I’ve had the same plain floor lamp for as long as I can remember and while I love the actual lamp itself I’ve not really been liking the shade.  I bought the lamp from Ikea years ago (so long ago that they don’t sell it anymore!), it has a fold out hinge so you can move the light around without disturbing the stand which I find perfect for reading under in the evenings.  The shade that came with it was cream and seemed to pick up dirt and dust really quickly and forever looked a bit grubby which I really didn’t like so I decided that I would make it into something that I did like.  I have to issue an apology now because I don’t have any proper “before” pictures except for this one where you can see the lamp in the corner behind my chair…

The first thing I did was to wash and dry the shade after removing it from the stand.  I scrubbed it off in the kitchen sink with dish soap and a scrubbing-brush which seemed to remove most of the dirt and dust.  I left it overnight to dry off.

The next morning I decided that I was going to either paint it with acrylic paint or attempt to dye it.  As I was running low on paints I figured I’d have a go at dying it.  I had some leftover semi permanent hair colours in yellow, orange and pink shades so watered them down a bit.  I then began applying the dye in bands around the shade with a paint brush.

I started with the yellow then worked my way down to orange before finishing with the pink.  I left it to dry overnight again before rinsing off any residue in the sink.  The colours blended together a bit and they faded down once rinsed and dried off again but I was happy with the outcome.

I then decided to add a beaded fringe so raided my bead collection for suitable beads

I decided to use small pony beads and finish the fringe off with small brass bells.  I measured the circumference of the shade at its widest end, marked 1 inch sections and marked with a small pencil mark then, working from the inside rim, used a needle and thread to puncture a hole where I wanted the fringe to be.  I added beads then a bell before passing the needle back through the beads and back through the hole I had made, then moved on to the next 1 inch mark before repeating.  I worked this way, all around the rim before tying off and completing.  Once finished I reattached the shade to the lamp.

What do you think of my handiwork?  What other uses do you think hair dye has?