Blog | Dannells Blog

Mar 18
2 min

Interiors inspiration: The natural trend

It’s been top of the shops for a couple of years and the trend for natural materials in interiors is definitely here to stay for 2021. From string to bamboo and hessian to cork, the natural trend allows you to add interesting textures to a room, that aren’t just pleasing on the eye, but also create a great sense of balance too. It’s fit perfectly with our current need to bring the outside in. The upside of this interiors trend? It slips effortlessly into place due to its mute

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Feb 24
3 min

Lampshade Kit Hack #6 - Starry Night Lampshade + FREE Template PDF

Highlighting our professional cutting service in our last blog post got us thinking that it would be fun to explore a DIY version of the same thing and this effective star cut out hack was born! Making shades for a children's room opens up plenty of cool creative ideas and we think kids will love the soft glow of the stars shining through the fabric. The stars are a simple design, the perfect unisex lampshade and with all of our drum lampshade making kits, this can be used as

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Feb 22
2 min

3 creative services for next level lampshades

Pimping your lampshade is easier than you think. There’s the DIY route, that we all know and love, using one of our lampshade making kits with beautiful fabric, sophisticated trims or coloured, metallic or even neon PVC's, to bring your shade to life. Or you could use one of our 3 creative services, to really enhance your shade making and take it to the next level. Pick from designing your own fabric, creating your own bespoke shade dimensions or trying out one of our excitin

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Jan 29
4 min

Lampshade Kit Hack #5 - Happy Holidays Map

Hands up who’s dreaming of a holiday escape? 🙌🏻 We Britons love our holidays - a day by on the beach, playing in the sand and sea rounded off with a fish and chip supper. We thought we’d capture those happy holidays with one of our Rectangle Rounded Lampshade Making Kits and in this DIY tutorial we’re going to show you how to make a lampshade using a paper map. Whilst this project uses regular lampshade making skills, there are a few differences when working with paper, but

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Jan 21
3 min

Light up your lounge - Floor and Table Lamp Kits

If you’ve never had a virtual wander around our website, you’re missing a trick and plenty of lampshade making products you might not have even considered yet. Among the Lampshade Making Kits are a couple of products we feel quite nostalgic about, for their nod to the 70’s and their long thin shapes. Which kits are we talking about? The Floor Lamp Kit and Table Lamp Kit of course! Taking pride of place in every home circa 1975, floor lamps were all the rage and well suited th

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Jan 4
4 min

5 resolutions to kickstart your lampshade making year

Happy New Year! We’re finally in 2021 and we’re hoping it’s a better and brighter year for everyone. To celebrate our craft and your passion, we'd love you to kick off your lampshade making year with a bang and encourage you to try something new and exciting in 2021. Whether you’ve been considering making your first Dannells Lampshade Making Kit for your home or are already an accomplished shade maker, take inspiration from and get creative with, our 5 resolutions to take you

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Lampshade Hack #5 – 4 ways to add lampshade trims

Liberty Patchwork Lampshade DIY Tutorial

Aug 12, 2020
4 min

Lampshade Kit Hack #4 – Neon Stitched Empire Cork Lampshade

The trend for natural materials has been working its way in to our homes for a couple of years now with rattan, cork and cane making a big come back. We couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon too, by bringing some of our laminated cork lampshade PVC to life with an Empire lampshade kit and a pop of bold neon stitching. Made by laminating a thin layer of cork to 300 micron clear PVC, our cork lampshade making PVC lights beautifully and has a soft, warm feel. The bright contr

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Jul 31, 2020
2 min

Print your own lampshade using our Fabric Printing Service

Making your lampshade almost definitely leads to something unique, but have you ever thought about adding an extra personal touch by designing your own fabric for you shade too? Our in-house Fabric Printing Service means your designs can made up into three quality types of fabrics, to suit our standard sized lampshade panels making the converting your designs. Maybe you're a designer who wants to add a new product line to your range? Or a lampshade maker who wants to add valu

