Project: Painted Paper Shades

I bought some Redi paper shades at Home Depot. They are super cheap and easy. You don't have to measure in advance you just cut them with scissors to size. As always, I just eyeballed mine. I liked the gray ones we put up but the white seemed way too boring. I like color. So we decided to paint them. I had fabulous ideas in my head but am not an artist and had no stencils, so I figured this would be a project the kids can do with me. That way, if it looks awful I can blame them.

We painted three different shades and used blues for each one.

For the first we dipped the brushes in paint and splatted them.

This was a huge mistake because there was more paint on my floors, wall and our clothing then the shades.

Then we did stripes and circles for the others.

Here are the results.

See what I mean about being artsy? It would look totally cool if they were stenciled or had a neat design.
We had fun doing it and it's a great way to display artwork. These would look especially great in a toy room or kids bedroom. I'm not sure how long paper shades last. I don't recommend using so much paint or being too rough like my kids were because these are only paper.