January 30, 2012 in handmade goodness
Today I thought I would share some photos I took for recently for my friend Heleen Miller Aberson who started an online children’s clothing business a few months ago. Heleen and I first met and became friends when our boys were at nursery school together, I loved her Dutch sensibility and sense of fun and we soon became car boot buddies, sharing a love for all things vintage. We visit our local car boot sale together every month, meeting as the birds wake up, with coffees in hand and plenty of news to chat about as we rummage for treasure amongst the junk.
If you were wondering why little girl above looks familiar then that’s because she is my daughter (she turned five earlier this month) and the our other pretty little model is Heleen’s daughter. We’ve done a few mini shoots at my home after school or early on a Saturday morning, trying to keep it quick and fun before the girls get too fidgety – which is easier said than done! It’s not the first time my daughter has modelled… in fact the teddy bear in the photo below has also modelled before too! We are all on the front cover of Anita Kaushal‘s gorgeous book FamilyLifestyle Home, taken in my living room when she was a tiny three months old.
The clothes in the photos above and below are the latest Spring/Summer designs by Rokje London, a collaboration between Heleen and her Swedish friend Rebecka Bjurle. The clothes are inspired by retro prints and vintage cuts but brought up to date with soft colours. The tops are hand made from a beautiful 100% cotton fabric and they are all individually hand printed. All the tops are lined at the neck in the same colour as the print and they all have a fabric covered button at the back. These outfits are available now in their Etsy shop and there are more photos over there too. Have a look.
The photos above are from Rokje’s Winter collection and are available from the Shop Yuko website. They are all hand made and hand printed too.
A few months ago Heleen started Shop Yuko, an online children’s wear shop which has been getting lots of interest which is fantastic. Her shop offers Eastern-inspired clothing that looks a little different from the usual high street children’s clothing. She stocks clothing by Shampoodle, Redfish, Lucky Wang, Sckoon, Pom Pom and her own label Rokje.
You can see more on the Shop Yuko website and she also has a Shop Yuko Facebook page where there are more photos and news – plus my little boy makes an appearance too!
I certainly don’t consider myself a photographer but I do enjoy taking photographs and a couple of these photos have been published in The Saturday Telegraph and Angels & Urchins magazine which is pretty amazing.
And our little girls have had great fun getting dressed up and modelling too. I love my daughter’s little leg lift in the photos above which she did naturally! She also makes an appearance in some of the photos in my new book The Homemade Home for Children.
Big girls ands little girls having fun with fashion and being creative. Strike a pose!
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January 27, 2012 in vintage finds
There are certain unlikely and unexpected gifts that you just love. This beautiful old portable typewriter is one of those. My parents-in-law gave it to me as a Christmas gift and I was touched at how perfect a choice it was. I love its graphic quality as an object, and the thoughts of its history; the unknown letters, manuscripts and even books it may have been used to write. It seemed natural to place it on the bookshelf in my living room, nestled amongst the typed words.
I placed an old sheet of paper from a vintage ledger in the roller and a postcard that I bought from Lutyens & Rubinstein bookshop in Notting Hill as a surprise detail for closer inspection.
The fabric ribbon sculpture is by textile artist/designer Jessica Preston. I used it in an editorial photo shoot back in 2006, loved it and bought it from her afterwards. It still sits amongst my pile of books, like the turret on top of a tower.
The typewriter doesn’t work at the moment and requires a little tinkering from my husband, but I am just imagining the little notes I will be able to write when it does.
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January 23, 2012 in flowers
A few years ago I bought a basic glass hyacinth bulb holder which I use every year, placing it on my mantlepiece. Since then I have collected a couple more and always love the way the roots grow in the water and the interesting patterns they form before the plant has flowered. The bulb simply sits in the neck of the water-filled vase, acting as a stopper so the water rarely needs topping up.
This year I bought a bag of bulbs at my local B&Q garden centre which contained many more bulbs than I had traditional vases for. I began thinking, what could I use as alternative vessels to sit the bulbs in? I love seeing the roots growing and it is important that the bulb rests on the water and not in it, so I scoured my cupboards and placed bulbs in the necks of milk bottles, on tea light candle holders, old jam jars and vintage glass and waited to see what would happen. I included one of my bulb root experiments in a shot for Heart Home magazine where I placed a bulb in the neck of a piece of chemistry equipment I had bought at my local car boot fair – a tall glass measuring cylinder where the numbers had long since rubbed off.
