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Mrs. Corson went to the little shop where she had previously ordered shades for herself and others, all of which had done their share in turning houses into homes.

When Mrs. Corson explained what she wanted, the shop owner pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes and said, "Mrs. Corson, we're swamped with orders. We'll never get your shade done in time to arrive before the wedding."

"But what can I do?" Mrs. Corson asked. "You always know what I want and you do it so well."

"I'll tell you what you can do. You can make it yourself. I'll show you how. I can spend a half hour doing that. All you'll need then is time and patience. We've run out of both of them here some time back."

And so for the next half hour Mary Corson received her first and only lesson on making cut lamp shades. The instruction was hurried; it was not aimed at the beginner's level. After those few minutes much trial and error followed. Beside her desk at home a pile of crumpled lamp shade paper rose before Mrs. Corson finally finished the shade which she felt was worthy of the bride. But she made her deadline and her shade was the hit of the wedding gift table. That shade also started Mary Corson off on a new highway, which has led to cash rewards and that special kind of satisfaction which comes from creation.

NOW, EIGHT years later, this busy mother of three school-age girls has developed her skill at both making lamp shades and teaching others how to make them. For her, the right gift for weddings or at Christmas time presents no problem. Nor does it for many of the folk around Plymouth Meeting, for they come to her. Her highest sale price was $28 each for two shades which now grace the home of the neighborhood's most distinguished family. Her average price is about $10 for shades which take her just one morning to complete. She has a set fee of $10 an hour when teaching groups of women how to go and do likewise.

"I couldn't possibly have found a more satisfying profitable hobby than making cut lamp shades," says Mrs. Corson. "They bring me the extra money that's so wonderful because it is extra. They give me the opportunity to express myself in this creative way. And they have introduced me to a host of new and wonderful friends."

Mrs. Corson's stock answer to everyone who admires her skill is the same that she was told eight years ago: "You can do it yourself." She remembers, however, the heartaches she had when trying to follow the brief instruction she first got. Her advice to beginners is so clear and so practical that all have been able to create shades of their own—when they have the necessary patience and persistence which is required to master anything new—even, as she puts it, "threading a needle."

BEFORE YOU start to make a lamp shade you'll need some equipment, but all of it can be purchased at a cost which won't deplete the penny jar too much. This is what you will need:

Single edge razor blade.

Jar of household (rubber) cement, and one of glue.

A sheet of fairly heavy water color paper.

Two sheets of tracing paper.

A roll of sticky tape.

A box of paper clips.

A sheet of carbon paper.

A soft lead pencil.

A pin pricking instrument, such as a corsage pin.

A discarded or cheap lamp shade.

"One of the big hurdles in making lamp shades is cutting the paper to fit the rings," explains Mrs. Corson. "I have discovered the simplest possible way of solving that problem: Either go to your attic or a nearby dime store and get an old or cheap lamp shade which is exactly the size you want your new shade to be. Make sure that this shade has rings at the top and bottom with no connecting metal pieces.

"Pry open the edges of the old shade where they are glued together, remove the rings and spread the old shade flat on your sheet of water color paper. Two bricks wrapped in cloth (diapers do a nice job here) will hold this in place while you draw around the old shade with your soft lead pencil. When you have your new shade outlined, cut it out with the razor blade, thus getting a shape that is the exact size to fit your rings and the lamp for which it is intended. Having done that, with no trouble at all, you will be past the point where so many beginners give up. Later on, after you've done your first dozen shades, you'll get the knack of cutting the right size without using an old shade. But why worry about that now?

"The design for your new cut shade can come from flower prints, flower pictures, china, a lamp base or almost anything that appeals to you and can fit your size shade. But for your first creations, let's use a design from a drapery in the room where you want your lamp shade to be. Spread this material (chintz, I hope) on your table, center a sheet of tracing paper over the design you want to use and trace that design with your pencil. You won't need enough pressure to fear breaking through the tracing paper.

"NOW THINGS really begin to happen. Next, spread your cut-out section of the water color paper on the table. Place the sheet of carbon paper over the center of it and tracing paper over that. Then trace your design again. As this design is being traced on what will be the inside of the shade, you won't have to take any extra care to be neat. If your design is large enough to decorate your shade as it is, you are now ready to start cutting. In case your design is rather small and you believe your finished shade would look better if it were repeated, you have only to arrange it so that the designs are an equal distance apart and do not overlap the seams.

"Now we cut. But don't worry about this operation; after you've finished it, you'll be surprised how easy it is. If your design has leaves or berries or fruit (as it should for best effect), take your razor blade and cut around them. The only trick is not to cut any of them free from the paper but to leave them attached, just as they are on a real plant or bush. The leaves will be enhanced when the shade is later placed on your lamp if you'll slice them to indicate where the veins are.

"To let the lamp light etch your design in the finished shade, slip the razor blade under each cut-out petal, leaf, etc., and bend the paper slightly toward you and the inside of the shade. Don't worry if the angle varies slightly throughout; it will just add interesting variety to your shade.

"Next, we'll scallop the top and bottom of the shade for added interest. A common spool provides a fine outline for this. Just start about where the seam will be and continue around, outlining it with your soft lead pencil. You're still working, you remember, on the inside of the shade. Don't worry if the half circles you make with the spool don't come out even. It doesn't matter. When you have gone around, use your razor blade to turn these half circles into the scalloping.

