For this challenge, we were asked to "refresh" something in honor of the spring season. I had some ideas but I also had several projects in the hopper that I was simultaneously working on. I was very fortunate that this project dovetailed with a prototype that I was making for one of my customers.
The brief that I was given was for a paper project for an 10 year old girl's room. The room was designed in a French Provencal style in black, white and pink. As I was walking through Bed, Bath and Beyond, I can across these plain craft paper lampshades and thought--I could do something with that.
At first, I thought that I would decorate the outside of the lampshade with silhouettes. These patterns are traditional French silhouette style patterns.
Once, I glued the silhouette to the outside, I thought that I could do better. While this was pretty enough to look at while the lamp was off, I wondered how I could make it look even better. I decided to add three more silhouettes. Two of them, I put on the outside of the shade (north and south orientation--when looking at the lampshade) and two of them on the inside of the shade (east and west orientation). The magic occurs when the lamp is turned on and you get the two shadow silhouettes as a surprise.
To add a little bit more girliness to the lampshade, I added a beaded fringe to the bottom of the shade.
In the end, I think that I might look for a white lampshade rather than the craft paper brown but the brown shade give a nice golden glow when lit. Overall, I am very pleased with the final project and I think that the mother will be surprised when I show her. I love it when Iron Craft Challenges help me with work.
