Sania Pell

texture and tone

March 6, 2012  in interior styling, vintage finds

Whilst waiting for some guests to arrive last week I had a quick play around with a display in my kitchen and took a few photos. This little recess had been empty as my husband and I redecorated the room a couple of weeks ago and had painted it in the same dark grey as the kitchen table, which is similar to the riven slate floor. I wanted a change as it used to be white and filled with dozens of my children’s little drawings blue tacked to the wall which had made it grubby. It makes a perfect frame to display within.

My starting point was this old woodblock, a recent gift from a lovely family friend who I have known since I was a little girl. It is believed to be a vintage Liberty print block.

I then placed a pretty primula in an old pot from The Conran Shop, adding a bright, graphic splash of colour against the grey, followed by a selection of my collected treasures.

A gift, some flea market finds and new items in complementary tones and tactile textures, set with a natural floral pop of contrasting colour. A few little things displayed at home that make me happy.

My children’s drawings will undoubtedly start to build up again as they stick them to the wall, but that will just add to the charm.

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at home with emma lee

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

x

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i heart home

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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floral bauble decorations

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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christmas greens

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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embellished lampshades

September 28, 2011  in homemade, interior styling

This lampshade hangs in my bedroom and is a little idea to update a plain shade into something special. It is a simple, cylindrical white linen shade that I bought from John Lewis. I simply added a stripe of dove grey velvet ribbon, chosen to match the Fired Earth Graphite painted wall behind and help it look more considered in the overall room scheme. I then punched holes randomly around the bottom edge of the fabric shade then wired on a mixture of different types of clear, glass buttons and beads from VV Rouleaux – some tight to the fabric and some hanging slightly for added visual interest.

It only took an hour or two to make and didn’t cost much, but it makes the shade unique and adds subtle interest to the centre of the room. And the little glass details catch the light in a delicate, sparkly way in the morning when I open the curtains to a new day.

This ceiling shade hangs in my daughter’s bedroom and has been embellished and added to since she was born. It’s another shade from John Lewis that I bought years ago and is ceramic with pierced holes pierced that let light through when it is switched on. The linked ceramic discs, some with flowers on, were bought at craft fairs, a lovely glass bead and a stone with a naturally made hole found on holiday have also been added, along with an air-drying clay strip decoration that I made that hangs on white ribbon (it’s the same technique as the storage jar label project in The Homemade Home). I purposely added things of different lengths, sizes and textures in a non-uniform manner to make it more interesting and less symmetrical.

Adding little things like this is such a simple way to update a high street lampshade and help make it uniquely yours.

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