Minion Lamp

I spent this last weekend working on my original design of a minion lamp, inspired by a post I had seen on Pinterest of a single minion eye on a wooden crate:

I had checked out potential bases for the lamps, from Target and Lowe's, like this one:

But on a recent thrifting expedition, I found the perfect base, for only $5!

I purchased a white lamp shade from Wal-mart:

There were lamp shades available on Amazon in yellow shades, but I didn't like the available shapes/ prices.

So, I used Rit Dye in the Golden Yellow formula, to make my lampshade the color I wanted:

I let the dyed lampshade dry for about an hour, then stenciled out my design, and filled it in using craft paint. I tested the shade out with the light on, and added some extra coats so that no light pinpricks showed through the design.

 I thought initially that paint pens might be the best avenue, but I find they don't release enough paint. The difficulty here, then, was choosing a paint brush that gave enough control for fine detail without being sloppy.

Here's the final product:

Total project time: 3 hours.
Total cost: $7.98 Lampshade + 2.75 Rit Dye + $5 lamp base + free paint & brushes I had at home= $15.73

I hope to complete a similar project for another nephew, but in a Nightmare Before Christmas Design, for a Christmas present, which I'll begin work on after all of the minion stuff is ready!


All in all, I'm very pleased that this came out looking like what I envisioned in my mind.

As always, happy crafting!

Jenn