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    ALL ABOUT CRAFT BUSINESS & LAMPSHADE MAKING

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    Soft Shade Making Series: Making a soft shade cover from a pattern
    • May 17
    • 4 min

    Soft Shade Making Series: Making a soft shade cover from a pattern

    Making a well-fitting outer cover for your soft shade is critical to achieving an eye-catching and considered lampshade and today, we pick up from our previous post in our Soft Shade Making Series - How to Make a Pattern. In this post we show you how to transfer your lampshade pattern to your chosen fabric, tips on sewing it together and how to fit it to your pre-bound soft lampshade making frame, all with step by step photo tutorials. https://www.dannellsblog.com/soft-shade-
    77 views0 comments
    Book Review - Lampshades by Katrin Cargill
    • Apr 28
    • 3 min

    Book Review - Lampshades by Katrin Cargill

    Rated highly by our professional lampshade makers, ‘Lampshades’ by Katrin Cargill at first glance might look like a very average and potentially dated book, but digging a little deeper this lampshade making gem offer oodles of inspiration, excellent instructional techniques and lampshade styles from the 1990s that can easily be brought up to date. It’s time to soak up some more lampshade making wisdom! Katrin Cargill has written over 25 books on everything from making soft fu
    111 views0 comments
    Soft Shade Making Series - How to Make a Pattern
    • Apr 14
    • 6 min

    Soft Shade Making Series - How to Make a Pattern

    With the preparations for making a traditional soft shade covered in our Soft Shade Making Series, it’s time to talk patterns! Making an accurate pattern from your frame is essential to getting a beautiful, pucker-free fit for the outer fabric of your lampshade. With several essential stages to cover we've packed this post with three easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, alongside hints and tips from professional makers, to help you perfect this important skill. Lined and
    370 views0 comments
    Lampshade Kit Hack #9 - Using Vinyl as a Lampshade Inner
    • Mar 29
    • 4 min

    Lampshade Kit Hack #9 - Using Vinyl as a Lampshade Inner

    Want to make a shade that stands out from the crowd? How about using colourful vinyl on the inside of your shade? Easy to apply and economical to boot, our opaque gloss vinyl gives your shade an interesting pop of colour and with 19 colours in our range, you won't be short on choice! Read on to find out why you should give this creative hack a try and importantly, how to apply the vinyl to your Lampshade Making Kit. What is Vinyl covering? Originally used in our banner making
    251 views0 comments
    Soft Shade Making Series - How to bind a lampshade frame
    • Mar 16
    • 5 min

    Soft Shade Making Series - How to bind a lampshade frame

    Our third post in our Soft Shade Making Series is about laying the foundations for the lampshade ahead, namely binding your lampshade frame. To help you master this important skill, that's integral to holding your outer fabric and lining in place, we’ll take you step-by-step through how to bind your frame, what to consider and prepare, as well as the tools and materials you’ll need to start your soft shade making journey! Why do I need to bind a frame? Binding the frame means
    274 views1 comment
    Soft Shade Making Series: Binding Tape
    • Feb 10
    • 4 min

    Soft Shade Making Series: Binding Tape

    In our second post of our new Soft Shade Making Series, today we're talking about binding tapes and how they are an essential part of making a traditional soft lampshade. A binding tape’s main function is to give your chosen fabric a base to be sewn into, and we'll explain why using the right tape gets you the right results, how to measure tape for a frame and what widths of tape to use. Binding tapes explored Binding tape, or India tape as it’s also commonly known, is a whit
    294 views0 comments
    Soft Shade Making Series: Traditional Lampshade Frames
    • Jan 18
    • 3 min

    Soft Shade Making Series: Traditional Lampshade Frames

    Lampshade making comes in many forms and although making ‘hard shades’ is a popular and easy way to achieve a stunning new lampshade, our NEW Soft Shade Making series focuses on getting you started making traditional lampshades. Soft Shade Frames Getting to know your basic materials is an important part when starting out in any craft, and can save time and mistakes in the future. There are a few different methods involved in covering a traditional lampshade and a range of gim
    912 views0 comments
    3 Essential Olfa tools for lampshade making
    • Apr 29, 2021
    • 3 min

    3 Essential Olfa tools for lampshade making

    ‘Give us the tools, and we will finish the job’ the proverb says, but what if those tools were made the job twice as quick and offered all sorts of creative opportunities? This is where our NEW range of Olfa products comes in helping you improve your lampshade making, and we’ve selected three products we think you’ll love. Olfa Rotary cutter If you’re making lampshades en masse or simply want to speed up your shade making, using a rotary cutter to cut away the fabric from the
    165 views0 comments
    Vintage Inspiration - Lampshade Making Book Review
    • Mar 26, 2021
    • 3 min

    Vintage Inspiration - Lampshade Making Book Review

    For today’s modern lampshade makers, there are plenty of sources of inspiration, but looking back at the styles, techniques, methods and materials used in vintage books, can literally be a light bulb moment, so we’ve fished out a couple of our favourites from the Dannells library. Lampshade Making History Lampshade making is a craft that has stood the test of time, since the invention of the light bulb in 1879 and its domestic introduction into homes not long after. The Victo
    157 views0 comments
    Book review - Sewing Lampshades by Joanne Heptinstall
    • Mar 11, 2021
    • 3 min

    Book review - Sewing Lampshades by Joanne Heptinstall

    On opening the book, Sewing Lampshades by Joanna Heptinstall, our hearts skipped a little beat. Hit with an array of colourful lampshade images and a foreword from Joanna Heptinstall that oozes confidence in her craft, we knew that we were in for a treat. Time to grab a cuppa and take a seat on the sofa to read, read, read! Joanna Heptinstall was already a trained upholsterer when she stumbled across and old, damaged lampshade that needed some TLC. After plenty of research, s
    190 views0 comments
    Book Review - 50 Thrifty DIY Shades by Adeline Lobut
    • Jan 15, 2021
    • 3 min

    Book Review - 50 Thrifty DIY Shades by Adeline Lobut

    50 Thrifty DIY Shades is book based around you guessed it.…decorative shades that can be made up of scraps of fabrics, bits and bobs and unusual materials. Packed with traditional lampshades and more quirky upcycling ideas for making shades, there are plenty of interesting projects, and skills, to get your teeth into, or as always to inspire your own lampshade making practise. When reading a book review we always find it interesting to found out a bit about the author and the
    105 views0 comments
    Book Review – Make Your Own Lampshades – Elizabeth Cake
    • Nov 25, 2020
    • 3 min

    Book Review – Make Your Own Lampshades – Elizabeth Cake

    Lampshade making doesn’t have to be an off the shelf craft and can be as creative as your imagination will allow, a fact that’s proved over and over again, in Elizabeth Cake’s Make Your Own Lampshade book. Using her knowledge of collecting vintage fabrics and her passion for upcycling and recycling, Elizabeth has put together 35 projects that stretch your imagination and see what’s possible using everyday objects and second hand finds. Think clashing fabrics, cute crosstitch
    164 views0 comments
    Book Review – Handmade Lampshades by Natalia Price – Cabrera
    • Aug 27, 2020
    • 3 min

    Book Review – Handmade Lampshades by Natalia Price – Cabrera

    Often referred to as the ‘go – to’ lampshade making book, Natalia Price – Cabrera’s book Handmade Lampshade certainly earns it’s moniker. Packed with essential information for starting to make lampshades, as well as hint and tips for seasoned shade makers, it’s full of practical step by steps project for soft frames and rigid shades. We thought we’d delve inside and tell you more about this ‘all you need to know’ guide on our favourite subject. Craft books come in all shapes
    870 views0 comments

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