What do you do with your old lamps when you redecorate a room? If the base still works with the new decor, but the shade leaves much to be desired, it's time for an upgrade. Get out your hot glue, scissors, sewing thread and needle, and gather the kids around to help you work on this project.

Embellishing and upgrading your lampshade is one of the easiest home decor craft projects you can do to enhance a room. The only thing you need is an idea of the design you want and the tools to accomplish the finished project. You can find any number of different designs for your lampshade by browsing through magazines and local shops. Check out some of the antique stores too to get a feel for the vintage lampshades and how you might create these at home.

If you want to get rid of the shades color, the easiest thing to do is either paint it or recover it. Painting a shade is easy. Remove it from the lamp and take it outside. Place it upside down on a table covered in newspaper. Spray the interior of the shade first with small bursts of paint to prevent runs. Next, spray the exterior and let it dry. Check for any inconsistencies in the paint and touch up if necessary. If it looks good take it back in and reattach it to the lamp base. Make sure it is completely dry before you turn the lamp on as the wet paint tends to scorch.

The base of the lamp can be a bit trickier when it comes to painting. Depending on what the lamp is made out of will depend on what you need to do to change its color.

•  For ceramic or glass type surfaces, you can easily spray the lamp with your new color. You will want to be careful of runs and drips so use a light touch on the trigger of the can.
• If your lamp base is made out of wood, you might want to hand paint instead of spraying the lamp. It will create a smoother texture over the wood grain if you use a brush.
• Metal lamps are really hard to work with but it can be done. The best way to do this is to rough up the metal a bit with sandpaper to get the new paint to adhere to it. Spray painting works well with the metal bases and you can even get a really great product with sand in it that creates a natural earthy look.

Changing the covering takes a bit more work, but is still fairly easy. Remove all the shade from the wire base. Recover with new material by sewing into place. Hand sewing works best here as you can do tiny stitches around the top and base of the wire frame. The fun thing here is to play with the amount of fabric you need to cover the shade frame. You can use the minimum to cover ti creating a tight shade or you can bunch the fabric using more to create a scrunched pleated look.

Another variation to this, is to add wallpaper over the existing shade. You need to make sure the shade is not pleated for this to work well. Or, you might consider removing the existing shade and starting completely fresh. Cover the top and bottom rim with a pretty matching ribbon that you hot glue into place.

Fun fur yarn hot glued to the top and bottom of the shade can add just the right touch. Investigate your local sewing or craft shop and see what kind of pre-strung beads or sequins they might have on hand. Or, how about a feather boa to add some magic to the lamp.

Think outside the box and use your imagination. If something doesn't work, you can always start over. Have fun and remember to include the kids if possible. This is a fun easy project that can offer an afternoon's entertainment.

This article copyright to lynnechandler at Hubpages 2009.