How to Make a No-Sew Pleated Lampshade

I failed a few times before I found a no-sew pleated lampshade method that works. Turns out there’s a reason why pleated lampshades come with such a hefty price tag. ? But, I’m saving you the trial and error. If you’ve been wanting to make one, I’ve got you covered. Pun intended. And no sewing skills are required. If you can operate an iron and a hot glue gun, you’re golden. Here we go!

I don’t actually recommend using striped fabric your first go around, but for the purpose of my experimentation, I was just using a scrap of fabric that I had on hand. Keeping the stripes straight on a tapered lampshade was a bit tedious, so I’d recommend basically any other pattern than stripes for this project just to keep it simple and easy.

DIY DETAILS

You’ll start by cutting your fabric into 3-inch strips. (Because I was using a scrap piece of fabric my strips were about 2 feet long. But the longer the strip the better, so you can cover more of the lampshade before starting a new strip.)

Then you’ll iron the raw hem to conceal the frayed edges.

Then using a small bead of hot glue, fold over the top edge of the fabric strip before adhering it to the lampshade for a clean finished edge.

Adhere the strip with a bead of hot glue to the top inner part of the shade and wrap the strip around the shade overlapping about 1/8 of an inch to create the illusion of pleats. Continue to do this until the shade is fully wrapped, being careful to only start and/or stop a new fabric strip at either the top or the bottom of the shade so that the light when your lamp is on is evenly distributed. (see the process via video here)

And that’s it! I really love the finished look, and it only took a little over an hour from start to finish…..of course, that was after hours of trials that ended in complete failure. ? Thank goodness this method worked! I’ll definitely be making more of these “pleated” lampshades now that I’ve figured this out because I just love the custom look. And getting the look at a fraction of the price is definitely my jam!

A lampshade update is the easiest way to breathe fresh life into a space!