In these photos some of the bulbs had grown roots for a few weeks and others were freshly placed bulbs with no root growth at that time. I like clustering the vases together in a group for extra visual impact.
Most of the hyacinths bloomed, although I don’t really mind if they don’t as the visual patterns the roots create make me happy. My plants are usually a little stunted and not tall like the ones I would buy at the florists but I still think they are beautiful. I’m sure there is a way of making them grow taller but I haven’t discovered the technique yet.
After the first batch have flowered you can begin again, placing a new bulb in fresh water and plant the others in the garden for the following year. I have just started on my second batch and next year I might experiment with different flower types too and see what happens.
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January 19, 2012 in inspiring places, interior styling
Today I would like to say thank you to Emma Lee, the talented photographer of my new book The Homemade Home for Children which will be out in a couple of months, and to share some photos of her home with you that I took while we were on location there for a day. I first worked with Emma almost 10 years ago on an Elle Decoration photo shoot and we became friends. We lived a 10 minute walk from each other at the time which meant we saw each other socially as well as working on jobs together and I was very happy when she agreed to photograph my new book. Emma has shot cook books for Gordon Ramsay, Mark Sargeant and Barrafina, editorial stories for Living Etc and Homes & Gardens magazines and commercial interiors shoots for clients including Fired Earth, M&S, Dulux, Cole & Son and Liberty. We worked hard on the shoots, had a lovely chance to catch up and have ended up with a book full of gorgeous photos.
The snaps I took here are from her home in the Ashdown Forest, part of the famous Hundred Acre Wood where A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh is set and the famous bridge is near by. It was a very wet Summer’s day and we worked inside whilst waiting for the rain to subside so we could take some images outside too. Luckily the rain did stop, the clouds broke and a few rays of sunshine meant we were able to take all the pictures we had planned on photographing. My children were there for the day too along with Emma’s sweet little dog Hesper, all taking part in a little modelling and helping us along the way. At the end of the shoot we had a moment to play Pooh Sticks in the little stream in the garden.
Emma has effortless taste and everything she touches she makes more beautiful, one of the reasons why she is in such high demand for her work. Her house is full of interesting and stylish objects with little surprises dotted about, keeping you excited to see what is around the next corner, and a divine colour palette; pale and muted with flashes of contrasting dark and brighter, fresh tones mixed in. There are many shades of grey too, a winning colour to me. What can I say, I have house envy every time I visit.
We shot here for one day of the six shoot days so you will see more of her home in my new book. Have fun spotting were we placed some of the projects and see if you can tell which projects are here.
Emma is represented by Pearson Lyle. Head over to their website to view Emma’s portfolio.
You can pre-order The Homemade Home for Children: 50 thrifty and chic projects for creative parents now on Amazon UK and Amazon US.
Thank you Emma for the beautiful photographs in my new book and a wonderful day in your home.
Sania
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January 13, 2012 in diy craft projects, homemade
This is a simple idea I had that is easy to do and gave a result that I found pleasing – a candle made with common tea lights and a vintage tart tin.
On my monthly car boot sale trips I had been buying various old baking trays, pots and jars for use as props in my Sugar/Spice shoot with Uli Schade. After the shoot I left them out on display in my studio to see if they inspired any ideas for what to do with them, rather than hide them away in one of my cupboards.
I love the rich patina of the old, weathered cooking equipment and and the implied history this gives them. How old are they and how many times have they been used? Who were the cooks that used them? What did they bake and who was it for? These kind of questions always get my mind whirring imagining the answers to the life they had led.
As I was looking in one of my kitchen cupboards one day I saw a bag of Ikea tea light candles and that sparked the idea to turn these vintage tins into candles.
