Paper Stars

What else to do on a quiet Sunday afternoon other than make some botanical stars as I call them. I made these from an old school book (not mine, mine is safe) and I think they look really pretty. I like how these will be around all year but at this time of the year, you can make them from more festive papers to create a different look. Anyway, if you have been inspired, this is how I made them.

You will need paper (it can really by any paper you can imagine, from sheet music to shiny golden or simple brown paper. Glue. Twine and a pair of scissors.

From the page shown above, I made the star you’ll see at the end of the blog post and that is the same size as the one next to the page shown here. You can make big ones with bigger pieces of paper, of course.
So make sure you have two pieces of paper to start with and both the same size.

Accordion fold your paper. Then fold each into two in the middle. Then tie the two together in the middle with a piece of twine/string. This will be your hanger for the star too, so make sure you leave them long enough.

Once you’ve added the twine (but I guess this step can be done at the beginning too) cut the ends as above. These will be the end points of your star.

You can now start glueing together the sides as above. Make sure to glue the twine as shown above, as that’s where your star will hang from.

Glue all sides until you get the full circle, your star.
Repeat. And enjoy.

Chastleton House - Garden

And here’s the continuation to the previous post - Chastleton House - the garden of Chastleton House. Perfectly imperfect as it is, no words needed.

Chastleton House

I realize I haven’t posted for ages and the story is the same as before, let the pictures talk for themselves. Absolutely LOVED visiting Chastleton House. Read all about it here and see what I saw there below.. Enjoy! And visit it if you can. An absolute treasure.

PS - I updated this post as I went back soon after the first visit with friends and added some more photos and separated the garden form the house into two blog posts. Voilà.

Great Chalfield Manor

Medieval manor house par excellence. Another little gem of the National Trust although still privately owned and lived in, Chalfield Manor was my perfect stop on the way home from a shoot in Somerset. It was pouring rain so I only used my phone to take pictures but despite the rain, I absolutely loved discovering this beautiful garden.

Welcome to Yorkshire at Chelsea

This May has been a crazy busy month, with lots of travels but oh, with so many beautiful gardens! I started this week at the Chelsea Flower Show where I was happy to find yet another Welcome to Yorkshire garden. A little bit of magic in London, almost a fairy tale garden but most importantly, there were lots of foxgloves too. I will share more photos from Chelsea later on but I know that most of you loved this particular garden a lot, so here it comes..

Crovie

On our trip to Scotland during Easter, we travelled through the Cairngorms up to the seaside villages of Moray. My favourite of them all was the picturesque and tiny village of Crovie, which is lying on a narrow ledge between the cliffs and the sea. Due to its location, you have to leave your car up on the cliff and take some steep steps down (and back!) to the village. Which is absolutely beautiful and so very peaceful. You definitely hear no cars only the waves and the occasional seagulls. If you’re ever in the area, do not miss this tiny, tranquil place.

Chatsworth - Early Spring

After a very wet first visit to Chatsworth last Autumn and on my way to a very exciting photo shoot in Yorkshire, I decided to stop at Chatsworth again to see the gardens in early Spring. I just love how behind the fancy house, there’s this most beautiful working garden with my favourite shed in the world. Look ..

The work I love

This year started at 200mph and I haven’t yet had the chance to write about what I’ve been up to over the last year or so. So instead of writing such a post, I thought it would be nice to give you an overview of my work as a photographer.

Gardens

I feel extremely lucky to be regularly commissioned by House & Garden magazine to photograph some stunning gardens in the UK and abroad.

One of these gardens was Torrecchia Vecchia in Italy, which Dan Pearson worked on for several years. This was published in May 2018 and later that year I photographed Dan in his private garden in Somerset. One of these images, from this visit, will be used at Chatsworth on an interpretation board explaining Dan’s role in replanting the Trout Stream at Chatsworth.

In the March 2019 issue of House & Garden you can see this garden of another great garden designer Arne Maynard. When I look at these images, I get so excited again, as photographing in the first morning light is something most magical and impossible to explain. You definitely must experience it.

I also photograph gardens for private commissions, this was one of those. If you’d like me to photograph your own garden, do get in touch. I have some exciting garden shoots for this year too, private and not so private ones, I can’t reveal much about these just now.

All things flowers

I often work with Green and Gorgeous flower farm and photograph some of their courses.

Like the one with the most charming Shane Connolly

or the ever so talented Debbie George. I visited Debbie in Yorkshire too and photographed her in her beautiful home. You’ll all be able to see it later this year, I’ll let you know when and where.

I also often shoot with Botanikafloral, and a 4 part series of our collaboration appeared in Country Living UK in 2018-19.

I often work with Claire at Honeysuckle and Hilda. She teaches floral styling classes and these are always very informative and fun. Pictured here is Sarah at Simply by Arrangement from one of those hot Summer’s day classes held in Hambleden, Oxfordshire.

I love when people contact me and ask me to photograph their projects that are so dear to their heart. This is how Sarah from Growthfully contacted me and trusted me with images for her brand new website.

We had several shoot days but one of them was really special, Sarah had the idea to set up a class in a beautiful glasshouse and garden in Berkshire.

All things beautiful and creative

I’m very much an introvert and photographing gardens and flowers has always suited me, hiding behind the camera, being on my own in a garden was something I always felt most comfortable with. But then photography opened up this brand new, very exciting world to me that I absolutely love! I get to meet so many talented people, I love working with those who love what they do. This of course includes all those I’ve mentioned above too.

Some of these inspiring people are Natasha from Hill View Farm and my favourite potter, Joanna Oliver. I photographed them for a local independent magazine, Chiltern Food Magazine.

Events

Another place that definitely brought me out of my introvert shell is Soho House. I can’t publish images from all the shoots there due to their privacy policy but I’m sure Santa and Sophie Ellis-Bextor won’t mind their photos here from the Snow-Ho event this Winter. At Soho (usually at the Farmhouse in Oxfordshire) I shoot bigger events but sometimes private birthday parties, as well.

Lucky me, I got to shoot the soft opening of the brand new and classy Mollie’s Diner. It was a super important and very hectic night for them, I was whizzing around busy waiters and hungry guests. Thanks to the images I took here, I was asked by Kirsty Young to photograph at one of their private family dinners. I was so excited, like probably never before.

And this brings me to this story. Years ago, when I was busy putting together my garden photography portfolio, on my way to a garden, I was listening to Desert Island Discs on the radio, the one where Kirsty was talking with Dan Pearson. Who would have thought that not so later on, I’d meet both of them ..

I also shoot weddings. And I’m lucky that weddings that are very close to my own style find me so I enjoy these thoroughly. Long grass and a wildflower meadow by the Thames, yes please!

Or other private parties like birthdays or anniversaries. Again, country house, garden party and super hosts, yes please.

This year, there will be more gardens, some of them abroad, there will be dream commissions (I absolutely cannot wait to share these with you) and I’ll be teaching a lot. I’ll be teaching 1:1 classes for some of Britain’s most talented florists, I’ll be teaching classes at Daylesford Farm and I often teach at home too. I love teaching, as I’m actually a teacher by profession and I also love to give so that’s only natural to share the knowledge and love for photography.

So voilà, I hope the above gives you a very good idea of what I do and what my style is. If you’d like to work with me, please do get in touch. If you’d like to follow my journey as a photographer, you can always find me here or on Instagram.