‘have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ 

William Morris

I’ve curated a beautiful box of goodies.

Consisting of pieces that I love and represent ‘me’, I think you’ll love them too.

I share some insights into the thinking behind the gift box, as well as more details about the products, their makers and why I included them:

Deliberately naiive and almost medieval in it’s appearance, it’s unevenness and irregularity really speak to me.

It was made by the chef of the fabulous local gastropub The Moorcock. Their ethos is so closely aligned to mine that a collaboration made perfect sense.

If it wasn’t for a row of trees, we would be able to wave at each other across the valley.

As well as growing their own veg, supplemented with other local produce, they use seasonal and often foraged ingredients.

They also, rather fabulously, make their own wonky, rough and imperfect ceramics on site, incorporating sandstone from the moor, defunct metal scourers from the kitchen, eggshells and the ash of the charcoal they cook over. A match made in heaven.

I’ve long admired their gorgeous crockery and actually have a wedding there in 2021, where flowers will fill their gorgeous ceramics .

It was actually Covid that prompted me to contact them. I wanted in some tiny way to try to support this wonderful local business that, like many others, kept having to change the way they traded and mostly at short notice.

Thankfully they were as excited as I was about a collaboration and we hope to have more in the future, maybe I’ll even get to give a class there in person :)

Lunaria seeds

It was important to me that something from my garden was incorporated for you to add to yours. There’s something so personal about exchanging seeds isn’t there?

Because it really made itself at home this year, I thought the white honesty, would be perfect.

I scattered my seeds ‘willy nilly’ last autumn, here in West Yorkshire. Flowering started in early April and lasted for a good couple of months, buzzing and fluttering with bees and butterflies all the while.

I have included a slightly less haphazard method of sowing on the packet!

wrist warmers

I love wrist warmers and wear them all winter long, in fact almost all year round. I have been known to take them abroad even in summer (I really hate being cold). They are obviously especially fabulous during the colder months for keeping exposed wrists warm (funny that!), whilst freeing up fingers and hands for all the flowery, soil-covered and often watery work.

They were hand knitted locally for Hat Therapy a beautiful shop in Hebden Bridge, that’s well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.  Again, I just wanted to support another lovely local business, albeit in a tiny way.

 Black metal snips

 As well as being very easy on the eye and perfect for styling (see the image at the very top of this page), these beautiful snips are surprisingly usable as well. Believe me, not all the ‘aesthetic’ ones are!

We created a bespoke pouch for safe-keeping and to protect the postman in case of disasters en route ;)

 Wooden bobbin with twine

Like the snips, this bobbin is perfect for styling because it’s just so gorgeous, but that aside, we florists/gardeners can never have too much twine can we?  The snips handily slot into the ridge at the top if required.

I have a few of these bobbins around the shelves of the workshop.

I love having lovely looking stuff around me in the workshop, it really helps spark my creativity.

For too long I worked in a very practical, functional space; maximising storage areas and places to put designs ahead of delivering the event. But it wasn’t at all inspirational. Now that I’ve allowed myself to slow down, I surround myself with gorgeous items and they give me a little thrill every time I see them. William Morris would approve!

Paper goods

I love (read *am obsessed by*) paper products.

Especially glorious textured paper, I think it stems from my former life in the printing industry. So I’ve absolutely loved getting slightly carried away sourcing these beautiful pieces of stationery. Gorgeous, textured and rough-edged handmade paper, letterpress printing and blind embossing, all things I ADORE

All very cleverly done by Phylecia Sutherland (including making the paper) and incorporating my lovely new branding by Caz at Making Waves.

wrapping

Since visiting Japan last year, I’ve been utterly fascinated by their wrapping skills. Whilst there, I bought a beautiful little pad of delicate, wafer-thin, marbled paper from a paper store in Kyoto. I’ve kept it wrapped ever since, because the wrapping was just so beautiful.

With this box I wanted to emulate their skills in a small way.

The pot is wrapped with a piece of rough cloth, furoshiki style; and the wrist warmers wrapped with a copper tissue and tied with a velvet ribbon

It was important to me to bring texture all the way through to the tag, so I created a stacked, swing tag incorporating the printed tag, a section of artists’ handmade paper in raw siena and all completed with small scales of bark from the sycamore trees that surrounded the house.

The paper goods are all enclosed in a gorgeous brown outer envelope and finished off with a beautiful wax seal from the wild.

I’ve really enjoyed the process of putting this gift box together.

Not having a shop means I’ve never had the delight of beautiful products arriving, this box has given me a chance to experience that delicious frisson of excitement as everything arrives.

I hope you enjoy your own wonderful frisson of excitement as you receive your own gift box.