Elisa Uberti‘s anthropomorphic sculptures are simple and soft and tactile and remind me of what a child might make if you handed her a lump of moulding putty. Only the little girl would paint her two-legged dog pink and green and cover it in sequins and sticky feathers. These are utterly restrained, and stunning in their simplicity. Uberti’s lamps look like creatures from another planet, and her chairs are thrones for aliens.

I’ve made seven large cylinders in the last few weeks, and none have turned out as well as the first. One collapsed, and three cracked straight down the middle. How to bring more of that first-time fresh, unbridled energy to a second or fifth attempt? I have to step away and work on something else. A bowl. A plate. This evening’s dinner. And then try again. And again. You’d think a cylinder would be easy but it’s often the simplest forms that are most unforgiving. As I am not a thrower, I know that my forms will never be as tight as they would be on a wheel, and nor do I want them to be. But cracks won’t do. ‘Practice makes good,’ is my new motto. And Julie Hirschfeld’s lovely pitchers are inspiring me.

Some of Emma Larsson’s compositions look like sea monsters or corals while others look cells under a microscope. Her love of nature is evident in everything she paints. Larsson grew up in the Swedish countryside and would often get lost in a nearby forest. To this day, she wonders into forests searching for inspiration. Watercolour, and the merging of colour and pattern, gives her work a fluid and organic feel. “Beauty is important, but it is subjective. For something to be beautiful, it doesn’t have to be pretty. Personally, I’m not drawn to the “obvious beauty” we’re told to admire in the pages of fancy magazines. There has to be some flaw for me to feel interested; it’s the imperfection or the awkwardness that attracts me.” I find her work exuberant, alien, beautiful and alive.

No matter the season, I can always count on my local corner shop for fresh cut blooms. When buckets of Hyacinths arrive I know that spring’s in sight. So you can imagine my confusion today when I spotted them alongside the last of the amaryllis. Not that I’m complaining, I love hyacinths. It’s just that seeing them gave me some kind of false hope, like tiny, frilly beacons of something that’s not only out of sight, but over the hill, down the lane, and through the forest away. Of course, I bought an armful. The smell is too lovely to resist. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little fantasy. (This drawing is by Picasso, by the way. Just another example of his extraordinary range.)

Aussie designer, Jordan Fleming has created a series of floor lamps that meld function with flight of fancy. Constructed from metal, plaster and pigment, each one has its own zany personality. Collectively, they look like a chorus group for some brilliantly eccentric animated film. I imagine them launching into song when no one’s around. “I’m interested in exploring ways to remove the static element of an object, injecting life into it beyond a pretty facade,” says Fleming. They light up a room, with or without electricity. “I’m definitely much freer in my practice over the past few years, trying not to over edit the origins of the idea or fixate too much on the function of the object.”

As far as traditions go, chopping down a tree and planting it between the chesterfield and the tele for a month is pretty bizarre. But no one can dispute the delight a tree festooned with lights brings to a home and those who live in it. Last week, I walked to the corner to buy a few things and came home with a Christmas tree in one hand and eggs and a toothbrush in the other. It’s less than three feet tall, and with over a hundred baubles on it (plus lights, pompoms and silver streamers) it looks like an over-dressed shrub. It’s sitting on a pedestal in our living room like some relic from the past (or from another planet) and every time I look over at it, it brings me joy. I’ll admit a (rather large) slice of that joy comes from the fact that the tree was so easy to put up and decorate, and given all the sickness and stress lately, that’s something to tra la la about. No tears, no tangled lights. It was all done in less than an hour. The children are less enthralled with their eccentric little sapling. It’s ok. It’ll grow on them.

“People say my work makes them smile and that’s good enough for me,” says Lancashire artist, Ben Fosker. His work is modern spin on the English slipware tradition, using a variety of techniques from sliptrail to sgraffito. His illustrations –– think fish with legs and bumble bees the size of trees –– reference a make-believe world that only a very vivid imagination could whip up. I love this big blue bird under a hot red sun. His plates are so full of brio and charm.