Showstopping Lampshades at the Vintage Festival on the Southbank

Its been a fabulous few weeks. Funny how life is like that .....you spend forever running on what feels like a giant hamsters wheel, the wheel speeds up and you're feeling decidedly dizzy and then just as you think you're going to fall off the wheel stops and you get to escape the cage and nibble on a big pile of nuts for a bit! When you return the cage feels much more like a nest. No I haven't turned into a hamster.....but maybe you know what I mean.

My wheel was sent spinning into a frenzy immediately before our hols with a particularly lovely request from a very glamerous stylist from BBC Homes and Antiques Magazine. Would I be willing to let them showcase Folly and Glee by exhibiting 20 lamp shades in there Vintage Bazaar at the Vintage by Hemingway Festival on the Southbank. Kiera Buckley Jones had styled the fabulour 1950s room for the ‘Museum of ’51’ as part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain at the Southbank Centre earlier in the year so really knows her stuff.



Museum of 51 at the Southbank Centre

 Well of course it was a big YES. I'd been a tad dissapointed that I couldn't visit due to the event falling slap bang in the middle of our hols but at least this way Folly and Glee got to go! And in such great company cos also sharing the Homes and Antiques maequee was Something Fine, In the Parlour and Jane Foster.

gorgeous Vintage sewing box from Something Fine



 In the Parlour revamp from that clever Casper James





Jane Fosters amazing cushions




I had 5 days amidst finishing existing orders and packing to get them done - all of them a mix of 1950s cotton barkcloths in floral and atomic/graphic patterns plus a couple of pictorial scenes. Here they are sitting on the Ercol waiting to be boxed.

I was so excited to find out what the reception from the Southbank had been and I must admit to checking my email just a hour after arriving home at 4am from a night flight. Through bleary eyes imagine my delight to see everything seems to have worked out spiffingly. The Bazaar in its mini marquee looked spiffing - well done gals!



Kiera Buckley Jones and Natasha Goodfellow from Homes and Antiques



And oh my can it be or is it jet lag? Is that the great man himself standing under Folly and Glee shades?

It got even better when I hoped on to the Vintage by Hemingway Blog and read the following " Isn't the bon-bon themed Homes and Antiques magazine mini marquee just adorable. I'm a real sucker for candy coloured stripes! The gals are bringing the pages of the magazine to life and have been hand picking vintage treasures from flea markets across the land especially for Vintage including the show stopping vintage fabric lampshades with colour pop flex by Folly and Glee."

Showstopping! Let me just say that again Wayne Hemingway referred to FollyandGlee's lampshades as "showstopping."

I tell you...never has eight loads of holiday washing (mainly teenage boy socks and sandy towels - euch) been done in such a state of contentment with a smile upon face.