I took three of the Ikea tea lights and pushed the solid wax blocks out of their thin metal casings and then pulled out the wicks by their metal disks. I placed the wax cylinders next to each other in one of the vintage tart tins, then placed it on the smallest of my gas cooker rings and melted them on a very low heat. When they had fully melted I turned off the flame, placed the wicks with the metal discs at the bottom into the desired position, leaving equal space between them, and then left it to cool. The wax hardened and I was left with a new simple candle.
This idea could be extended to a whole tray of muffin tins with one melted tea light per compartment to make a great centrepiece to a table. The base may need felt, cork or wood under it to protect the surface it sits on and, as with all flames, never leave them unattended.
When the candles have been used up, the tin can be refilled in the same way to make another candle to enjoy.
Simple little lights to warm up these cool, dark winter evenings.
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January 10, 2012 in interior styling, news
I’m sure many of you will be aware of Heart Home magazine that launched in September last year. It’s a new quarterly digital publication founded by Arianna Trapani, Carole King and Daniel Nelson and showcases British homes and designers. Snippets of my home were featured in the Winter issue last month in a story called ‘A little something from nothing‘.
I wanted to create a different slant to the shoot so I styled mini displays around my home using the objects around me, each with its own little story. Many of the objects are inexpensive car boot sale finds, holiday treasures and trinkets, but I wanted to show how pleasing displays and vignettes can be made from very little. Small pockets of detail, where everyday items can become stars. It is about embracing a pinch of handmade, a touch of homemade, nature, new items and vintage treasures – mixing them together to create new scenes, all of which should feel very personal and give joy when seen.
This shelf is in my bedroom. An empty picture frame creates a focal point and gives height to the display. You can see an earlier incarnation of this shelf in a previous blog post here.
In my living room I evoked a 1950s sculptural feel with objects like old polo and billiards balls and vintage geometry sets in different woods and neutral tones.
This is an Ikea chair that I revamped a while back with a fun skirt in St Jude’s fabric and a giant silk bow.
Vintage flea market perfume bottles sit with contemporary vases and bottles and a necklace by Emma Cassi.
Here a painted canvas acts as a backdrop to vintage clay bottles used as vases for flowers painted with fluorescent paint. Old books with the pages facing out add height and natural finds in similar tones add quirky interest – a deer skull that my husband and young son found on a walk in the countryside and beach-combed pebbles with holes in simply strung together.
Here my collection of old chemistry and laboratory equipment become unexpected vases for interesting flora and fauna. All of these were items were bought at car boot sales.
In my work room, displays of objects I use and work in progress become inspiration in themselves. For more tips on how to achieve interesting, fun displays in your home head over to Heart Home to read the full article.
The day of the photo shoot was a pleasure with lovely photographer James Balston taking all of these images. You can see James’s work over on his blog.
If you haven’t seen Heart Home yet do go and take a look at the Winter issue and the first issue and the Heart Home blog. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Spring issue has in store!
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January 6, 2012 in handmade goodness
These little items are my new pride and joy – small things to make a girl happy and add some new interest to my displays at home. My family and I visited Selvedge magazine‘s Christmas fair last month and my husband bought me these as Christmas gifts (I heavily hinted that I would love them). They were wrapped and hidden away until Christmas day and I thought I had to share them with you as they’re something I treasure.
These sweet fabric balls set in real, dried acorn cups (Oak nuts) were made by Susi Joel. I love the combination of natural and patterned, especially the Japanese print, which could look wrong but it looks so right. On the mantlepiece in my living room, it will add just a pop of colour and interest and give me joy every time I glance that way. I photographed them on pieces of vintage Japanese fabric that I had bought at the Hammersmith vintage textiles and fashion fair.
I also adore this hand-woven wire bird nest by Helen Thompson of Holy Smoke. I had seen it at the Selvedge fair the year before and had wished I had bought one then and luckily they had a stand again this year. I love the delicacy and the tiny off-shoots that look like buds. This too will take pride of place on my mantlepiece, a touch of organic amongst the rigidity of my ceramic vases.
Holy Smoke also make the most adorable wire-framed, fabric dogs oozing with character covered with linen that my son wanted to take home with him.
The Selvedge fairs are well worth a visit if you are in London and like unique, handmade products. I also bought lots of little gifts for family and friends; jewellery from Emma Cassi, rubber stamps from Noolibird, paper twine from Paperphine and soft toys from The Black Rabbit among others.
