Another Craft Casualty . . .

So here’s my new lampshade, as inspired by St. Martha.  Yes, I saw the fabulous paper-lined lampshades in the March edition of MSL and decided I needed to do that, too.  The table lamp next to Joan’s spot on the couch had a battered, dirty, and disreputable pleated shade that I’d hated in a vague, inattentive way for about a year.  Replacing the shade looked like an easy way to make the whole side table look nicer–and that’s what I’m all about, imaximum impact with minimum effort.  At least in the home decorating department.  But what looks so easy for the talented (and spatially-gifted) designers of Marthaland has had its complications for me.

Bookpeople of Moscow, our local independent bookseller, has sheets of the most beautiful wrapping paper in the world for very reasonable prices.  Tuxedo Boy and I headed downtown to select our new lampshade liner.  Tuxedo Boy had his heart set on a sheet featuring elegantly engraved fish.  But I demurred.  I wanted these feathers:

And I was paying, so we got the feathers.  Look closely at that image, please.  You will perhaps notice, as I did not, that the peacock feathers look like Plankton wearing a fright wig.

See what I mean?  The kids were hysterical.  And once I’d made the connection, I couldn’t stop seeing it. Every time I looked at the lamp, I wanted to cry.  All that time cutting out a template with freezer paper, fiddling around with double-sided tape, trimming and repositioning . . . only to end up with something that looked like a very special episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” with guest stars RuPaul and Sylvester.

So Tuxedo Boy and I went back to Bookpeople, where he, quietly triumphant, selected the fish paper, and I paid, after explaining to Bob and Betsy what went wrong the first time.  They like to know these things, in our little town.

Here’s a closer view of the new lampshade:

 And as you can plainly see, there’s something a little bit  . . . freaky about these fish.  Here, look again:

Yes, they’re swimming upside down.