November 30, 2011 in news
I’m off to Amsterdam for a few days with my husband for our 10th wedding anniversary. I haven’t been there since I went inter-railing around Europe when I was 18 and am really looking forward to it.
I’ll be back next week but in the meantime don’t forget to enter the Natural Beauty book giveaway which ends tonight! (click here)
I will do the prize draw next week and let the winner know by email and follow up with a post. Thanks to all those who have entered so far, the comments have been great.
See you next week.
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November 17, 2011 in homemade, news
I’m very excited today to bring you my first book giveaway courtesy of CICO Books! This is the new book by Karen Gilbert and is called A Green Guide to Natural Beauty. It contains 35 step-by-step projects for homemade beauty and if you love making then this is a great book to add to your collection.
I had the pleasure of styling all of the images in this book earlier this year to help create the look for it, working with the wonderful photographer Stuart West in his studio. It was a really fun and informative few days and with Karen making the projects in front of us, it was like receiving our own private tutorials.
There are so many projects in the book that I would definitely make myself, even as a total beauty product-making novice. Many require no heat, but for the ones that do you simply follow the steps like a recipe and it is just like cooking, but you end up with beauty products at a fraction of the price of the high street. As Karen says: “making your own beauty products is so simple once you know how – it really is no different to cooking. In most cases it’s actually easier – if you can make a sauce, you can make a lotion”
Karen is a natural skincare and fragrance expert and runs artisan perfumery and natural beauty workshops. She originally trained as a make-up artist and cosmetic scientist at The London College of Fashion and went on to work as a fragrance evaluator for one of the world’s largest perfume manufacturers. After many years she decided to pursue her lifelong passion for natural health and beauty by training in aromatherapy and joining the product development team at Neal’s Yard Remedies, helping to create many of their award-winning products. A Green Guide to Natural Beauty was published in August and is her first book. If you have a moment pop by Karen’s website.
We also spent a few days in different beautiful locations photographing the finished projects in charming surroundings and it was great to style the book from cover to cover. Stuart is a fantastic food photographer and regularly works for clients including Waitrose, John Lewis, Costa Coffee, Delicious Magazine and many more.
All the photos above are shown courtesy of CICO Books – check out all of their craft books on their website. The photos below are mine that I took for this post.
The book is fab with 35 recipe projects, 144 pages and 200 colour photos. It includes a chapter on getting started and then projects falling into three categories: ‘for the face’, ‘for the body’ and ‘bath and shower’. Karen shows you how to make your own beauty products in your kitchen at home, using easy-to-obtain, natural ingredients and easy-to-follow methods. For the face, there are moisturisers, face masks and cleansers; for the body there are scrubs and shower gels, soaps and body lotions. And when you need some extra-special pampering, there are recipes for lip balms, massage bars, bath oils and eye gels.
You can try your hand at making a neroli hydrating spritz or a jojoba and aloe vera moisturiser, mango and lime body butter or lemon and tea tree foot balm, bergamot and grapefruit wake-up wash or cocoa butter lip balm – the hardest part is choosing which project to try first! Each recipe has clear step-by-step photographs to guide you, and there are numerous variations.
I was naturally drawn to the bath chapter of the book, the chocolate bath melts smelled divine whilst we were making them and would be wonderful gifts to give away too, as would many of the other projects in this chapter. This book would make a great gift, perhaps accompanied with some beautiful empty bottles and raw ingredients for the recipient to start making their own beauty products straight away. Or just keep it all for yourself and make lots of things to give away as gifts.
And here is the good news, CICO Books have let me have one copy worth £14.99/$19.95 to give away to one of you and it’s open to everyone, worldwide!
All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and simply tell me – what do you like making?
The closing date for entries is midnight 1st December 2011 and I will enter everyone’s name in a draw and select a winner by random. The winner will be notified by email.
Great, hey? So you could be getting an extra Christmas present this year if you’re the lucky one!
If you can’t wait that long then the book is available to buy now on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk which also has a ‘look inside’.
