Introduction: Awesome Night-Light Castle/ Taj Mahal Made From Old Fabric

This is a super easy but time consuming task, which you can make a super cool night-light or lamp shade for any room. There are many different ways to make this but the best would be using cloth and sewing it in patches around the structure of the lamp shade. If you are low on old clothing or other around the house cloth (all of the same color), then you can use other materials like thick paper or plastic-paper mix.

Materials Needed:

For the Structure

16 Guage Galvanized Wire- About 25 Ft.

Heavy Solder (My solder is thicker than the wire...no messing around)

Soldering Iron

Needle Nose Pliers

For the Covering

Old Clothing all of one color. (Can be substituted as stated above)  Perferably Thin.

Needle and thread, or if using paper/plastic clear tape can be used.

Exacto Knife or Box Cutter

For the Light

This cover should fit any lamp, however for a night light, you might want to use a lower wattage bulb.


Start with a square base for the castle, I like straight edges so I soldered 4 pieces together but you can just bend the wire to an almost straight edge. The width should be about 1 ft. and 1.5 ft. long. Add a second layer about 1 foot higher connected at the corners.

To give the caste definition in its walls, I add slanted addition on the outside about 3 inches out. I based the design on the Taj Mahal in India because of the dome in the middle which the lamp can sit in.  After the addition to the outside, I made an archway in the front attached by slanted bars on each side.

Next start the three domes, one main one in the middle and two smaller ones on the side. The two side ones have 6 bands soldered on a hexagon and meeting in the middle about 5 inches above. The middle dome is on a round base and is about 1 ft. tall. It has 8 bands that meet in the middle. Image 7 shows the finished structure.

Now its time for the covering for the structure. Pick out some old clothing (white works best). Your going to use the exacto knife to cut out the shapes that will cover the structure. Map out on the material how you are going cut it so you waste as little as possible. Sew the material in a loop around the wire to hold them in place, and then piece by piece patch the covering together. When the whole castle front is finished, figure out the light you want to use. Most lamps should fit under the main dome as seen in picture 17. Or you could use a smaller bulb right in the middle to light up the whole castle. Either way it should work fine, and if you wanted you could repeat this process and make a back for the castle. Then the lamp can be used anywhere, at any position or angle.

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