the process of making things look beautiful

 {This was the props table, full of all the things we could use to 

make our own little scenes. What a glorious collection of beautiful pieces}

Last week I went to a styling workshop, with two of my sisters*. 

It was with the lovely, talented and very friendly Shannon Fricke. She has a beautiful, open, light and dreamy studio space in Bangalow; where she works on her styling for magazines (such as RealLiving, InsideOut, Country Style, and many many overseas editions), her books, as well as her interior designer business. She has also just launched her first collection of ceramic pieces, which are made locally, and were dotted all around the studio space with a perfect feel of touch-me please glaze.shapes.colours.

We all had such a fun day - though boy was it tiring sitting and listening to Shannon talk about her amazing life, and all that she gets up to! The lunch was delicious; with some very yummy tastes and nice care and attention to the food. Always good to enjoy well prepared, healthy yet delicious and luxurious food.

These scenes really do look like a proper styled home / studio, don't they. I so like that Shannon's styling is clean, neat, and beautiful, yet very real, livable, a place where you feel you can mess things a little bit, and there is space to curl up your feet on the chair and read a book or two in the afternoon light. 

 {this is the 'after' image of that beautiful table laden with styling props}

I came away from the workshop quite inspired to get myself into some new projects. Also, with the big reminder that both Sam + I need to be more focussed on certain particular things about Red Seed Studio. The fun part of finally getting all my inspiration images / tearsheets into some sort of order, so that I can actually look at them is a start. Making theme boards is also a really worthwhile process that I'm going to try to do more often. Pinterest is an excellent online way of keeping inspiration images in one place, and organised too; but often I really need the tactileness of some magazine pages to touch.

*for those of you wondering, about "two of my sisters". Yes, I do only actually have two birth sisters; but have another sister by love and common interests. She is the mother of one of my nephews and I've known her since I was about 13 or so.