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Jul 27, 2020
3 min

Unicorn gold lined lampshade by Three Bears Prints

Unicorns are here to stay! A trend that has pervaded everything from children's and adult fashions, to toys to homewares, unicorns are a symbol of a fantasy and magic. For our third lampshade tutorial in our series from Marliese of Three Bear Prints, she's taken this fantastical and mythical beast as the signature design for a fun shade for a child's bedroom. By adding a gold brushed Stick it PVC inner, the lampshade emits a soft glow when lit bringing an ethereal and magical

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Jul 20, 2020
3 min

You Tube Hexagon lampshade tutorial

If you missed our You Tube Live lampshade making workshop on Saturday, we had a lot of fun demonstrating how to make a Hexagon Lampshade Kit in real time to lots of keen lampshade makers. Thanks for watching if you managed to tune in! If you missed this, you can catch the video, filmed live from our Demonstrator Sam's home, on our You Tube channel, along with plenty of other lampshade making tutorials. There's nothing we love more than showing and sharing hints and tip for ou

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Jul 16, 2020
2 min

Eco Lamp video tutorials with Jules of the Haines Collection

Our resident Eco Hero, Jules Haines of the Haines Collection (read all about Jules here) loves a quick easy up-cycled transformation. Looking to brighten up her home desk and add a dash of contrasting interiors chic, Jules decided on using one of her recycled interiors fabrics to make these stunning matching empire shades and she didn't stop there! Picking a classic wooden June table lamp base from our range of wooden table lamp bases, and using left over paint from a kitchen

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Jul 6, 2020
3 min

Lampshade Designer Service – Creating the perfect bespoke sized shade

Making your home just the way you want it involves lots of personal choices, editing and those little joys of finding just right colour of vase or the thrill of finding the perfect texture on a cushion - but how do you go about deciding what size of lampshade to choose? To help you spend less time on working out your shade size and more time on choosing your fabric (let’s face it that’s the really fun bit we all enjoy!) we’ve put together our top tips on how to pick the right

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Jun 24, 2020
4 min

Super Drum Parakeet Shade by Three Bear Prints

If you're looking for a true 'centre piece' shade, Marliese Richmond of Three Bears Prints might just have the answer. In the second of our series of lampshade collaborations, Marliese took on the challenge of making one of our largest shades. By using 70 cm diameter rings and our Fabric Printing Service she created bespoke fabric featuring the fantastic parakeets. To add extra drama, Marliese also used Dannells Stick-It ® Silver Brushed Self-Adhesive Lampshade PVC, to create

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Jun 12, 2020
4 min

Lampshade Kit Hack #3 – Making a wallpaper lampshade

Our Lampshade kits are not only for beautiful fabrics. Making your own bespoke lampshades from scratch using wallpaper is easy to achieve, with the right know how and a couple of easy #hacks. Whether you simply use off cuts left over from papering your room, or want to use an eye-catching wallpaper for lampshades to sell in your retail collection, working with the vertical pattern of wallpaper needs a little thinking through to get a professional finish. In the second of our

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'Bee happy' lampshade with a vinyl interior by Three Bears Prints

May 15, 2020
3 min

Lampshade kit hack #2 - Rainbow Ribbon shade

If you are venturing out for daily exercise or essential food shopping seeing the array of rainbows emblazoned across the windows of nearly every house is a real heartwarming moment. The support for our keyworkers has been phenomenal and the rainbow is quickly becoming synonymous with a huge 'thank you' to those that deserve it most. Along the same theme, we've been playing with our Needcraft ribbon shade kit and came up with this creative and fun #lampshadehack. Our Ribbon

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Apr 9, 2020
3 min

Lampshade kit hack #1 - Folded fabric seam edge tutorial

To elevate your lampshade making we're excited to introduce our new series of lampshade #Hacks that you can apply to our lampshade making kits or lampshade materials. Throughout the series we’ll show you simple tricks, creative techniques and #hacks to transform your lampshades, arming you with plenty of new skills to up your lampshade making game! First up is our mini tutorial on how to finish your seam using a folded fabric edge. Commonly seen on lampshades on the high stre

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