Hanji Covered Lamp Shades

I'm really excited to share these today! It's not really a tutorial, but it's a really easy way to re-cover lamp shades. I had been given/bought two small white lamps that were both rather boring. They looked ok, but I wasn't really impressed with them. What I really wanted to do was cover them. The only cool lampshades that I had seen online were for ruffled covered lampshades. Well let me tell you, my husband would NOT go for that. Ruffles are not his thing. So I came up with something else. 

I started with two lamps. (I only remembered to take a before picture of this one.) Both lamps already had a fabricy base to the shade. 

One had a big stain on it. 

I decided to cover them with a Korean traditional paper called Hanji ( 한지). Hanji is a very fibrous paper and is meant to be torn and glued with a special glue. I specifically wanted hanji with this Korean letter print on it. I had to look everywhere for it, but I finally found it : )

I didn't have special glue, so I mixed regular white Elmer's glue with some water and used a paint brush to apply glue to the lampshade. Then I cut out a piece of hanji the size I would need to cover the lamp and pressed the paper onto the lampshade. I also brushed the glue mixture over the paper once I placed it on the lampshade. It all worked quite nicely. 

This is my end result! 

I really like how the hangeul (Korean alphabet) looks on the lampshade. It gives our apartment a touch of Korean feel without being overpowering. We realized the other day too that putting the paper on the lamps helped to tone down the light. It gives the lamp a nice soft glow instead of a bright florescent one. I really can't decide which lamp I like more! 

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you're enjoying your week!