Whistle Stop Studio Tour of London & Brighton!

I have just returned from the most inspiring research trip to London and Brighton. Altogether I took 21 trains (including tubes), 4 taxi's, 1 car ride and lots of shoe leather and it has filled me with so much inspiration. I went to interview some amazing designer/makers for the book and spent a lot of hours in workshops and studios learning about peoples work and hearing their fascinating stories. Of course I want to tell you everything and show you all my pictures and publish all the interviews right here right now but that would be giving it all away wouldn't it. Eventually it will all be in the book!

The Big Interview

Beth from Do What You Love (remember I told you about the retreat I was going on) has posted a interview with me on her blog. We talk about the first lamp I ever made, where I go to find inspiration, the story of Radiance and invaluable advice that people have given me along the way. I invite you to have a read...

having a very seedy time

I got some samples back from the lasercutters today. Lots and lots and lots of seeds. Now I'm just playing with them to see what they can do! They do make great shadows but I never really like lamps where you can see the bulb. We strung them up and hung them in the window and they look really lovely. It was just a bit dark by then to take a good picture so I'll try and take some tomorrow. There's lots of potential anyway!

Seeds

I've been having fun with seeds! They are such great shapes. I will make them into mobiles and what I'd love to make is a big chandelier out of lots and lots of falling seeds....

In the creative flow...

I've been poorly this week with a nasty chesty cough but staying in the warmth of my house and in my newly decorated living room seems to have done me the world of good creatively. Maybe it's having space to think with no other distractions (lots of laying on the sofa in a blanket with cats and a sketchbook) or maybe it just happened to be the time when lots of ideas that have been floating around have culminated into something new! Whatever it is, I have very much been enjoying being in the creative flow and have had lots of ideas to keep me going for a long time!

First up, Harebells. I stated looking at bluebells with Spring being on the way but then remembered how much I love Harebells and when you really start looking at them you notice how many interesting shapes and features they have. I love the flowers, I love the buds and I love the silhouette the stem makes. The finished laser cut and engraved prototype arrived yesterday and already I have had an order for a wall lamp because someone in the shop spotted it on my desk. That's a good sign! I like the way it looks like the light is shining out of the flowers themselves.

The other day I blogged about my botanical study idea and showed you the Wood Anemone. Well yesterday my lasercut 'wood anemone middle' arrived and it is SO fine. Just like the real thing! So delicate and beautiful. I love it.

I have decided that I am going to make a series of limited edition lamps for my botanical series. Maybe just ten of each design to keep me in the creative flow that I love and keep coming up with new studies. I will number and sign each one. Can't wait to do more.....

back when it was all but a dream...

I found an old sketchbook back from when Radiance was just a dream. So nice to see this now that this dream has come true. You can see more over at my Radiance blog...

Fairy Lights are back on!

I have very good news. Whilst having a NewYear spring clean and sorting through my plan chest drawers that were piled high with paper we found quite a lot of my old fairy light paper - yes the one that had been discontinued and has prevented me from making fairy lights for the last few months. I feel a bit silly really that there has been all this fuss and actually there has been a supply of it hiding away in the back of the drawer all the time!

I have Matthew to thank for this. Matt has just started working at Radiance and the HN studio. He is very organised and tidy and has set to re-organising my workshop for me and doing lots of jobs that I have been meaning to to for ages. Another one of these jobs being taking photos of all the individual patterns for the fairy lights so that we can add them to the website and make ordering them a whole lot easier. Hopefully I'll be doing that later on today when I can get some technical help from my dear Robert. In the meantime here is a picture of the extras...

(later in the day) Here they are on the website. Hooray!

Any Toucan Fall In Love!

I sent some work off to the Rostra Gallery in Bath last week for their 'Any Toucan Fall In Love' exhibition. It's a lovely looking gallery and it's nice to be amongst friends (there are Louise Traill lights and Joanna Couplands birdies everywhere)! The exhibition runs until the 23rd February so if you're in that part of the world go and have a look. I wish I was because it looks very lovely indeed!

A Painters Garden

We've just had our living room decorated and it's looking good. It's the first time in my life that we've had someone in to do the decorating and it has been soooo lovely. Emma Ossenton (if you're on twitter she is @waterrat77) is fantastic and super efficient so that's been a pleasure. We (or rather she) papered the end wall in Woodland Ferns from Sandersons' Painters Garden collection. It was astounding coming home from work yesterday and seeing how much it had changed the room....in a good way might I add. It's very bold but we like it. I'll wait until we're all finished to get a picture of the whole room. For now here's just a bit.

AND it has inspired an idea! Well actually it's an idea I've had for a while but it inspired me to get on with it today. I have a tall Alpine Meadow lamp on top of the piano but it just doesn't sit well with the wallpaper. I was thinking it needed to be a woodland flower or something and this reminded me about my idea of making a collection of lamps like Victorian botanical studies.

In botanical studies I LOVE and am endlessly inspired by the little diagrams that you get alongside the drawing of the plant itself with beautiful scrolling letters marking the illustrations of the seeds and stamen and showing cross sections of the stems and leaves.

This first experiment is of is a Wood Anemone and I have lots more ideas that I am going to play with right now. I wonder which plant will soon be sitting on top of my piano!