A owner of a local bed and breakfast and bistro who once appeared on TV series Four in a Bed, is now catching the attention of international celebrities with his bespoke scupltural lamp .

“Creates”, located in Monmouth’s historic Church Street, was established in 2020, and is owned by Ben Price and his husband Kenny John . It was originally designed as a pop-up shop to sell the artworks they featured in their busy bed and breakfast and bisto but proved so popular with visitors that it now a permanent feature.

Ben and Kenny rose to local fame as the winning contestants of the popular C4 programme Four in a Bed back in in 2021. The regularly repeated series features bed and breakfast owners taking in turns to stay with each other and paying what they would feel is an appropriate fee for their to stay after giving their often brutally honest feedback.

Ben explained, “We only took over the business in January 2020 so during lockdown I did all of the bedrooms up and C4 saw an article which was written about us and approached us to go on the show.

“We weren’t quite sure how to feel about it but C4 didn’t give up so eventually Kenny said ‘yes’ and within two weeks they were filming.”

“I was here every night until midnight to make sure everything was perfect” and all the people who took part in our episode were really nice we really have made friends for life,” said Ben

In addition to running a successful business Ben also spends a lot of his time working on a hobby he started about seven years ago - creating bespoke hand lamps and reaslised quite quickly that what he thought was just an interest has become something of a sensation and has since caught the attention of many celebrities.

Ben explained he first came up with the idea for the lamps when he was working as an engineer and on a quiet night shift chatted about his idea with a friend .

“It just all went from from there really,” he said.

With a background of working as an engineer and studying art at school to working as an interior designer, Ben utilised the skills and experience he had acquired and was able to transform his interests into a promising career.

He designed his first bespoke lamp when he was ‘messing around with a mannequin hand’ and it occurred to him that it could make an interesting lamp.

“I started tattooing designs on it, without any real preparation and and before I’d created the first lamp,” he said.

“It usually takes around four hours per model depending on if I have all the equipment to create it.”

Over the past few years the business has done extremely and Ben has now created over 400 unique, personalised hand lamps which quickly became a social media sensation.

The lamps have become so popular Ben has had to protect the business by legally patenting the lamps as they are shared so often online

“I create around six lamps a month which it balances out with ‘Creates’ as I work on the lamps on the days we are closed so I can work full time when the restaurant is open.

“I was initially just doing it for a bit of fun really and didn’t think the business would take off as much as it did. I just enjoy creating quirky furniture,” he added

His first celebrity order came from Jake Shears of “The Scissor Sisters” who wanted one of Ben’s lamps for his apartment in New Orleans. He posted it about it on social media and the orders came flooding in with Ben going on to creating twelve more for other celebrities.

Ben said, “I couldn’t keep up with it all as I was still doing the engineering job then, so it took ages to do them, but people were willing to wait.”

The sculptures became more well known through social media and soon went from just being something Ben created for a bit of fun into a unique product which interested many people.

Celebrities who are already proud owners of one of Ben’s hand lamps include TV presenter Keith Lemon, singer Pink, comedian Alan Carr, TV presenter Alison Hammond all of whom have posted on social media about their purchases.

Ben says there are many designs he has really enjoyed creating but adds that one of his favourites was for Tamara Wall, who stars in Hollyoaks as she invited him for a behind the scenes tour of the soap set which isn’t typically open to the public and as a huge fan of the soap he was very impressed with the all access visit.

When looking for inspiration for the designs he puts on the lamps he makes sure to take a look at any shows his celebrity hopefuls have appeared on as well as seeking out their interests and their achievements, which allows him to create completely unique designs which are entirely tailored to each person.

“As soon as I get an idea for a lamp which I think would suit them I make it and then try to attract their attention by posting the sculptures on social media and hope that enough reposting the picture and tag the person to gain their attention.

“I always sign the bottom and assure the people who but the maps that they are completely unique and customised to each person.”

Ben is always busy on new project and has a number of lamps currently in the process of being made - including one for TV presenter Josie Gibson and one for Mutya Buena of the girlband, “Sugababes” who will be expecting to receive them soon.

“There are lots of exciting things to come and I still love creating my bespoke lamps,” said Ben.

You can follow his journey and order your own bespoke lamp on his Instagram, benjprice3012.