Sunflower Dirt Lamp

A sunflower worked into a lamp, where the bloom does the lighting and the stem and the small mound of earth beneath it do the holding up. The result reads as a plant that happens to glow rather than a fitting with a flower stuck on the front, which is the difference between a novelty and something you leave out all year. Petals radiate from a textured seed head, and that pattern is the whole trick: decorative in daylight, and considerably more graphic once there is light behind it. It belongs on a windowsill, a bedside table or the corner of a desk, anywhere a room wants one small warm point of light instead of the ceiling fixture. An easy gift for gardeners and for anyone who leans towards botanical decoration, and a particularly good one in the middle of winter when nothing outside is flowering.