Coffee Filter - ceiling light cover

So I have this kitchen. As tiny and pathetic as it is, it is my kitchen. It has definitely worked for my family and I thought that it was finally time to give her the make-over that she desperately needed.

That and I finally got sick of the "darkness" that I had to see every morning as I walked through my kitchen. Originally she was painted a beautiful burnt orange with a dingy almond colored ceiling. Her floor resembled that of a See's Candies store. I'm sorry, am talking about a garage or a kitchen here? Oh, yes....MY KITCHEN.

While making over my kitchen I stumbled upon one little minor detail. Actually a major detail, my light fixture. The main accessory to my ceiling was just bare-bones.

Don't you just love my wonderful light bulb? When this picture was taken I had your standard everyday light bulb in there but I switched it out for an Energy Efficient White light spiral light bulb to save on energy costs (yup, saving the environment one step at a time).

In deciding what I wanted to make as my center piece (as I call it) for my kitchen ceiling, I thought and thought. Should I just put up a ceiling light cover over it? Maybe just take out what's currently there and just buy a new ceiling light lamp all together? Maybe put in a shabby-chic chandelier???? Oh, yes...that's right....I'm redoing MY KITCHEN.  

So I turned my "light-bulb" from that to this:

I decided of course to go the DIY route. I found this really cool link. I used this as my inspiration to creating my own Coffee-filter lamp shade. Here is what I did:

Materials:

Clip-on lamp shade 

White Coffee filters 

hot-glue gun & glue sticks for the gun

I already had all of my materials on hand but here is the breakdown to give you an idea of how much this will cost you.

Clip-on Lamp Shade from HOMEDEPOT $3.00 [details here]

This style lamp shade was PERFECT for what I need and I'll explain why later on. 

200-count white (you could also use natural colored for a different look) coffee filters: Costco/~$3.00

**You will not need all 200, I forgot to count but I believe I used ~35-40 filters for this specific project

Glue Gun: Michaels/using a 50% off coupon: ~$5.00

Glue gun sticks: Michaels/using another 50% coupon: ~$3.00

WHAT TO DO:

Step 1: Folding in half

Flatten out all of the coffee filters as pictured above. Then fold them in half.

Step 2: Pinching sides in

After folding them in half, grab a hold of each side of the folded filter and press the filter inward until your fingers touch. 

While pressing each side in, it should look like this from the top view.   If both left and right sides look like this than you're good to go. 

Step 3: Flattening 

Once you have pressed both left & right sides together, flatten the filter so that it now looks like a pizza slice. 

**NOTE: you should have your glue gun plugged in by now, so that it has time to warm up and be ready when you need it by Step 5**

Step 4: Folding the tip 

Then just fold up the tip, about an inch. 

Step 5: Gluing the filter to your lamp shade

I found the center line on my lampshade and decided it would be easiest to start there. So, place a dime size amount of glue onto the small triangular tip that you previously folded in Step 4. Once you have your glue on the tip, press the glue side (obviously) down onto the lampshade. Continue this until you've completed one straight line. No big deal if it's not straight so don't worry if your not precise with your placement. 

As far as the spacing goes for the filters. I spaced mine out about 2" apart so that it would help let more light through. 

Continue to glue on the coffee filters row-by-row until your lampshade is completely filled. 

Upside-down view

So just to clarify, I spaced each filter ~2" apart and each ROW is an inch and a 1/2 apart. This is based on how much light you actually want to shine through. Since I'm going to be using this as a kitchen light and not a reading lamp or a mood light, I spaced the filters further apart so that the light from the light bulb can shine through.


Step 6: Fluffing
Once you have your lamp shade filled. Flip the lamp shade over and do a little "fluffing" or unfolding the coffee filters. This will help unify the individual coffee filters.

Step 7: Fixing the new lampshade onto your ceiling light bulb

As I mentioned earlier, this was the PERFECT lampshade style to use for this project. The reason why is that it directly clips onto the light bulb, leaving a nice big space between the shade and the kitchen ceiling. If you look closely in the picture you'll notice that I've painted my dingy almond colored ceiling a bright white. 

[For those that might want to know, I used a semi-gloss finish so that it would show off a nice shine once the light is being used.] 

Anyway, this nice big space gives the light from the bulb a chance to shine through and make my ceiling shine. Here are two different pictures of how nicely the light is shining through. 

I wanted to try and show the shine, but this isn't the best picture.

Look at how nicely the coffee filters look.