One spring day I was just leaving through a magazine and saw a beautiful origami lampshade and knew that it was exactly the idea that I wanted for the dining table! I was able to find the origami lamp on Etsy and several other models as well. The only problem was that most models where either too small, wrong color or too expensive (shipping to the Netherlands...). So my boyfriend said "Why don't you just create one yourself?"
When I see a square paper I always want to turn it into a Crane, so I did have some experience with origami, but a lamp shade?
Well, I wanted to try at least, so I set out to find a lamp shade pattern online, which, as it turns out, isn't really out there. Then I spend several hours going trough patterns that weren't intended as lamp shades, but perhaps with some changes could be turned into one. I tried the example on this blog, but it just wasn't the shape I was looking for. Then I came across the pattern for a Magic Ball:
On a Saturday I started a 4 minute YouTube tutorial on the magic Ball with an A4 paper. It did warn me that it would take me several hours, but I have to admit that I just could not imagine how you could spend that much time folding one A4... 4-6 hours later I had my very first Magic Ball
Because the shape was not stiff enough I started making changes to the design. For starters I decreased the number of rows and columns to fold. This significantly decreased folding time to about half an hour, but more importantly, when I tied the top together, the shape was very beautiful and easily remained in shape. It actually had turned into a lamp shade model!
Above you can see several of my prototypes. The one on the bottom right is just the magic Ball pattern with 2 rows (the number of columns follows this). For the other two I made changes to the folding direction of the bottom layer, folding them in the other direction. The bottom left one had two rows, the top one has three rows
Because not all folds are actually needed for the model I started marking the folds that are present in the final design. When made flat again I could clearly see where I should make the folds for the big design (although I do not really remember the reasons for the differing colors, I think it means folds along the rows and columns)
Next, finding the right paper to make models big enough to pass as lamp shades. I tried the regular 220 gram A0 size (cut in half, each half turned 90 degrees and then attached again to make a very wide version) but the paper was too thick to make nice folds.
I had to call about every art shop in the area of Amsterdam to ask if they had dark blue or grey paper in a size between A1 and A0, but not too thick. Eventually I did find a store that had A1 size grey paper, lucky me :)
It still took some time to make the big sized lamp shades, but I am very happy with the result. Now I have my very own one-of-a-kind lamp shades