I may need a bigger mantlepiece for all my treasures!
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December 23, 2011 in diy craft projects, homemade
As Christmas is almost upon us I wanted to share the last few photographs of my collaboration with photographer Uli Schade. This is another simple idea to update plain glass baubles.
We finely shredded pages from an old book using a guillotine to cut between the lines of printed text, creating slivers of paper that we simply coiled into the baubles after removing the top. You could use scissors or a craft knife with a metal ruler on a cutting board to cut strips too and tweezers can help position them within the bauble. If you don’t have an old book then you could photocopy or print out your favourite carol or a passage from a Christmas-themed story book instead.
I also collected a few natural objects from the woodland floor on a walk with my family: pine cones, acorns and dried leaves that I sprayed a matt off white colour as additional festive decorations.
Wrapping gifts in a creative way makes a gift feel extra special for the lucky recipient and will look wonderful on display in your home until to is time to give the gift. Beautiful old metal cake tins like this one make wonderful, unique boxes for gifts with their tarnished silver patina. Keep an eye out for them at flea markets and car boot sales.
First I wrapped around the box with cotton ribbon. I then wrapped a twig in strips of Liberty fabric, attached with double sided tape. Beads were glued in place and stitched on like berries. Japanese paper was cut into leaf shapes and folded to imitate the texture of real leaves and a sprayed leaf was added too.
And that just about wraps up my creative Christmas collaboration with Uli Schade. We hope you like the ideas and the photographs and have fun making this holiday season.
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December 19, 2011 in diy craft projects, homemade
Why not turn old light bulbs into baubles? I bought these vintage light bulbs a while ago at a car boot sale. I had no particular use in mind, they just looked rather beautiful to me. Then whilst working on the floral bauble decorations, it occurred to me that they were similar – so why not try the bulbs as baubles? It’s a little bit bonkers but I like it. I simply used thin wire, wrapped and tied around the base, to create a loop to hang them from. The metal ring is a wreath frame used in floral displays, usually packed with moss or oasis; I love the simple bare bones of the exposed wire though.
Some of the wire is wound round with a strip of Liberty print fabric (a similar idea to the covered coat hanger project in The Homemade Home), the rest left bare. For a little extra I added old chandelier droplets too. You can often pick these up loose at flea markets and boot sales. I kept the colours muted and used a scrap of fabric I already had and the bulbs hang in the centre as an alternative Christmas decoration.
My friend Uli Schade, who took all of these photos, made the lebkuchen below to an old family recipe that she learned as a child. They’re a traditional German Christmas treat, a bit like gingerbread and make great edible decorations for your tree if they’re made with the recipe that bakes them hard rather than soft. You can buy similar baked decorations all over Northern Europe and they’re often decorated with brightly coloured icing (think of the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel) though here Uli used edible gold leaf as a stylish alternative.
The lebkuchen are hung with strips of paper cut from old, unwanted books and hang on a ring made from some evergreen Jasmine that I cut from my front garden wall.
Uli bought this sweet little hand-carved wooden bird from a Christmas fair in Germany. It’s attached to a wooden clothes peg and the bird nods up and down when you squeeze the peg – utterly charming.
A few more decoration ideas to add a quirky, homemade flavour this Christmas.
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December 16, 2011 in diy craft projects, flowers, interior styling
Why not turn simple clear glass baubles into mini vases and display beautiful little clippings of flora and fauna?
Here is Part 2 of my recent collaboration with talented photographer Uli Schade. We removed the metal tops from these Paperchase baubles by gently squeezing and pulling them off then added some water and pushed in the pretty and appropriate, pale green Christmas Rose flower (Helleborus niger) and a little Spruce fir tree cutting. We added just a touch of water so as not to make the baubles too heavy and used tweezers to position the foliage and ensure the flower faced upwards.
Natural string is used as ties and little offcuts of orange ribbon from VV Rouleaux add a vibrant pop of colour. You can add more water as it dries out or replace the flowers if they deteriorate. When packing the baubles away, remove the metal hangers, tip the water away and use tweezers to remove the foliage. Then rinse, leave to dry then replace the top and pack away for another year.
