I was thrilled to be asked by Natalia Price-Cabrera to be featured in her book. Natalia is the lady behind Mols and Tati Lois and The Maximalist and I've long admired her work and her eye for colour and pattern. The book is mainly a 'how to' with lots of gorgeous projects and inspiration but tucked away in the back section, there I am. I am absolutely delighted to be featured alongside Abigail Ahern, Beauvamp, Boris Design Studio, Folly & Glee, Lampara, Sally Whiting, Mineheart, Rockville, Squint Design, Timorous Beasties and Zoe Darlington.
Some absolute lighting superstars, if there were such a thing. And me.
The book is available on Amazon but you can get it a little cheaper from the wonderful Needcraft, suppliers of all things lampshadey.

A couple of my lampshades in Kathryn and Simon's swoonsome home, featured in the Telegraph here.

I started Swee Mei Lampshades at about the same time as The Talented Ladies Club hit the internet and was lucky enough to be featured on their brilliant website; so when Hannah asked me to write a piece about my experiences so far of selling my lampshades I was delighted. It's a fantastic website, a great resource for working women (and men), check it out.
Here it is. Hopefully there are some useful tips for anyone just starting out selling their crafts. 
http://www.talentedladiesclub.com/all-help/how-to-make-a-living-from-selling-your-crafts-a-complete-guide/

I'm not very good at the whole marketing thing. I don't really know anything about it, except as a (enthusiastic) consumer. I've been meaning to try to get together some sort of press release thingy for ages but don't know where to start. I use Facebook quite a lot because that feels quite friendly,  I LOVE Pinterest  but I sometimes feel like I'm just talking to myself on Twitter. Until this month social media was pretty much the only promotion I was doing.
However, in the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to have my work featured in Sussex Life Magazine, a lovely piece in Etc Magazine , a nice mention on one of my favourite style blogs, Homegirllondon, and the icing on the cake today, a lampshade in Stella Magazine, the Sunday Telegraph's fabulous life and style supplement. It's only little and perched atop a huge lamp stand and you can't really see it to be honest but it's there! They helpfully put a big flashing arrow next to it to so you can find it more easily.

I'm now doing tapered lampshades too. I think these french drum shades, which are only slightly tapered, are a very elegant shape for pendants or lamps. I've also gone crazy over these Harlequin Amilie silks. Such lip smacking colours and the fabric is textured and slubby enough to add interest to a plain coloured shade. Beautiful. 
I can do some of my other fabrics in the tapered shape, but as the pattern needs to be cut as an arc, it won't work on anything that has stripes, lines or a 'right way up' that needs to be cut on a straight line. Get in touch and I can tell you if it's possible or not.
As an aside, I love this time of year. Peonies are my favourite flower and you can pick them up so cheaply at the moment. Have stuffed my house full of them. 

I'm giving away a lampshade over on my Facebook page. Just comment on why you'd like a Swee Mei Lampshade and the comment with the most likes by Monday, 21st April at 8pm will win a 30cm x 22cm lampshade in their choice of one of the above designs. Good luck and Happy Easter, folks! xx

Well I've finally gone live with my Not on the High Street store. It's taken me a long time , one way or another. I've driven the support staff half crazy with broken promises and feeble excuses but they've been great, really helpful and patient. Anyway, I've done it. I'm slightly concerned that my store will get lost in a great ocean of handmade lampshades and very much feel a small fish in a big pond but, watery metaphors aside, it's very exciting and I was over the moon to receive my first order the day after going live. So someone's found me.
Should anyone be reading this, Quidco are currently offering 10% off and up to 10% cashback at Not on the High Street. You'd be a fool to yourself if you didn't have a little splurge on a new lampshade ;-)

I'd been asked a few times recently if I sold gift certificates. I didn't. But now I do!
A bespoke, handmade lampshade is a brilliant and original present for a wedding or birthday gift but it would be a bit of a gamble to choose one for someone else. Now you don't have to. I'm selling them here in £5 multiples (all on one voucher) and, for vouchers purchased before the end of this month, the lampshade will be delivered for FREE. This could mean a saving of up to £8.99. The vouchers are valid for 12 months from the date of purchase and can be sent direct to the buyer or recipient. Don't say I don't look after you lot.

It all started with a new duvet. A gorgeously plump, soft kingsize goose-down duvet that my folks gave to me for Christmas. It truly feels like being enveloped in a cloud. But now it feels like that duvet is the best thing about my bedroom. The walls are the same magnolia emulsion as the day I moved in, the bed and wardrobe belong in a room twice the size and the floor, or floordrobe in my case, is (probably still) covered in that cheap oatmeal carpet that landlords and developers love so much. It's rubbish and it's making me miserable.
So I've decided that I need to sort it all out and make a fabulous boudoir for myself. It's not a bad room. It's a reasonable size, if you take out all the huge bits of furniture. It has a pretty Victorian cast iron fireplace and a lovely big sash window.
My problem with decorating is that I find it really hard to make any decisions. My ex is a designer and we always struggled to agree on anything and would end up with some sort of dull compromise that neither of us loved. Now I can have anything that I want, budget allowing,  it's really liberating but also hard. I've started a Pinterest board of bedroom ideas and that is helping to clarify in my mind exactly what I'm after. Basically…all the stuff he would have hated. A little voice inside my head is still saying "No, no! The duvet cover must be white washed linen!" but I think I'll ignore that for now.
Anyway, at the moment I'm really taken with Matthew Williamson's range for Osborne & Little, 'Eden'. Particularly the 'Sunbird' wallpaper. Right up my street. Tropical foliage and hummingbirds in jewelly tones. Lush. There are seven amazing colourways to choose from, dammit. And did I mention the metallic detailing?!  Stunning. (I'm also quite taken with the 'Peacock' wallpaper but let's not complicate matters.)

The pattern is also available in a fabric but none of the 4 colour ways , though undoubtedly beautiful, are doing it for me in the same way as the wallpapers.
I would happily paper my whole room in this but my bank balance is telling me that I should probably go for the dreaded 'feature wall'. I think that term got a bashing after overuse on home makeover shows but as a concept, I think it works.
So now all I need to do to recreate my own little piece of tropical paradise by the British seaside is decide on a colour. Oh…and a duvet cover. Yeah, maybe white after all.

I've always been a huge fan of Missoni but when I had a quick scout around at the prices of fabrics I realised that a Missoni Swee Mei lampshade was never to be. 
I'm not really a fan of cheap knock-offs, generally speaking, and it seems that 'Missoni'  has become a byword for anything with a multicoloured chevron on it. But then I found this fabric.
It's designed by Kaffe Fassett, who I think is just a genius, but more importantly used to work for Missoni in the 70's! 
So whether he was 'influenced' by Missoni or vice-versa, I don't know. I can probably guess... but I think that fact gives this fabric some sort of provenance. It's a gorgeous pattern with amazing colouring and, in my head, an 'homage' to the fabulous Italian fashion house, a nod to his past employers rather than a blatant rip off. ;-) Three more fantastic colourways coming soon too.
Mx