I love lamp?

I love... chair?
I love... desk?
I love... lamp?

"Are you just naming the things that you see?"  Oh Anchorman, you never cease to make a girl laugh.  In all seriousness, I finished my first lamp project on Sunday.  I was really excited about this lamp when I first saw it at ARC one fateful Saturday.  Let's start with a before picture, shall we?

Oh yeah, she was a beauty all right.  I had this crazy idea to hand paint the lamp shade using a stencil.  I found a design I liked, printed it out, and taped it to the inside of a bell shade so that I didn't have to spend a bunch of time meticulously cutting out a stencil.  Here's what I got after a few coats of spray paint and some hand-painting:

So I have to say, that from 10 feet away, the stencil looks pretty darn good.  Up close though... not so much.  The paint was bleeding on the fabric, and the whole thing was just very uncooperative.  I am going to call this a semi-fail.  We will definitely not be able to sell this lamp, BUT it will look amazing in our living room (as long as nobody is staring at the painted detail from 6 inches away!).

It was nice to take some time to craft on Sunday.  I knew I should have been studying, but I really wanted to see this project through to completion.  It only took an hour or so to paint the shade, and I will probably try the technique again, but with a different shade choice (this one had 2 thin layers of fabric, not the stiffer plastic inside layer).  I think some plastic reinforcing the shade would have been very helpful.

So our living room looks more decorated, and I feel less stressed knowing I can cross one more project off my never-ending list.  What do you think Ron Burgundy would have to say about this lamp?