"OUR NEXT beauty treatment is pinpricking. This will allow little dots of light to make your shade appear more professional. If, for instance, your design has strawberries in it, they need pin-pricking. A border of pin-pricks near the scalloped edges will help them. For the rest you can outline your whole design with pin-pricks or you can add your own pin-pricking design to what you already have. An ordinary corsage pin does this job well and is bound to be somewhere in that bureau drawer.

"Now take your other sheet of tracing paper and cut it out the same size and shape as your shade. Spread household cement on all the edges: sides, top and bottom. Place this tracing paper on your shade, pasting edge to edge on the inner side of the shade, which is still facing you. The tracing paper diffuses the light and reduces glare through the cut-out parts. Now the shade is ready to put in shape.

"Spread glue on both seams and press them together so that they overlap about a quarter of an inch. You can now relax for a while because the shade should be left overnight with your cloth-covered bricks applying the necessary pressure to the inside of the seam. If you place wax paper under and over the seam, it will prevent any glue which might ooze out from sticking to your table or the cloth around the bricks.

"Now, to finish the shade, glue the rings in place, starting with the smaller one at the top. Spread glue over it and insert it inside the shade. Hold it in place, almost flush with the points of the scalloped edge, with paper clips. Do the same for the larger ring. After the glue has hardened (about twenty minutes), make the rings more secure by folding over them a thin strip of your sticky tape.

"Last instruction: stand back and admire your handiwork.

"The shade is done but there is no reason for you to be. You have learned how to make this one and from what you know now you can continue on your own. For instance, if you are fairly handy with water color, you can tint the design to your own liking. Instead of scalloped edges, you can leave them as they are and cover them with upholsterers' braid, black velvet ribbon or organdy ribbon. You can create your own designs, use different paper, experiment to your heart's desire. Comes Christmas and when you ask your friends what they want, they'll say, 'Oh, if you'd just make me one of your wonderful lamp shades!'"

THE COST of materials for lamp shades depends, of course, on whether they are bought in quantity. Water color paper by the sheet costs from 20 to 40 cents, with a sheet being large enough to make two 10-inch shades. If the paper is bought in 10-yard rolls, 42 inches wide, the cost will run between 17 cents and 25 cents a yard, Mrs. Corson has found. She advises would-be shade makers to buy a heavy paper but not a rag paper because the imperfections of the rag show through the finished shade when the light is on.

Rings are another cost item but they can often be free. In your own attic you probably have several old shades from which you can salvage rings. Your friends can provide you with more. Often, when you are to make a shade for someone, she will bring her own shade so you'll get the size right for the new one and then, of course, you can use the old rings. Rings can be bought for about 20 cents each for top and bottom rings and this price will probably drop to 15 cents for quantity purchases.

The only other item of cost significance is tracing paper, and a 20-yard roll of that can be bought for about $2.75 a roll. This, Mrs. Corson has found, should be very transparent, not opaque, which casts shadows.

The standard retail price for cut lamp shades in the Philadelphia area is $1 an inch. Thus, a six-inch (diameter) shade sells for $6 and a ten-inch shade brings $10. Mrs. Corson does some shades for gift shops and, as their markup is high, she gets only half her normal retail price. These shades, however, are "mass-produced," meaning that she uses patterns which she has on hand and usually the patterns are not as elaborate as those for the custom-made shades.

MOST OF the shades Mrs. Corson turns out for her own retail trade are made especially to fit in with the rooms where they will be used. Usually she goes to the customers' homes and studies their furnishing themes. She may take the design from one on the wallpaper. It may come from the draperies. Many have come from a design on the lamp base. Cut shades bring a comparatively high price, not because of the materials in them, but because of the thought and work that go in them. Skillful as she is, it usually takes Mrs. Corson about four hours to do a ten-inch shade, not counting the time she spends with the customer deciding on the design.

Makers of cut lamp shades who wish to turn their ability into a profitable hobby will find that they can scarcely pick anything which can produce sales for itself more easily. Once the people Mrs. Corson has taught have placed their own shades in their living rooms, their guests remark about the shades enthusiastically and ask where they came from. Invariably, when they are told that they are "homemade," the maker is asked if she will make some for them, either for their homes or as gifts. This starts a chain reaction. When the first sale is made, this new shade produces more word-of-mouth advertising and new customers show up. This is the way it worked for Mrs. Corson and it has been the same with the people she has taught.

Speaking about her merchandising methods, Mrs. Corson says, "This hobby is perfect for the person who doesn't want to push herself or her product on people. The shades do the whole job themselves. I've never yet caught up. And one of the things which please me is that the shop which first taught me how to make them has come to me to get me to make some for them. I've done some of that but it is not as profitable and not as much fun either. A shade made especially for a particular room yields the top in profit and personal satisfaction. What more can anyone want from a hobby than that?"

Mary Corson's success with lamp shades has been consistently good. Only one case might be considered a failure. After she was selling her shades regularly, the added income enabled her to employ a part time maid. The maid became interested in shades, too, and Mrs. Corson gave her lessons in making them. The result was that the maid became so proficient that she was hired away by an envious neighbor who offered higher wages because the servant girl had added lamp shade making to her other talents.