Rachel Hein Photography

It's almost a whole year ago, that Rachel Hein came to our home and took these amazing photographs (amongst others) of Sebastian and Kingston. Sebastian was six months old and we wanted to have some beautiful pictures to record this stage of our lives. Aren't they great?
Rachel was so relaxed and after a chat and a cuppa she started snapping away. We weren't even in the room for this shot! Kingston is such a nosey dog (typical boxer), that he had to 'oversee' and slowly edged his way into the limelight. I love the result and I'm so glad Rachel let Kingston poke his nose in.
A photo shoot is such a lovely idea if you have new additions to your family, or for a kid's birthday party or just to record something special like your family decorating the Christmas tree. I love the ideas of getting vouchers towards a photo session, or prints, as a Christmas gift. Check out Rachel's blog for more photos and this super cute shoot she did for Perdie & Boo.
I loved the result of our family shoot so much that I asked Rachel to help me out with an exciting interiors editorial project I'm doing at the moment. The still life scenes are completely different to the active kids she's used to snapping but the results are brilliant! More on that very soon so watch this space!

Rachel Hein Photography

Caroline Swift Breakables

I get my love for tableware and ceramics from my mum...who incidentally has a thing for spoons too. She has a little table of pretty spoons in the dining room and her collection of unusual ceramic crockery, mostly from degree shows by new designers, is growing nicely too.
Reading this back she sounds a bit like a crazy lady with weird ornaments everywhere but her taste is more akin to the work of former benetton knitwear designer, Caroline Swift's paper thin bone china bowls, pretty spoons and these amazing, intricate, stoneware flowers...i'd be afraid to hold those beautiful bowls too tight!

Made in England and available here...any guesses what mum's getting for Christmas??!

Paper Gifts

For our first wedding anniversary we got each other paper gifts.
As we were visiting Paris, my grand plan was to take my husband to the comic book artist, Moebius' shop where he could choose a limited edition print and hopefully have it signed. However, after an expensive taxi ride to the opposite side of the French capital, in a month when Parisiennes generally vacate the city...the shop was closed.
Fortunately, on our last day we took the Metro out to La Defense, home to La Grande Arche and many more futuristic, architectural phenomenons on the outskirts of the city where we happened upon an awesome art store called, Arteum. Needless to say we were there for quite some time exploring the shelves.
I eventually found my 36 year old husband in the 'Petits Artiste' section where he proclaimed, with much excitement, that he had found what he wanted, from me, for our anniversary....a large model cardboard robot by Calafant...
My husband got me 'Sundays Are For Lovers'; a lovely book curated by Maria Alexandra Vettese, by independant American publishers, Lines & Shapes, in which artists express what they like to get up to on a Sunday...I love it.
How do you spend your Sunday?

Book images courtesy of Lines & Shapes via Daily Candy
Robot available from here

Three Times a Charm

A couple of weeks ago, an old school friend contacted me through facebook and requested 3 handwritten copies of this lovely poem to give as gifts. What Words Alone Can't Say, by Nathan Wende was read at her surprise wedding!! They fooled friends and family by inviting them to their 'engagement party'. I love that idea!!
I wrote each out on light-weight, white, line textured paper (my favourite kind) and although they look pretty similar there are slight differences in all three, which i love.

They were framed in contemporary white frames with an off white border. What do you think?
If you would like anything handwritten please get in touch. Check out some other examples here.
My email address can be found here.All photographs were taken by me.

Neil Roland, Photographer

Had to tell you about one of our favourite wedding gifts: this beautiful montage from my cousin, Neil Roland. He's a very talented, well known photographer based in Manchester. As it happens Manchester is also home to a fair few members of my family and where my husband's grandmother emigrated to Australia from in the 50s.

He created it just for us and called it 'Roots to the Future'. Every part of it symbolises something to do with us. It includes a copy of my great, great granfather's papers used to escape Russia during the war (which i had never seen before); a vintage image of Australia when it was known as 'New Holland'; each image of our initials are from signage of famous buildings in Manchester and the art deco door handles are from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow where i grew up.
Here's a few of my favourites from his collections.



The 1st image was taken by me and the rest are from Neil's website