Today’s post features Part 2 of Holly Becker from Decor8‘s book launch at Liberty in London, which took place last week.
After the Decorate talk, which I wrote about in Part 1, we all made our way to the Liberty Dining Room for a styling demonstration and book signing.
Together with Holly, stylist/author Sania Pell and stylist/photographer Leslie Shewring styled a dining table for a spring lunch (in the image above), using beautiful products that they’d collected from Liberty. In the photo below, from left to right, are Sania, Leslie and Holly.
Click here to see Holly’s post where she discusses how she put together a mood board to help her decide on the elements to include in the demonstration, with a predominantly grey and pink colour scheme.
Sania explained that the initial inspiration for the dining table was the grey and white Liberty fabric chosen for the tablecloth. Other fabrics with tiny bits of grey in them were then chosen, some with a small pattern and some with a larger one.
She made some beautiful ribbon garlands with Liberty fabric cut into leaf shapes, interspersed with small lengths of fabric tied around the ribbon and pink blossom. The garlands cascaded from the ceiling and were attached to a recycled lampshade covered in fabric….with a glitter ball….especially for Holly!
Flowers including cerise anemones, lime green guelder rose, burgundy astrantia and roses were chosen from the Wild at Heart florist shop in Liberty to decorate the table and Leslie explained how they decided how to arrange them.
A variety of containers of differing heights were used including ceramic white tin cans, small glass bottles, jelly moulds and glass cloches. Some containers had individual blooms, with others having two or more flowers.
Sania also explained how the floral napkin decorations were made and how they could also be used as brooches. Plus how scraps of fabric were used to tie the cutlery into bundles.
Finally, she said that it really makes such a difference to add a colour or colours which slightly clash with the scheme…a bit of ‘wrongness’…to really make a difference to the overall design. In this case, it was the fluorescent streamers, in neon colours!
After the styling demo, Holly signed copies of Decorate, where I had the opportunity to meet her, as you’ll see below. I’m totally in awe of her achievements in the blogging world…and what a pleasure it was to finally meet her.
It was so lovely later to have the opportunity to speak to Leslie, who taught the photography part of Holly’s Blogging Your Way e-course last year. Leslie totally inspired me with her amazing floral photos…so much so, that following her lessons, I’ve moved from a ‘point and click’ to a digital SLR camera…and I adore her blog, A Creative Mint.
I also had chance to briefly meet Holly’s co-author Joanna Copestick, Sania and Debi Treloar who I featured in a post earlier this year.
Holly’s talk, styling demonstration and book signing all combined to make a very special evening, with such a buzz! This was rounded off with a late bite-to-eat with fellow bloggers and members of the Design Blog Collective who’d also been there : Carole, Kate, Pippa, Jo, Daniel, Arianna, Kia; plus Lise from Urban Style Vibes. We all commented on what a fun evening it had been and came away on a real high!
I’ll be immersed in Holly’s wonderful book now for a little while…with a review post to follow soon.
(Images : Rona Wheeldon for Flowerona)
LOve these images Rona. Thank you so much for sharing. Almost as good as being there
Thank you Fiona. You’re very welcome
such a great evening, thanks for all the detail! i shall keep this one safe. x
Hi Elisa. You’re very welcome
I too had a great time at Liberty’s! It was an amazing opportunity listening to those three talented ladies talking about their work.
And you’ve captured me with your camera! I’m the one in pink in the first picture.
Hi Concha. Glad to hear you had a lovely time too. I’d be happy to email you a copy of the photo if you’d like it…