Japanese Paper Lamp Sahde

Yasutomo, purvevor of much of the origami paper in the US, has this lampshade project up on their website. It’s so clean and beautiful that I had to put it up, but the instructions are a little lacking. http://www.yasutomo.com/project/paperlampshade.htm

Basically, to make it an actual lampshade and not just a ring of paper, you’re going to need to adapt the instructions to whatever lamp you have and find a way to attach it.

Here’s how I would do it: I would get a donation store lampshade that has a relatively narrow top that I can cannibalize. I’d trash everything but the top ring that is attached to the bulb or bulb housing. Then I’d measure the diameter of the ring.

Before buying paper or folding, I’d figure out if the project lampshade will fit my lamp. Using my gradeschool math skills (C=PI * d) I figure out that the 22in piece of paper in the model will cover a 7in diameter lamp, but since there’s folding involved, my guess is that the project lampshade will be 14in tall and maybe about 6.5in in diameter at the attachment points. Will that work for my lamp ring? Yes. Now I can buy the paper, fold the big shade and glue it to the ring with little bits of treated paper.

I know this seems like a lot of planning, but I hate wasting materials. It’s just a suggestion.