Circus tents and flying elephants

I love having something finished. After weeks // months of designing, drawing, planning, sourcing, making, fiddling, tweaking, pricing and photographing, putting it out there in the world is a tiny bit nerve-racking too.

And today, I've have not one but two new lampshades in my shop.

They're made from specially coated parchment paper, which lets a mellow light seep through but keeps the pattern crisp. They'll be available in linen very soon too.

The first new lampshade is called Circus Tents and shows the canvas delights of the Butterscotch & Beesting Circus in corals, mints, teals and sunshine yellow sitting on a background of grey and white triangles. The triangles are the flags that fly above Betty and Bumblewick's magical world.

The second new lampshade is called Flying Elephants.

The repeat pattern on the shade shows Heidi LaLarge (as you may already know, Heidi is an elephant with exquisite panache on the highwire) flying across the circus big top. Like the Heidi Cushion, this print is inspired by an Art Deco pattern by Marion Dorn called Avis. Instead of Avis' doves, though, my version has airborne elephants. Naturally.

I love the lampbase in the Flying Elephants shot. It's an old Saxbo piece from the 1960s that my mum found in her cellar. (Why doesn't mine cellar hide any antique gems?) My mum is a professional ceramist, and we're working together to make a porcelain lampbase that can coordinate with the shades, using this beautiful bit of Danish Modernism as inspiration. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, both lampshades are available from my shop. And if you want to see them in person, there's a list of upcoming events on my website, starting at the Pretty Dandy Flea in Nottingham.