Page 95 - Designing Ways 261

TAIL OF
THE DOG

Fairy Lights

airy lights are some of my They were so popular that I had to get gift I received from my daughter
favourite things. They used to more for the grownups. Heath Nash who went to a conference in Seoul,
Fbe synonymous with Christmas also makes very glamorous leaf and South Korea, is a string with different
lights, set in strings designed to twirl flower light balls, in white and coloured miniature paper lantern covers. I have
around the Christmas tree, but to my plastic, cut and shaped from mundane this hung over a beautiful Kente cloth
delight, you can now get them any household cleaning product bottles. from Ghana, and the bright colours
time, and use them for any purpose are quite competitive.
– party, wedding, holiday, simply to A local version of the fairy light
cheer yourself up. strings is put together by Art Africa in Shopping malls have caught on to
Parkwood. They buy bare lights on fairy lights – and now hang curtains of
My all-time favourites are those strings and then get their craftsmen them wherever possible – from upper
designed and made by Heath Nash, and women to add Shwe Shwe fabric floors, along stair railings, or draped
South African king of sustainable shields around the tiny globes, like tent-like from ceilings. Latterly, fairy
design, made from recycled milk little flower cups. They are colourful lights, or garden lights, or any excuse
bottles. He uses the white opaque and cheerful, distinctively African, and lights are solar powered. This is
plastic as the light bulb covers, and again have been a great success in perfect for our sunny weather; you
they come in various geometric grey cold Scotland, especially in the can string them around plants in the
shapes. I have the triangular prism dark days of winter. garden, along a balcony edging, or in
shaped ones which I hang up in my a distant shrub, and they light up as
window over the festive season. Over the years I have bought lights soon as it is dark. Sadly, these would
Some years ago, I bought several with Chinese lantern covers which be hopeless in Scotland, especially at
strings of these and took them to are surprisingly robust. I haul them Christmas time.
Scotland one Christmas as gifts for out of storage each year, and they still
my teenage nieces and nephews. look good and still work. An exciting Gill Butler