Inka Shade Colouring Light Shades

Inka Shade is a US-based company which produces superior quality light shades that you can colour in! They come in a variety of designs and sizes for any home or style. You can buy shades separately from the frame, giving you the ability to easily swap and change with your decor any time you like. 

You can buy either a drum light shade or a pedestal lamp shade- the drum being really quite large at 30 x 35cm in diameter. Whichever size you choose the contents of the package remains essentially the same; click on each category below to read more about it:

The Shade

​A long strip of glossy surfaced plastic depicting the illustration of your choice

The Rings

​Two metal rings to maintain the shape of the shade & attach to the light

the rubber

​Self-adhesive rubberised strips with a groove along the centre which attaches to the shade to keep the rings in place

the lamp cord

​A long electric cable with a lightbulb fitting on the bottom to wire into your home (if needed)

the velcro

Self-adhestive velcro strips which attach to either end of the shade, enabling it to go from a long strip to a round drum

There is also a handy piece of plastic made from the same material as the shade so that you can test out how mediums lay down & look before committing them to the shade itself. ​

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​The range of designs to choose from is magnificent, including illustrations by Jessica Palmer, Valentina Harper and Jenean Morrison. You can select either a plain white or a pre-coloured background on many of the designs, depending on your preference. 

As I mentioned earlier the shade material is very glossy, so I feel marker pens work best- particularly alcohol markers with bright shades like Sharpies. The surface of the shade does not absorb, leaving the ink sitting on the top which takes a heck of a lot of ink. I'd recommend buying a shade with the pre-coloured background or just leaving it white like I did, otherwise you're going to end up financing a pen factory with the amount of ink you go through! Pencils won't lay down properly and the colours look bleached under the light. Paints would likely stick but they would have to be thick acrylic or gouache rather than watercolour, and of course the opacity of the paint may block the light and appear very dark rather than colourful.

​Here is my completed strip- it really is huge and took up my whole dining table so make sure you have plenty of space to colour!

Assembly of the lamp shade was really simple and came with full instructions. Briefly, you stick velcro to each end and rubber strips to the top & bottom then attach the velcro together & insert the metal rings into the grooves in the rubber strips. One thing to be mindful of is that the inner ring (which attaches to your light fitting) is quite big- luckily I had an extra wide skirt on my bathroom light which I swapped to my kids' bedroom to accommodate the shade. I'm sure you can buy adapters, skirts or washers to increase the size of your ceiling light fitting- or you can choose to buy the shade which comes with a lamp cord.

Here is my finished light shade which the kids (and me!) absolutely love! I chose a design from Tangle Wood by Jessica Palmer with a blank background, colouring it with various brands of alcohol marker.

Shades vary in price from £26 to £52, making them a serious purchase but a very high quality & beautiful one. You can buy yours here, and if you live outside of the USA please contact Inka Shade through the website for a shipping quote. 

You can also read Lucy Fyles' (Colouring in the Midst of Madness) review, which inspired this review, here.