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November 8, 2011 in homemade, news
I thought I would post a little update to tell you about my new book today. It popped up on Amazon recently and my lovely friend Holly Becker mentioned it in a very sweet post about my work over on decor8.
It is a follow up to The Homemade Home and the working title is “The Homemade Home for Children: 50 thrifty and chic projects for creative parents“. It features in-depth handmade projects with full step-by-step, illustrated projects as well as quick ideas – all with beautiful colour photography.
If you liked my previous book and have young children, are planning a family, have nieces or nephews or even grandchildren then I hope you will like this one too. And although I’ve made the projects for adults to do for and with children, I’ve made them stylish rather than overtly childish so you can create things you can cherish forever and pass on to new generations.
There are plenty of projects that would look great in a house without children and many ideas can be translated or used as inspiration for more grown up versions.
I’m afraid I can’t show you anything from it yet apart from the draft cover, so I photographed it above, along with a few other things that were lying on my craft table.
But if you liked the child-orientated projects in The Homemade Home, such as the China Transfers, Cowboy-collage Chest of Drawers, Creepy Crawly Lamp, Stitched Portraits, Sock Toys and Ribboned Skirt then this book will appeal.
If you don’t have a copy of The Homemade Home then here is a flick-through video we made on my son’s little Flip video camera when the book came out (a year before I started this blog) to give you an idea of what my last book is like (select the 720pHD setting for better quality):
I had a meeting with my publisher Cico Books last week and saw the proper proofs for the first time and it is looking really lovely. I’ll try not to go on too much about it as I know it’s a while until it is released but after five months hard work it’s very exciting to see it all coming to fruition.
It will be published on 8th April next year retailing at £16.99/$24.95 but you can pre-order it on Amazon now (thrifty tip – it’s already less than retail!)
You can pre-order it now by going to: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
I will share more as and when I can. Happy making!
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November 2, 2011 in news
After finishing writing my new book I jumped straight back into some commercial advertising work for Harrods of London. Styling the children’s fashion on this studio shoot was fun and it was great to work with the lovely team there.
The images are for the front cover and chapter openers of the Harrods Christmas 2011 toy catalogue that’s in the store now.
Photos by the super talented Julia Bostock (see her portfolio on the link) and a big thank you to One Photographic.
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October 31, 2011 in flowers, news
I was playing around with scale and visual relationships between objects when I took this photo. I love that at first glance you think this is a full size pumpkin and the toy must be bigger, but then you realise it’s on a page from an old novel which means it must be small and it suddenly doesn’t make sense. What size is everything?
It’s a mini pumpkin, the size of an orange, and the horse is the size of your thumbnail!
Happy Halloween everyone!
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October 12, 2011 in news
I’m done. Hooray! Six months of planning, making, styling, shooting, drawing and writing has drawn to a close. My deadline has been met and now everything is with my publisher to work their magic. They’re at the Frankfurt book fair at the moment with the blad (a small draft sample of the book) and I can’t wait to hear how it’s been received by everyone there.
It’s a lot of work producing a book, but I love coming up with ideas, making things and shooting them. To help me through the last bit of writing I would laugh to myself imagining I was Carrie Bradshaw, sitting on my bed with a laptop writing Stitch in the City! I don’t know as yet how much I can share about the details of the book but as soon as I do I will let you know. If you liked my last book I hope you’ll like this one too.
I took these photos in my studio. This embroidery is a test sample I made for the embroidered window panel project in my last book, The Homemade Home. Please have look out for it if you haven’t seen it yet!
My other work has been on hold while I have been concentrating on the book but I’ve jumped straight back into the deep end with a commercial shoot last week, an editorial shoot next week and I’m also taking the Blogging Your Way course to try and get a little more knowledgeable about this whole big social interweb thing. It never stops!
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A place to share my work and the things I love: interior styling and great design; fine art and contemporary craft; exciting new products and flea market finds; handmade and homemade; celebrating the old and embracing the new; creativity, family and fun. The things that I believe make your house a home.
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