Do you like your karakusa hot?

Or cool blue and white?

Your darumas bright?

Or modeled by the chef dressed in white?

Artist Lisa George of PaperGlueBamboo is having a sale this week of her new Spring 2012 line. For an extensive post about her modern take on the ancient craft of ikkanbari, take a look at Artist Spotlight…Lisa George and the Modern Art of Ikkanbari at PaperGlueBamboo. Her Tsukiji market shopping baskets would be great for toting stuff to the beach or having a summer picnic. Drop me a note at jacquelinewein[at]yahoo.com if you are interested in an invitation.

All this talk of baskets and ikkanbari has caused me to have an epiphany about a possible solution to the ceiling fan light at the beach house that I mentioned just the other day. Ceiling fans can be a necessary eyesore and I had been scouting ideas on improving them, finding posts over at Young House Love and Thrifty Decor Chick where they added a lampshade to give a fan light more style.

Those photos clicked in my memory with this photo from Kawagoe shrine sale last year in which a dealer had hung a basket upside down for eye level display. Even at the time it reminded me of a lampshade, but I didn’t put it all together.

Here’s another similar Japanese open-work basket, narrower and deeper than the one above, shown upside down to mimic a lampshade. It might just make a perfect lampshade for the ceiling fan, adding a bit of softening to the bright light and accessorizing the room. The basket has a great beachy feel too!

And if the open-work of the basket doesn’t camouflage the light bulbs well enough, we could always wrap it with a bit of washi paper ikkanbari style like this one…

George, are you listening?

Related Posts:
Artist Spotlight…Lisa George and the Modern Art of Ikkanbari at PaperGlueBamboo
Sweating the Details…A Round-Up of Brass Library Wall Sconces

Image credits: 1-4. Lisa George, 5. via Young House Love, 6-7. me, 8. via Lamps Plus