STAFF REVIEW: PAPER LAMPSHADE MAKING EXPERIENCE

If you're looking for a totally unique experience, then take a read of our staff review from when our marketing team traveled to London to participate in a wonderful paper lampshade making experience. This is definitely a great gift for someone who loves getting creative or just wants to try something new.

On arrival, we were warmly welcomed in by Ros who was hosting the workshop. Straight away I could see by the impressive art work around the house, that she had an amazing eye for detail and strong interest in creativity. 

Once the group had arrived, we took our seats around a large dining room table filled with arts and crafts materials and introduced ourselves to everyone. Ros started of the workshop by showing the group a number of example lampshade designs from previous participants work, this was great to initiate our idea thinking and help everyone to visualise what they needed to make.

The first step involved picking the tissue, wrapping paper, wallpaper and packaging that we wanted to use to make our design. The amount of materials that Ros had collected was superb, as when we asked her for the most unusual patterns,  she always seemed to have it. 

The second step was to glue down our materials onto a piece of paper, with an outlined template of one side of the lampshade. This was extremely fun, as we got to see our designs take shape and visualise what they were going to look like. Ros was a fantastic host, making sure everyone had the materials they wanted and provided helpful advice throughout.  She even made a delicious homemade carrot cake for everyone to enjoy, which we very much did!

When everything was firmly glued down, it was time for Ros to take our designs and copy them five times onto panels of translucent papershades paper. Then we had to cut around the template lines to make the five sides of the lampshade. 

The final stage was the tricky part, as we needed to put together the five panels onto a papershade wheel. Once we had put together our lampshades, with a little help from Ros we were done. It was lovely that at the end Ros placed all our lampshades onto a light stand, to best show off our final creation. It was obvious that everyone was very excited to see their designs come to life and were enlightened by the end result. 

It was appreciated that Ros had clearly thought of everything, as she had given everyone a neat pack to undo our lampshades and put the panels and wheels in. This made it easy to take our lampshades home without damaging them.

Overall, the paper lampshade making experience really was a fantastic workshop, that we would highly recommend. Ros was the perfect host in making sure everyone felt welcomed into her home and created a lampshade to be proud of.