Sania Pell

afternoon tea with remodelista

June 30, 2012  in food styling, interior styling

A few Saturdays ago I had the pleasure of top interior design blog Remodelista, the sourcebook for contemporary living, as guests at my home for afternoon tea and a photo shoot. London Editor Christine asked if I could create a tablescape for them to feature, and with casual family summer lunches in mind I decided to create a look that was simple, colourful, informal and relaxed and based around growing vegetables and having raw ingredients on your kitchen table to make your own sandwiches as you sit. These are some of the photos from the afternoon, taken by talented photographer Rahel Weiss.

As it was a Saturday my children were at home and involved too and one of their favourites is egg and cress sandwiches. I chose a selection of eggs from my local Waitrose – quails’ eggs, lovely soft blue eggs and white eggs – which I grouped in pastel bowls. I hard boiled them all, so they could be peeled and sliced to make DIY egg sandwiches. The children grew watercress from seed the week before in pretty pastel egg cups. I sliced the farmhouse batch bread, buttered it and let the children peel the eggs and crumble and slice them onto the bread. They snipped and added the cress and sprinkled a few grains of sea salt on top and them devoured the crusty sandwiches with crumbs all around.

To decorate the table I painted terracotta pots from my local garden centre with emulsion paint in shades of grey, and used them as bowls to display radishes with their foliage still attached. I did the same went with organic carrots as they look so lush with the long stem and leaves still attached, adding to the display. I only have herbs growing in my little London garden at the moment so I bought growing lettuce still in soil in my local Sainsbury’s and replanted them in the painted terracotta pots, washing the leaves first and leaving scissors on the table nearby to snip the required amount off. The idea was you could harvest your own salad right there at the table. A painted wooden fruit box from my local market was used as a tray to contain some of the pots. It is one of the projects from my book The Homemade Home for Children.

Fizzy drinks were bought in old fashioned looking glass bottles, which I bought from Marks and Spencers. Striped straws add fun but in grey and white matched my kitchen decor. Fruit such as strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, and mint leaves too, were added to ice cubes creating a sweet little detail to our drinks.

I made the centrepiece simply with water-filled glass milk bottles (yes, we have a milkman!) with garden flowers and vegetables pushed down into the water, their foliage acting as greenery.

A Victoria sponge cake with whipped double cream spread over and strawberries generously piled on top is an easy pudding that looks and tastes delicious. The three little letter pebbles spell the word EAT and are from another project in my book.

A big thank you to Remodelista for popping by, (you can see the original post here), to Rahel Weiss for the great photos (see her folio here), to my friend Chrissie Holden for helping out and her culinary skills and to my children for gobbling it all up.

This informal lunchtime meal had a sprinkle of creativity, a dollop of fun and plenty of crumbs and was enjoyed by all.

Comments: 9 Leave a comment

a book of flowers

June 15, 2012  in flowers

I took these photos after picking a few flowers from my garden. It is a small space, a city garden where a little bit of nature can be seen from the kitchen through the modern grey-framed glass doors. A camelia already existed when we moved in but the rest I had great delight in selecting and planting after we remodelled the kitchen and garden about five years ago. I ordered the bulk of my initial planting through the online company Crocus, choosing plants that flower with white or pale blooms like climbing hydrangea, clematis, jasmine, black elder, white lavender and more. Each season I look forward to the bursts of flowers and am always pleasantly surprised at the bulbs that come up that I had forgotten I had planted.

The beautiful textured pages of old books add a nostalgic feel to the images and make lovely backdrops. They remind me of pressing flowers in old books when I was a little girl, something I always did whilst staying with my grandparents on holiday.

Photographing flowers in this way always gives me great pleasure and sparks off new ideas as I play and change the displays. I automatically tend to shoot these floral patterns from directly overhead. I think it is an ingrained way of seeing having worked as a textile designer for so many years.

I drew simple, fine lines in pencil creating fantasy stalks for the delicate tiny flowers of the black elder that I had dissected, capturing it in time with a little photo sketch.

This is really part one of this story as these images led on to lots more ideas that I photographed. I will post part two of my fun with flowers another time, so do pop back soon.

Comments: 20 Leave a comment

quick idea : liberty plant pots

June 5, 2012  in diy craft projects, flowers

Here is a quick idea to update plain and simple terracotta plant pots with paint and fabric. I made these pots for my book launch at Liberty to help personalise and style my corner of the store. Liberty print fabric works well as the ditsy pattern contrasts against the flat paint and it is available in a multitude of colours and variations, plus you only need a little so it is a great idea for using up those remnants you keep hold of.

The plant pots are easy to make and add a little detail to an otherwise plain vessel. I bought standard-shaped classic terracotta pots in various small sizes from a local independent garden centre, but they are readily available at big stores like B&Q and Homebase and are very reasonably priced. Paint your pot in a colour that fits with your scheme. I used household paint that was easily at hand, some left-over Fired Earth and a Farrow & Ball tester pot, that both happened to be water based emulsion. I gave the pots two coats to give the terracotta a solid covering and left them to dry.

