: Styling the Seasons, by Apartment Apothecary and Lotts and Lots :
“Reflect the change of seasons and show those changes in your own home, by styling any surface (shelf, dining table, mantelpiece) with something you like to reflect the new month and what it means to you”
November’s Styling the Seasons challenge was a little bit different to usual. Teaming up with Emily Quinton from Makelight, this month it’s all about the seasonal flat lay. Now I have done a few flat lays (images of things laid flat, shot from above) on Instagram, but it’s not something that I think comes naturally to me. Like Katy, I’m not that comfortable with ‘whimsical’ either, such as scattering petals in a beautiful way, I think mainly because I’m quite impatient. I’ve also got a strong leaning towards the practical, and so a lot of what I take pictures of is ideas-based, rather than necessarily being pretty for pretty’s sake.
And so I kept putting off setting up a flat lay, convinced I wouldn’t find something that could sum up November in a way that was meaningful to me, rather than trying to emulate the styled beauty of other people’s photographs. Then I was making myself a cup of coffee yesterday afternoon, and, thinking about how good it smelt, and how much I love the quiet moments when I sit down with my hot, sweet coffee and take some time out, I suddenly felt inspired.
November has seemed relentlessly dark this year. At times it’s been hugely frustrating as I desperately wait for enough light to take photographs, but I realise that part of me is really drawn to it, to0. Sometimes the invitation to hibernate as the evenings draw in feels very welcome. I was totally smitten with the dark linen curtains in the cabin we stayed in in Normandy, and decided to replace our white cotton living room curtains with charcoal linen for the winter months. I’ve used one of these curtain panels (from Urbanara) for my flat lay background, and I’ll share more photographs of them once we’ve hung them properly.
My grandfather’s pocket watch (I think it was his father’s, or even grandfather’s before him) is included in my flat lay as a nod to how November has flown by. Seriously, where did it actually go? It seems like one minute we were starting the month, and the next we’re about to welcome in December and I’m not ready! I haven’t got outside enough, haven’t got everything done I wanted to achieve, have always felt like I’m fighting to keep up. Forgotten appointments, unfinished projects, abandoned to do lists.
Maybe I should just stop fighting it, and embrace the slower pace until I’m ready to surface again.
Look at that bokeh!! What stunning photographs – love the colour palette, too xx
This is so gorgeous and so so ‘you’. I definitely don’t feel flat lays have to be scattered petels. This is my favourite and those curtains are amazing.
Gorgeous! I love the colours and can smell the coffee from here. Love your take on a flatlay. x
You’re so funny! You certainly weren’t kdniidg on the many changes. I should take a lesson from you I’ve had the same hair, mmmm, for 4 years? Well, no 32 years aside from that dreadful spiral perm in the 7th grade!