Another simple idea to make your Christmas decorations something different this year.
Pop back for part 3 in the next few days.
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December 14, 2011 in diy craft projects, interior styling
Why not decorate your tree decorations as well as your tree this Christmas? Here are a few simple ideas to embellish plain plastic and clear glass baubles and give them a new unique look. None take much time or effort and only use small amounts of paint and materials. You can tailor them to your festive colour scheme and they can make all the difference to the look of your tree and home.
I had some plain plastic baubles left over from a Christmas photo shoot I worked on and thought they would be perfect for personalising. I rummaged through the shed at the back of my garden and pulled out a variety of Fired Earth, Farrow & Ball and Dulux pots of paint in greenish shades along with some olive Montana Gold spray paint. Each bauble was balanced in an eggcup and painted with a flat, soft, artist’s brush, turned when dry and painted with several coats until fully covered. Other baubles were sprayed in the garden on old newspaper weighed down with stones. For an added colour pop I removed the metal tops on some and sprayed them in flouro pink to add a vivid contrast. I swapped the different coloured tops around to make the baubles more interesting and then threaded through homemade ties cut from Liberty print, suede and plain fabrics cut in strips as ties.
Clear glass baubles can be bought inexpensively in a variety of sizes, these ones are from Paperchase. The metal hanging loops can be removed by gently squeezing the looped wire at the top. Doing this allows you to add paint of your choice inside the glass. We used a pipette to add emulsion (latex) paint and left it with the top off to dry thoroughly. I also painted and sprayed leaves, picked from my garden (waxy leaves worked best) as well as wrapping twigs in fabric too.
These images are from another collaboration with photographer Uli Schade. After working together on the sugar/spice shoot we were buzzing with ideas and wanted to look at something festive but with a twist and away from the traditional.
I will be posting more images and ideas from our story over the next few days.
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December 11, 2011 in inspiring places
We had a wonderful few days in Amsterdam last weekend celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. Even though the weather was somewhat cold, grey and drizzly we had an inspiring time wandering the historic canals, museums, galleries and shops armed with Pia Jane Bijkerk’s Amsterdam: Made by Hand and the Wallpaper* City Guide to Amsterdam. The Dutch locals were lovely – friendly, laid-back with an under-stated cool style and we came home thinking it was a city we could quite happily live in.
We took inspiration from museum and gallery trips including the wonderful Rijksmuseum that, even though it is mid-renovation the one open wing is filled with stunning artworks from the Dutch golden age (Willem van de Welde I’s pen paintings from the mid 17th century were just amazing and so detailed). We also visited the Van Gogh Museum, Foam photography gallery as well as touring a couple of the beautiful canal-side houses on Herengracht and the moving Anne Frank House.
What I love about Amsterdam is that, although you are surrounded by the historic architecture and canals it doesn’t feel old fashioned nor just a big tourist attraction. With the vast volume of cyclists buzzing around it feels like a living city and you can glimpse into real homes as you wander, seeing modern interiors and creative solutions that respect the heritage but are contemporary and forward thinking.
The creativity and individuality is evident everywhere. I loved this personalised bicycle covered in silk flowers.
We visited the famous flower market and also the Waterloopein flea market which was disappointing unfortunately as it was all general stalls rather than antiques or bric-a-brac, though it looked like a lot of stalls had closed up early. The farmers’ market on the Noordermarkt was fabulous and well worth a visit.
Touring the shops, my favourites were Moooi, Droog and The Frozen Fountain. Bebob Design had a great selection of vintage and new classic 20th century furniture. I always like to visit a major, old department store on a city break and we whizzed around De Bijenkorf which also has a good cafe/restaurant on the top floor. We stumbled upon a lovely little concept store called Maison NL and peered through the window of Raw Materials home store which looked interesting but was unfortunately closed when we found it. The American Book Centre was brilliant and opposite it Atheneum had a huge international selection of creative magazines.
All in all we had a lovely time celebrating our wedding anniversary and returned inspired. Thank you for making us welcome Amsterdam, we hope to see you again soon.
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