To create a strip around the top, wrap your fabric around the circumference to mark the length then cut a strip of fabric slightly longer than circumference by the height of the lip of the flower pot. Stick double-sided tape onto the reverse and stick straight onto the lip of the flower pot, overlapping slightly at the end. Using tape also means you can remove the fabric and re-use it, or change it to another fabric.

I also cut out some small motifs directly from the patterned fabric. To do this, iron bondaweb to the reverse of the fabric to prevent fraying and then cut out the motif with small, sharp fabric scissors. Using a paint brush and pva glue paint the glue onto the reverse and carefully stick into place. You could have just one motif or continue the pattern all the way around. These are really suitable for inside use only (though may be ok outside for a dry summer). Don’t forget to place them on a saucer though before watering the plants as these type of pots tend to have drainage holes in the bottom.

I photographed them recently in the Curiosity Cabinet project from my new book The Homemade Home for Children, which hangs on the wall in my daughter’s bedroom. The pots and vases in the background create a trompe l’oil effect – a little trick to the eye.

This is just a small, fun way to update something ordinary that can make your house unique to you.

If you like this idea, you may also like my fabric wrapped vases.

Comments: 12 Leave a comment

homemade toys

May 25, 2012  in books, homemade

I snapped a few pictures of some wooden planes and boats that are sitting on shelves and chests of drawers in my son’s bedroom. They are little objects my father made about twenty years ago, simply put together from scraps of wood and old nails from his toolbox. I painted them in bright colours and personalised them with initials and words with meaning, like ‘Riba’ which means ‘Fish’ in Croatian and was the name of my grandfather’s little boat that we pootled along the coast in.

I left one of the boats as it was to show the natural texture of the wood and the simplicity of how it was made. My father and son still make driftwood toys together every summer in Croatia, see a previous post here.

When my son was born we hunted out this little airplane and hung it in his bedroom, suspended by a splash of a neon ribbon. It was this plane that inspired the ‘Balsa Wood Planes’ project in my new book – The Homemade home for Children – which has full step-by-step instructions if you want to try making your own. The image below is by Emma Lee and is an out-take from the photo shoots for the book. It is my little boy as he is now, enjoying being part of the fun.

These homemade toys are so simple and cost nothing but a little time, and I treasure them because of that.

They are things that cannot be bought, but made – with love and family.

Comments: 13 Leave a comment

i love tracey

May 23, 2012  in things to wear

One rainy day a month or so ago I was buying ribbons at VV Rouleaux on Marylebone High Street and the heavens opened. My tiny handbag-size umbrella was just too small to keep much of the torrential rainfall at bay so I ran into Tracey Neuls‘ shoe shop a few doors down. I adore her shoes and have bought a few pairs over the years, they always remain firm favourites. They are stylish and quirky and impeccably made from gorgeous leather and materials. So whilst waiting for the rain to subside I tried on a few styles and the ‘Jane’ shoe came home with me. An extravagance (or an ‘investment’ as I tell myself) but I have had wonderful comments about them whenever I wear them,which has been a lot, and I do feel that my outfit is complete when they are on my feet.

My friend Uli Schade photographs Tracey’s range, always with a twist of fun – have a look at the fabulous photos on Uli’s new website.

Which ones would you choose?

Comments: 5 Leave a comment

london showers

May 20, 2012  in my london

April and May are usually rainy here in the UK but it’s been especially wet for the last few weeks, making up for the fact that there wasn’t much rain earlier in the year. On one particularly dark and wet Sunday last month we hopped in the car and drove across London to Tate Modern to check out the Damien Hirst exhibition. It’s a pleasant drive on a Sunday as the traffic is less, you can park on the back streets for free and we get to see the amazing architecture on the route, from the historic landmarks to the new architectural structures.

Shooting from the car whilst moving meant my shots were abstract and blurred, reducing London to a range of grey tones with splashes of red – post boxes, telephone boxes, buses and traffic lights glowing in the monochrome views.

Maybe it’s why I love the use of grey, it surrounds me in my every day London life. I painted my front door dark grey about six years ago and with a slate front path and basalt chippings, my house often matches the the stormy sky.

We have the annual family membership which give you access to the paid exhibitions like Picasso, Kusama and Hirst at all of the Tate museums. If you live close enough to visit regularly it is brilliant and will pay for itself many times over.

Even a run down the steps to the Turbine Hall in the rain became fun and my kids loved it. We all enjoyed the Damien Hirst exhibition and although it was very busy, it intrigued and amazed the children and my husband and I enjoyed it too. It is well worth a visit.

We’ll be back again soon for more artistic inspiration, especially on these rainy London days.

Comments: 7 Leave a comment