DIY Designer Lampshade

So, you've probably been there, wandering the downtown of your city at night. Perhaps it's a First Friday or a Third Thursday or whatever day your city's cultured have chosen for "museum night". But there you are nonetheless, gazing into museum, gallery, and modern store window displays. You look longingly at that weird lamp to the side; it looks like it's assembled from many different pieces, but you have no idea how it's stuck together, let alone what the pieces are cut from. This, my friends, is your DIY solution.

I saw this on the Instructables website today and had to try it out. Here's the full guide. It makes me think of tessellations, and how much fun I had creating new patterns when I was a kid. Except this is 3D and made out of paper, so it's also kind of like origami. How can you lose?! Well, easily, if you have little patience and a short temper. Paper is a fragile material... I can't wait to try this using the HDPE recommended in the guide!

I saved the pattern image and resized it so that I could print two to a normal 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Obviously I made the rounded shade, which really does need 30 pieces. I was really tired of cutting them out at around piece 5, but then as I constructed the shade from the bottom up I got more excited to see the end product, and figure out how the pieces fit together. Once that was all in place (the tension at the joints and the stiffness of the paper is all you need to hold this together) I took a pendant lamp kit I had laying around, fitted it inside the very top joint, and hung it up. Tadaa! The pics show a 40-watt true-colour bulb, giving it a whiter appearance than if I'd put a normal tungsten bulb in.

All in all, I'd say this took me about two hours to read about, print out, and construct, with a lot of that being the learning curve. It's actually pretty easy once you figure it out!