December Florals

I feel I should apologise for my absence.

I haven't posted anything for far too long - as much as I've wanted to do - I'd been compiling the Christmas wish list for months - I just haven't had a second to do it.  Plus, country living has rendered us without phone lines and internet for weeks.  So it's not entirely my fault.  I thought I'd share my photo album for the last month showing what I've been up to so to prove I haven't been just sitting around slacking, getting fatter.  On that note, I can't quite believe just how soon the third small person will be here.  This weekend is going to spent organising/buying sterilisers/washing tiny baby grows.

Doing a Christmasy shoot with Jo Malone London in their London townhouse.

A 60th Lunch in a London restaurant.

A woodland, winter wonderland 40th Birthday party.

A Christmas breakfast for Jo Malone London.

A christmas lunch at Daylesford Organic.

A Christmas dinner at a client's house.

A christening at Blenheim Palace.

Christmas with Jo Malone

I was completely overjoyed when one of my all time fave brands,Jo Malone London, approached me suggesting we collaborate on Christmas decorating a few months ago.

They chose four of their fragrances and my job was to come up with ideas of how to decorate their London town house for Christmas, incorporating these scents.

The first one was Pine and Eucalyptus and I created a very simple but high-impact mantle piece.  Lots of recycled glass bottles, green and painted gold eucalyptus and dark red hydrangeas.  So easy to recreate at home. 

Ingredients

Pine & Eucalyptus Candles

11 different sized, large, recycled green glass bottles

2 big bags of fir cones

20 stems of dark red hydrangeas

3 bunches of eucalyptus cinerea

2 bunches of long stemmed eucalyptus robusta

1 bunch of gold-sprayed eucalyptus populus with berries

A box of dried lichen

Gardening secateurs

Florist wire

Ribbon

To make the garland

Measure out how long you want the garland to be. Add an extra 20 cm on each end to use as hanging loops. Lay the eucalyptus out along the ribbon, like a long, fat sausage. 

Hold onto the reel wire tightly and starting at one end, carefully wrap it up and around the foliage and ribbon to bind them together. Secure the wire at the other end.

Hang the garland. Next feed in the hydrangea and golden berried eucalyptus wherever you want. It’s a matter of personal taste so keep adding foliage until you achieve your desired size and then add flowers.

For the mantle piece

Very, very simple – arrange the glass bottles along the fireplace, mixing up the sizes. Fill the outer bottles with the tallest stems of the eucalyptus robusta, and then fill the inner bottles with the shorter stems of the eucalyptus cinerea.

When you’re happy with how they all look, add in lots of different sized Pine & Eucalyptus candles among the bottles. Finally, scatter the fir cones and dried lichen along the ledge.

www.jomalone.co.uk

www.willowcrossley.com