I love lamps and cool lamp shades. I like for all of my lamps to "match" the room that they are in, but I DO NOT want to have all matching lamps, like the sets that you can purchase of like lamps in varying sizes. While there are times that I will have matching lamps, such as on either end of a sofa table, a buffet or a mantle, for the most part I like to have an eclectic set of lamps.
I recently found a lamp base at a resale shop that I really liked. It is black and was the right height for the table that I wanted to use, but it came with no lamp shade. I looked all over for something that I really liked and found nothing.
Finally, I found shade in a size and shape that I liked in a natural fabric and I decided to decorate it myself. I used a black Sharpie marker and wrote part of 1 Corinthians 13, the passage about Love.
1 Corinthians 13 New King James Version (NKJV)
13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I am very happy with the way the lamp turned out! I was able to write all that I wanted to on the lamp shade with no mistakes. I'm not sure what I would have done if I messed up! I just went very slowly and kept double checking my work.
Here is a picture of the other lamps in my living room. There are two of the small turquoise lamps above the fireplace, on either side of the shelves.
So, the next time you are looking for "the perfect lamp", remember that you can decorate a shade any way that you want with nothing more than a Sharpie!
