From the cubicle next door: ‘Lampshade Lady’s Guide’
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I have the good fortune of sitting next to the vacant cubicle where the Home staff dumps promotional copies of books they’ve received in the mail. I thought I’d never find another book as insane as ‘Pet Projects: The Animal Knits Bible,’ but today I stumbled upon another jewel! ‘The Lampshade Lady’s Guide to Lighting Up Your Life,’ with photos of 50 custom lampshades and lamps and directions on how to do it all yourself.
The Lampshade Lady is an actual person -- a plump brunet named Judy Lake who lives in a small town in Vermont (surprise!) and runs the ‘geranium-pink clapboard’ store Lake’s Lampshades. According to the intro to her book, she has been making lampshades for more than 20 years, and now all that lampshade expertise is ready to be shared. Her book starts with easy projects such as the Funky Drum Shade and the Kid’s Hand-Colored Shade and moves on to more advanced projects such as the Antique Quilt Top Scalloped Shade.
The lamps in this book tend to be a little too cottage-y for my taste. (I’ve drank the California-modern Kool-Aid), but if crafty projects are your thing, you might enjoy this book. And perhaps most helpful for those who don’t share Lake’s sweets-y sensibility but are inclined to start experimenting with lampshade design, there are 3½ pages of supply resources listed in the back of the book.
-- Deborah Netburn
