Lampshades

My decor, as such, is a cheerful mish-mash of things I've made and collected over the years, with heavy influence from 12 years of medieval re-enactment and a pathological dislike of bare walls and spaces acquired in my years as an army wife, moving from house to house and only being allowed a couple of pictures on each wall (which were usually painted a colour the army referred to as "mushroom" - that colour you get when you mix all the leftover paint together and then add white).

Finding lamps and shades that would even vaguely fit in proved to be a bit of a challenge, so I did what I usually do and went on a second-hand shop crawl. I found a couple of black wrought iron lamp stands (complete with wiring - YAY!!!) and two horrendously ugly lampshades that were about the right size - I only wanted the wire frames from them, after all. I took great pleasure in removing the ugly covers from the lampshades, and re-covered them in white and burgundy shantung silk (scraps left over from re-enactment days!) and stitched the new shades on by hand (uber boring!). Then I painted the white bits, using waterproof inks and an acrylic wash for the background.

And they fit in with the 'decor' very nicely indeed!