The Do What You Love Retreat!

The last few days at the Do What You Love Retreat have been AMAZING. I was right in my last post when I said something special was about to happen. It absolutely did! Where to start...



The accommodation was spectacular. This was our classroom (check out the tipi on top of the hill). The workshops were so much fun. I did the workshop with Priscilla Jones.

Here are Rachael Taylor and Etsy Matt at work. The first day we made tools to paint with and painted onto tissue with dyes (playing like kids). Then in the afternoon we did mono printing on top of our pictures.

Then we made a framework out of wire and then covered it in silk and wax (Priscilla's special technique). Ellie here is making a cup cake.


(photo by NavyBlur)

I had to make something that lit up so I made a wonky standard lamp! You'll see the finished result later.

We had hours of chatting and getting to know each other. It was soooo nice.


(photo by NavyBlur)

The details were to cry for. Beth had made everyone a welcome pack full of beautiful goodies.

We ate home cooked food in a tipi adorned with garlands and lanterns.

The creative enterprise sessions were inspiring. We had Q&A sessions with painter Flora Bowley, artist Priscilla Jones, Rachel Hazell the book maker, surface pattern designer Rachael Tayler and there was the session with myself and Matt Stinchcomb from Etsy. What a guy he was. I was more nervous than i thought but it was such a cosy session. Beth had set it up like a TV chat show with sofas and a coffee table lit by the light of my lamps. I haven't got a picture (really honestly it did happen) but the official photographers took lots of pictures (they were an amazing young couple full of energy and life, Navyblur and they photographed EVERYTHING) and the whole thing was filmed so I will maybe be able to see it and share it sometime soon. I might tell you more about that another time. It was a great honour to be there though I can tell you!

We did Kundalini yoga with the lovely Devi Kirin every morning (except one, i was knackered). It was lovely! Tried it outside but it was a bit windy!

We had gallery night where we shared our work.

This was Devi Krins.

This was Floras painting.

The books made with Rachel Hazel made me cry. They were like treasures.

I have decided I'm going to go and do one of her courses in the Summer Isles next year.

This is my crazy standard lamp. Someone said it looked like the Borrowers had made it. hahaha

I have put more images on Flickr.

But, I will save the best until last. The absolute best thing that happened were all the personal connections made. Creative souls coming together with one common goal. To Do What We Love! There was such a special buzz around the place, everyone learning from one another and inspiring each other on our creative journeys.

(photo by NavyBlur)

I have brought back so much - a renewed energy, new friends, new plans, a quiet confidence in what I'm doing, some new dreams to explore but the best thing I have brought back is the spirit of the place. It is still with me. This spirit can now carry on shining in the real world!

Thanks Beth. So wonderful to be a part of your dream coming true! Well done you!

Something special is about to happen!

The Do What You Love Retreat starts tomorrow! The course is fully books and lots of creative souls are journeying from all over the world to a peaceful and beautiful part of the Yorkshire Dales to take part. It's very exciting. I'm quite nervous...I'm always stupidly nervous about what to pack. Hahaha. I'm an anxious packer but on a deeper level than 'what the heck am I going to wear' there is the feeling that something really special is about to happen...

This is a retreat about people finding the inspiration and tools to 'do what they love' with their lives and as I am lucky enough to be doing just that I have been asked to come along as a guest speaker and share my story, insights and experience and really there isn't anything I would rather do in life other than to have the chance to inspire others on their creative journeys.

To top it off I'm going to be doing my Q&A session with Matt Stinchcomb who is the head of Etsy for Europe. Goodness me! This guy has been around Etsy since the beginning and was one of Etsys first employees. He has helped it grow it to become the huge and wonderful business that it is today. Can't wait to meet him. It's going to be an interesting conversation that's for sure. Beth Nicholls the founder of Do What You Love (click on her link and read about her, she's amazing) will be interviewing us. Beth has just been featured in this month Marie Claire UK magazine as part of their inspire and mentor campaign where they paired some of Britain’s ‘most exciting young female entrepreneurs’ with leading successful businesswomen. Beth was mentored by Kanya King of the MOBO awards who is also coming to speak on the retreat! Wowee.


So, I've sent off a box of lamps for gallery night, I've got some supplies together for my class with Priscilla Jones (still have to buy some decent scissors), I have written a hundred notes for everyone who will be looking after the shop (Matt, Dad, Cathy AND Fiona), I have done alot of washing and today I'm going to pack (arg). Then I am ready for the adventure! Three relaxing days of creating and sharing and being inspired with lovely creative people, yoga outside in the mornings, bunnies hopping about, nice food, gorgeous accomodation (sharing a cabin with the lovely Rachel Taylor, apparently voted the happiest person in Britain haha). I think we'll all be very happy indeed!

So I will report back next week and let you know how it all went. Bye for now!x

day one and two!

I have been digging around in boxes of old CD's which back in the day before Dropbox I used to back up my work (do you know Dropbox, it's a marvellous invention). Some of the photos (the ones made with cheap lining paper) were marked 'day one and two' and these are the first experiments I ever did in making lamps all those years ago.

At first I lit them with a lamp holder that sat in a milk bottle (I talked about this in my Do What You Love interview). I had this milk bottle with a bulb in it sitting at the side of my desk and I would hold different things over the light to see what they looked like. It must have been on constantly for the first week or two and I actually slightly damaged my retina doing this. My vision in my left eye has never been the same since. I have a little blind spot (so don't try this at home!).

