What’s the best way to celebrate our Queen’s diamond jubilee? With a cup of tea and a slice of cake, of course.
On the 1st of June, up and coming bookshop Watermark will be hosting a Tea and Cake Jubilee extravaganza in partnership with Hardie Grant books and Teapigs. Come along and and enjoy a cuppa and a nice slice of cake, and meet me, the illustrator of Tea and Cake. Fingers crossed we’ll have goodies bags for people buying copies of Tea and Cake on the day and I’ll be there to sign books.
All donations towards cake will go to the Evening Standard’s Get London Reading fund, so you can feel a little bit less guilty about that second slice of Victoria sponge.
I’ve been meaning to design a cover for Emma for a while now, and this is what I came up with. Just for fun, here is the original sketch in and photoshop mock up.I think cherubs are a vastly underrated illustrative subject. I think when most people think of cherubs they think of marble statues in gravel yards, but aren’t these little guys by Andy Warhol jolly?
For a while now I have been visiting the beautiful florist around the corner from my flat, mostly buying plants, and then bringing them back in and saying “What am I doing wrong? Why is it dead??” (the dead plants are 100% my fault, not the shop’s). I gave the owner, Migle, a print of my Flower Shop illustration to say thank you for all free plants she gave me to replace the ones I killed and the general gardening advice. She loved the print and is now stocking my cards in her beautiful shop.
I was quite excited to try this Aubin and Wills nail varnish I received in my Wish Magazine goodie bag, as I’ve been getting very into nail art at the minute. This is an amazing nail varnish; it went on smoothly, was opaque with only one coat and dried really quickly. Plain black nails aren’t very me though, so I decorated mine with some little flowers.
Yet again I have spent another evening sipping champagne and eating cake in order to celebrate the launch of a publication. This time was was Peggy Porschen Boutique Baking and I was accompanied by my BFF Katie.Peggy Porschen’s pink parlor was so pretty it almost bordered on surreal, the entire shop looked good enough to eat.
The book is beautiful, full of cakes and treats with a real eye for presentation and decoration. If the samples available on the night were anything to go by, the the cakes in this book will be as delicious as the are beautiful.What I Wore
Cake and gin cocktails. Is there a better way to spend a sunday afternoon? All this indulgence was to celebration the launch of Wish magazine, a collaboration between best friends Carrie and Lucy.I was a absolutely lovely event. You know it going to a good event when before you even arrive stylish girls are congregating outside Mornington Crescent station, invitations and iphones in hand. One of those stylish ladies was Olivia, who it was lovely to finally meet after I designed her blog banner at the beginning of the year.
Somehow I lead the way to the lovely old pub it was being held in, and going up the stairs we entered a perfect girly fairy world. The girls had really gone to town and put on a beautiful spread. The wish cocktails made with Hendrick’s gin which were ever so tasty and all too easy to drink. I loved the stripey straws that perfect matched my dress.Olivia and i then had our fragrances profiled by the delightful Penhaligons team. Some how I didn’t remember to take a photo of the beautiful display, but there are lots of lovely photos on Olivia’s blog. I was particular fan of the Juniper SlingAll the food was amazing, but that triple tiered cake was just amazing. It was lovely to find out it was made just a around the corner from me by Yummy in your Tummy cakes.Here I am in my stripey dress with Katie Antoniou.And here are the girls of the moment, Lucy and Carrie
I love loose leaf tea, and I have an awful lot of it in the house. The only problem is how to drink it? I can brew it in one of my many teapots but I don’t have a tea strainer so I have to pour it through a kitchen sieve into a teacup – messy. Or I can just make it in the cup and sieve the bits out though my teeth – fun. Either way it’s not very elegant. So when Magisso contacted me about their new teacup I jumped at the chance to try something that promises to make drinking loose leaf tea simple.It has clever triangular base and an inbuilt filter so you can tilt it one way to brew and another to drink.Simply add your favourite tea. Pour in the hot water. Wait for it to infuse, then tilt the filter out of the water when it’s at it’s perfect strength.Et voila, perfect tea. It’s also very easy to clean as the filter is removable.
Magisso are a Finnish company famous for their innovative design. Their cake server looks like a stroke of genius. The tea is a reddot design award winner and only only just available to buy in the UK. It is made of a very sturdy plastic and is quite pleasant to drink out of. The tea stays hot and the outside stays cool. I wonder if a ceramic version is in the pipeline? It would definitely further add to experience (nothing like lose leaf tea out of bone china, no?)
The design is beautiful and sleek, though as an illustrator I see it as a bit of a blank canvas. Some beautiful artist collaborations would be a lovely direction to go in.
What’s the best way to celebrate our Queen’s diamond jubilee? With a cup of tea and a slice of cake, of course.
For a while now I have been visiting the beautiful 
