One Room Challenge

DIY Origami Lampshade

If you are new here: Hi and welcome to Nostalgiecat !

You can read more about me and Nostalgiecat here, and you can catch up with my One Room Challenge journey so far by clicking on the thumbnails in my sidebar ->

If you have no idea what the One Room Challenge is all about, please visit Calling it home for the low-down and links to all the fabulously talented interior bloggers taking part!

I decided to join the One Room Challenge™ as a linking participant, as I needed a kick up the backside to redecorate my 5 year old daughter, Mia's room.

Being week 4 of the Challenge, It is all coming together now, and apart from some last finishing touches, like finishing off her DIY desk and making some funky cushions, it is pretty much done.

So today I am holding back a bit in terms of images of the room and instead showing you all how I made this DIY origami lampshade to fit in with our room design:

Mia had her heart set on one of these origami lamps from Studio Snowpuppe, but as it was not in our budget, I decided to DIY one....and it cost me less than £1 to make!!

£1??? I hear you say!! YEP! £1!!

I will show you how!

  I bought a roll of wallpaper lining at my local Pound shop for £1, because I wanted a continuous long sheet of paper (And I still have loads left ) But you can always stick together several sheets of A3 paper (That way you can choose whatever colour you'd like)...just make sure it is quite a weighty paper.
Because I used the plain Wall paper lining paper, I wanted to add some colour to it, and I wanted it to fit in with Mia's chosen colour scheme: So the first thing I did was to mix up some of the paint I've used in Mia's room (Some minty coloured emulsion) with some water in a spray bottle. Then I rolled out a long lenght of the lining paper, tacked it down to my work surface and sprayed the paint mixture on, creating the fun paint splatter effect you can see on the finished lampshade, above.

I let the paint dry fully, before moving on to the next, and MOST IMPORTANT step: FIREPROOFING THE PAPER:

The MOST important thing to consider when you make a lampshade out of paper, is safety, So always fire-resist your paper before folding!

I already had a bottle of Fire Check spray from a previous project, that I simply sprayed both sides of the paper with,  but you can also make your own fire proofing solution with borax and water...See how here.
NOTE: Paper can never be fully fire-proof, but this will make the paper fire-resistant (meaning it won't burn without contact with a flame or ignition source).

Then, I ironed the paper to make sure it was nice and flat (and fully dry) before I started gridding out the folding pattern on the back.

I have made this downloadable template, so that you can easily reproduce the pattern on your paper:

  Download pattern here

It has some basic instructions on it as well, make sure you read these properly!  I have added the actual measurements that I used to the template, but feel free to adjust these to fit.

Tip: Print out a copy or two, cut out the sample pattern and use it to practice the folding on!

Ok...So that is the pattern you want to reproduce on the back of your paper:

Use a pencil and ruler to draw up the folding grid...the pencil lines will actually help you create neat folds later on...

When you have finished gridding out the folding pattern, cut off any excess paper, and you are now ready to start folding your lampshade.

If you have never done any origami folding before ,watch This video to get a basic understanding of "mountain" and "valley" folds .

And do practice on a copy of the template first, to get the feel of the folding!

I am not going to lie to you, it can be a bit tricky to fold, and very tricky to explain how, but I will do my best:

Step 1: Accordion folds
You'll need to divide the entire length of the paper into 24 equal parts with these accordion folds. Start by folding the vertical lines into mountain AND valley folds Fold one way, then fold it back the other way creating a reverse fold. Take your time to get these first folds right, this will make it easier to fold the rest of the lampshade shape in the next steps.

Accordion folds

Now comes the tricky bit:

Step 2: Folding all the diagonal lines

Starting at one end of the paper, fold all the diagonal lines (maked in red on the template) into Mountain folds (towards you).  Fold ,then unfold and let the paper lay "flat", until you get to the point where it becomes difficult due to the amount of paper you have to fold over.  At this point, fold together the part you have already folded, so that the paper becomes more manageable... This can be very fiddly, but take your time (and some deep breaths) and be gentle (You don't want to rip the paper...but if you do repair with tape!) Continue to make all the folds in the paper untill you've done it all and have created the shape you see  in the bottom picture, above.

It may help to lay the folded paper out, then using your fingers to gently pop the folds into shape...

You should now be able to see the shape of your lampshade when spreading the folds apart, like above.

Use a hole puncher (Or a sharp pencil) to punch out aligning holes at both the bottom and top of your foldes paper, as shown above.

This is for your cord to go through...

But before you pull the shape together, using the cord, tape together the paper (on the inside) to create a continuous hoop...

Now you can tighten the cord to see the shape come together...

Thread both top and bottom loosely with the cord. Do the top bit first, and try to let the paper folds inside create a spirally pattern, like this^.

The origami shade is now ready for hanging:

Tighten the cords when the shade is in place on the light fitting.

NOTE! Use a low wattage light bulb to further minimize any risk of fire!

It turned out great, don't you think??

It is quite a time consuming make....and requires a lot of patience , but having saved more than £70 by making it muself: TOTALLY WORTH THE EFFORT!

I love paper lampshades as they give off such a nice glow, and I adore the geometry of origami...I just love it! 

And so does Mia...She is very proud that her mummy has actually made the lampshade for her new room!

I am really looking forward to showing you all more of how it is coming together next week, and if you want to pop back on Saturday, I have a little tutorial on a fun decoration Mia and I've made for her room!