Create your own stunning lampshade!
Ministry of Handmade creates a fun, enjoyable and relaxed workshop experience where everyone goes home with a unique finished lampshade. Using only industry-standard materials, their professional lampshade-making techniques are simple and easy to follow.
Bookings are $135 per person.
Workshop inclusions: The workshop includes lampshade materials (excluding fabric), expert tuition and all necessary tools to make one of the lampshade sizes listed below:
Drum lampshade (vertical sides): 20cm, 25cm or 30cm diameter
Empire lampshade (tapered sides): 13cm/18cm or 15cm/20cm (These are top and bottom diameters.)
A large range of other sizes will be on offer. You can select a larger size if you prefer and pay the upgrade fee directly to Ministry of Handmade on the day. Cash and credit card are accepted.
Lampshade sizes available:
Drum lampshades
Diam Height Upgrade fee
20cm 18cm None
25cm 20cm None
30cm 24cm None
35cm 26cm $ 9.00
40cm 28cm $13.00
43cm 30cm $17.00
50cm 32cm $27.00
Empire (tapered) lampshades
Diam Height Upgrade fee
13/18cm 14cm None
15/20cm 15.5cm None
20/25cm 18cm $ 5.00
20/30cm 20cm $13.00
25/35cm 24cm $17.00
30/40cm 27cm $27.00
Fabric: Please bring your own fabric or you can purchase from Ministry of Handmade’s wide selection on the day of the workshop.
Fabric selection
These fabrics work well for lampshades: light to medium weight cotton, linen, cotton drill, polyester cotton.
Fabrics with very loose weave or coarse or uneven grain or texture are not really suitable. For empire shades, fabrics with designs that run obviously horizontally or vertically are not suitable as the shade curves. If you have any questions about this please contact Julie: create@ministryofhandmade.com.au
Minimum fabric requirements: Drum (Vertical sides)
20cm – 0.5m high x 70cm wide
25cm – 0.5m high x 90cm wide
30cm – 0.5m high x 110cm wide
35cm – 0.5m high x 120cm wide
40cm – 0.5m high x 135cm wide
50cm – 0.5m high x 1.8m wide**
**The long length of the fabric for a 50cm (or larger) lampshade is cut parallel to the selvedge (running down the roll), therefore, please choose a fabric with a design that works well in this orientation.
Minimum fabric requirements: Empire (Tapered sides)
13cm/18cm: 0.5m
15cm/20cm: 0.5m
20cm/25cm: 0.5m
20cm/30cm: 0.5m
25cm/35cm: 0.5m
30cm/40cm: 0.7m
Minimum fabric requirements: Hero Lamps
Hero lampshade – 0.7m high x 0.7m wide
Lamp bases
If you have a lamp base in mind for the shade you are making, please bring the base to the workshop so that we can help select the best size shade.
Lampshade kits
Lampshade kits in a wide variety of sizes will be available for purchase on the day so you can make another lampshade at home. Cash and credit card are accepted.
Renovating old lampshades
Note: It is not suitable to bring old lampshades for rejuvenating. It takes more time to restore an old shade than the time we have available at the workshop.