Anyway it's always great to look back on these things, like old sketchbooks and photographs, as it reminds you of different routes that you could have taken but didn't at the time. I love the houses and I plan to re-visit them. At the time that was way too much hand cutting to do for one lamp but now with laser cutting I have a chance! I also love the double layering idea. I bought some plastic spacers to play with this years ago but never carried it through. Something to play with for later.

I'm enjoying writing my book. I'm being quite disciplined about it as I have such a definite deadline. If I was to spend as much time as I am with the book on experimenting with my own work I think I could develop lots of new ideas....ones that fly around but I haven't quite pinned down yet. When the book is done this is what I want to do. To play.....a lot! To play like it's 'day one and two' again and like I have no idea where it is going to take me!

Oui Decor, new stockist in France

It was lovely to get these photographs through from my new (and first) stockist in France, 'Oui Decor'. They have only been open a couple of weeks but Jenny says the lamps are going down well so far!

Oui Decor, 32 Grand Rue, Sauze-Vaussais, 79190 FRANCE

Newby Hall

Today we visited Newby Hall. Daniel Hornsey who own Hornseys in Ripon a lovely gallery who have been selling my work for some time, recently (well I guess it's a couple of years now) started running the Shop at Newby Hall and now sells a wide selection of beautiful design led goods. We didn't visit the house itself (the gorgeous print above is by Ed Kluz) but the shop, garden and tea on the lawn was inspiration enough.


It was nice to see my lamps nestled in amongst friends. See the Lush design cushions and the Angie Lewin cards, all folk I sell at Radiance.

The gardens were lovely and peaceful and I'm glad I had my camera to capture the gorgeous colours.

I couldn't quite believe the colour and cuteness of these maple seeds.

The ferns were just beginning to unfurl.

The wild garlic was just beginning to flower.

Anyone know what this is. It was growing by the ponds (quite zoomed in here).

He is a fine fellow isn't he! He was noisy though!

This would be a lovely place to visit with young kids. They have sandpits and a lovely play area, lawns to run on and a little train that takes you round the gardens.

Dan reckons I should design a lamp especially for Newby Hall based on all the wondrous plants in the gardens. Sounds like a plan!

Fairy lights in the Appeltaart house!

There are some very special moments in this designer/maker life that just make making things so worthwhile. Yesterday when Guusje sent me pictures of the fairy lights that I sent her in her beautiful house I had one of those moments! Her gorgeous light and airy house in Holland is adorned in colourful fairy lights and garlands that I have often admired on her blog (Guusje's Appeltaart) and now I am very happy that my fairy lights are part of the collection!

Quote Guusje (she is so poetic) 'At night time we look at our fairy light collection and are over the moon with all those stars around us'.

There are more of her pictures of course on her blog, but also on my 'Hannah Nunn Lamps at Home ' blog where I am collecting pictures of my lights in peoples homes. If you have any do send them over! I'd love to see. x

My new Wall!

This week I built a wall! Well actually I didn't build it myself, joiner Paul (JP Rennovations) did that and I am celebrating it's arrival. Since I moved to the new shop I haven't had anywhere to display my wall panels so they've been sadly hiding away in a cupboard all this time. This wall is especially for my wall panels. As it turned out I only had the seed pod one left so I thought it was about time I made some new ones....worth it now I have somewhere to put them. So here is a new one which I called 'Spring' which is a collection of Snowdrops and Paperwhites

The one at the top with all the dandelions is new too. I hope my new wall inspires many more!

Seventeen years ago today!

This photo needs to be shared. Isn't it beautiful! Isn't she beautiful! This is my daughter and today is her seventeenth birthday. She will probably tell me off for putting this picture on here but this is my little celebration. The marking of her birthday and the time that has passed which seems no time at all since she was born.

She was born on the stroke of midnight on the 14th but the computer said that it was to be 0.00 a.m. on the 15th and so her birthday was decided.

I will never forget her sleeping in the crook of my arm all night long and although I was completely exhausted from a two day labour I couldn't sleep because I had to keep looking and looking and looking at her. At 4 .a.m the birds began to sing outside and she opened her little eyes and looked around as if trying to locate them, her first moment of making sense of the world, and then satisfied, she fell asleep again. Thinking back to this moment now, seventeen years later so much more poigniant given the wondeful human being that she has become.

Happy Birthday Darling!

(photo taken at Rachels wedding by John. Nice one John. This is a beauty.)

wedding lights

Here's a little video that Robert took on his Iphone at Rachel and Bobs wedding. Don't ask me why the vase of flowers moves in the middle. Watch out for the hands coming into shot to take a piece of bread bread. It was nice bread that!

(probably a bit silly to post this as these lights are not currently available as a product....but I'm working on it still so you never know!).

Meet the boys

This weekend was just so nice. My boy cats lolling around in the street in the sunshine, strolling into town (in sandals) for the first ice lolly of the year, chatting to friends, listening to Ffion and Poppy busking in the square and going for a lovely evening walk in this beautiful countryside of ours. It was one of those 'glad to be alive and living here' kind of weekends. Thought I'd post this picture of the cats so that I remember it. Meet Tomsk, Ollie (ginger ones are brothers) and Gabriel. They are fab and theres nothing much more pleasant in life than sitting with the cats and a cup of tea in the sunshine. ahhhh.