Pop Top Lamp Shade

By Sean Michael Ragan
Time Required: 10 hours
Difficulty: Easy

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Update: Lots of folks have been asking about the fancy rainbow-colored shade in the new photo. It was made using the same techniques described in this article. The tabs are not painted; they are all recycled from cans that have factory-anodized color pull tabs. A few of them I collected myself, but most of them I scored by watching eBay for awhile. Yes, you really can get anything from eBay.

I made the first one of these back in 2009, and it was later included in Garth Johnson’s creative reuse book. Since then, I have had many requests for a detailed tutorial. Well, here ’tis!

The only parts in this lamp shade are soda can “stay” tabs and the top and bottom lamp shade hoops. No wire, string, glue, or other part or fastener is required. Mine is 7″ in diameter and 8″ tall and consists of 16 rows of 34 tabs each–544 tabs in all. Shades can, of course, be made bigger or smaller as you please.

December 18, 2012, 10:43 pm PST

Steps

Step #1: Remove tabs from cans

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Remove the tab from the can by bending it back and forth until the metal fatigues and breaks.
If you want to estimate the number of tabs you'll need beforehand, here are a couple of rules of thumb:
For each row of mail, including the top and bottom hoops, you will need 4.857 tabs for every inch of shade diameter.
The top and bottom wire hoops, wrapped with tabs, add about 1/4" of height apiece.
Each row between the top and bottom hoops adds 1/2" inch of height.

Conclusion

Yes, this can be pretty tedious work, but unless you a truly prodigious aspartame addict, it will probably take your household a considerable time to generate the hundreds of tabs required to make one of these lamp shades. If you form a habit of doing a little bit at a time--say, whenever you empty the recycling--the work can become a pleasant distraction from, and maybe even a reason to look forward to, an otherwise boring chore. And the finished shade makes a great Opus-style holiday or birthday gift: "Oh, just something I put together in my spare time..."

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.