Make Your Own Leafy Lampshade for a Tree Lamp

I was working on a nursery for my son and needed a forest looking lamp to fit the Where the Wild Things Are Theme. In my seach for a lamp on various baby websites and stores, I couldn't find one I liked. I did find the base at Wold Market that I fell in love with, but all of the lampshares that had a leafy look were either glass or really expensive so I decided to make my own.

I'll try to post a step by step on the murals I did for the walls of the nursery in another Instructable.

Step 1: Supplies Needed

For this project you will need a few things:

• lampshade to fit your lamp (any color is fine)
• ivy or other fake greenery
• scissors or wire cutters/pliers
• hot glue gun
• hot glue sticks

You can get most of these items at a local craft store or if you are lucky a thrift store to save some cash.

Step 2: Pruning the Greenery

First you will need to cut off the leaves from your bunch of greenery. You can cut down to just the leaf. ther is no need for the plastic stem. You can use scissors, but pliers with a with a wire cutter may be needed depending if ther wire goes up to the leaf. luckily these were all plastic. Sort your leaves by size. some may be smaller than others. We will use the bigger ones first, the small ones we will use last.

Step 3: Apply the Leaves

Next start attaching the leaves starting at the bottom of the lampshade. Some of the leaves mave have the same pattern so mix it up a bit. Apply the first leaf with the point at the bottom of the shade. Slightly overlap the edge of the first leaf with the edge of the next leaf. Continue all the way around the lampshade in the same manor. Start the next row with the tip of the bottom leaf overlapping the top of the row below and stager the leaf so it looks better. Once you get to the top, use the smaller leaves so it gives a tapered look. I used smaller leaves at the top of the lampshade only on the last row, but let the top of he leafe extend a little above to hid the top edge of the lampshade.

Ta-Da, your done. Put your lampshade on your lamp and enjoy. You can do this with almost any leaf you can find at the craft store so your imagination is your only limit. Have fun.