Magazine Monday!

This week I'm starting something new. In an attempt to motivate myself to craft, read and finish projects, I am committing to blog certain things each week. There will be Magazine Monday, Finished by Friday and book reviews.

Do any of you get magazines, look through them, find tons of great ideas, put the magazine down and never open it again?
Instead of collecting stacks of magazines, I started clipping what I liked, and putting them in a folder.
Some people keep organized binders with plastic sleeves and tabbed topics (my mom would be that person). I tried that once but couldn't seem to keep it up. Now, I find scraps of random paper-usually in a color I'll not likely use for anything else-and tape them on. It's faster, and there's no fuss. I circle things I like in rooms and make notes so I'll remember what I liked about the room later.
My pile of magazines is now manageable, but why am I even saving the ideas in clipped form if I'm never using them? Enter Magazine Monday! Each Monday I'm going to try something from my magazine clippings. Some will be small and simple, others might be bigger projects.

Today's project was . . .

Spruce up that lamp!

I found a room inspiration page, with a lamp circled. They put books under the lamp, which gave it more character. I'm always looking for a way to lighten the load of my book shelves, and our living room lamp was the perfect candidate.

Here is the inspiration photo from Better Homes and Gardens magazine:

Here is our lamp before:

Here is our lamp after:

It's a subtle change, but I think it does look better with the books. Perhaps the next face lift for this lamp will be replacing the cheap navy shade for something with more personality.