together in the center with a knot (make sure the strings are all equal in length 4-5 inches approx. so the lamp makes a nice symmetrical shape).  The knot can be used for tying the lamp over its light bulb.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 6:

To stabilize the edges and the overall shape of the lamp cut some very thin strips of cardboard (a quarter of an inch thick) and glue them to both the top and the bottom edge of the lamp.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003

Step 7:

Now you have a finished lamp shade. If you want you can decorate the corners with extra string. For one corner you cut about 10 pieces of string each about 3-4 inches in length and tie them around the string at the bottom of each corner.

PHOTO: Tina Maas 2003