Summer Daydreams (46 page)

H:
Olly is a lovely romantic hero too. He reminds me very much of my husband, Julian!

C:
Ha, ha. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear that. I like my heroes to be ‘real’ men. The sort of person that you’d bump into in the street or meet at work. I’m not one for these big, alpha male types who are arrogant or treat their women with disdain. I like my heroes to be very down-to-earth, sometimes flawed but always well-intentioned.

H:
But you like your bad boys too! What about Yves Simoneux?

C:
Ah, I think most women have been secretly attracted to the bad boy at some time in their life! And Nell does have her moments with this man, as you know. Women in business always have to deal with a total sleazebag at some point! I think it’s compulsory that every company has one. I hope that dealing with Yves makes Nell realise that Olly is a really great bloke.

H:
The bizarre thing is that I actually met someone rather
too
like Mr Simoneux when I was away on business recently. So that did make me smile.

C:
Sometimes fact is very much stranger than fiction!

H:
I absolutely adored
Summer Daydreams
. It’s a great book, Carole. You’re such a talented writer. Every book I read just gets better. There’s such a lovely, hopeful feel to this one. It left me on a real high and I didn’t want it to end. Everyone deserves to find their dream and I’m happy that Nell was able to chase hers. I was so glad that I could help with the story and be such an inspiration. I’m flattered.

A Beginner’s Guide to Designing a Handbag by Helen Rochfort

How to get your Design Inspiration

I have always believed in going with your instinct, what you love, what you feel inspired by, what excites you, digging deep to evoke all senses.

Initial ideas can come from absolutely anywhere: film, art, nature, music, different eras, a piece of vintage fabric, a sweet shop, a vintage boutique, even a scent or taste of your favourite chocolate or cupcake.

Carrying a little notebook or sketchbook in your handbag is a great idea. If you see something you love when you are out and about you can simply jot it down or do a quick sketch. I find using my camera on my mobile phone is extremely useful. If I see anything that’s inspiring, a quick snap and it’s captured! Images I often take when I am out and about (often with my daughters in tow) include carousels, ice cream vans, jars of sweets, candyfloss stalls, vintage toys and ornaments. Anything that catches my eye.

I will often watch old films to evoke ideas, a great source of inspiration. My favourite films being
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
– sorry, Johnny Depp but the 1970s version is my favourite! –
Mary Poppins
and
The Wizard of Oz
. Old classic books and fairytales including
Alice in Wonderland
,
Little Red Riding Hood
and
Cinderella
are also great.

Sometimes just walking around your local town and getting some fresh air is a good way to evoke those creative sparks and juices. Look at the window displays in your local deli, cake shop or boutique. In my home town of Hitchin the fantastic deli and tearooms Halsey’s has beautiful cupcakes and meringues in the window, independent boutique Rubarb has fabulous dresses and vintage shop Jolly Brown has an eclectic mix of everything vintage.

Visiting art galleries and museums is another amazing source for inspiration. I love wandering around with the family then going for tea and cake at the café, then onto the gift shop to stock up on more postcards, anything from Pop Art to pre-Raphaelite.

Your Handbag Design

When you feel you have enough ideas, make yourself a cup of tea and grab a couple of chocolate biscuits, then you can begin to look through everything you have been collecting.

Making an inspiration board is helpful and lots of fun. Add images from magazines, sparkling buttons, ribbons, textured and patterned fabric pieces, sweet wrappers, feathers and even poems. Using a large cork board is a great idea as you can add and take off any bits and pieces very easily, and when you have finished with that particular design you can reuse it for your next fabulous creation.

I find it useful to just take your time and digest all of the images and notes until your ideas start to flow. There is no right or wrong way to do this so just sketch what you think feels good – try different shapes, patterns and textures. Ask the questions: who is the handbag intended for? Is it just for you so that you’ll have a handbag that’s totally unique or are you making it for someone else? If it’s for another person what age group is the design intended for? What type of woman? Fashionista, urban, street, vintage, chic, classic, quirky or a mixture? What time of year is the handbag going to be used – is this a fresh spring/summer design, a sumptuous autumn/winter handbag or an all-year-round design? What type of handbag is it going to be – an evening bag, a shopper, a tote, a clutch?

When I am creating new designs, ideas and concepts, I often ask my friends, husband and sometimes even my eldest daughter on what they think (my youngest daughter is only one, so her feedback is wiping jammy fingers all over the designs!). Feedback is important as it gives you other perspectives and sometimes a better development of an idea.

Creating your design into a sample ‘real life handbag’ is another design process in itself, as ideas on paper may or may not translate or work on an actual working handbag. I am fortunate that we have a fantastic team in the sample rooms at the factory, where they translate my designs, sketches, ideas and working scaled drawings into the handbags that have been whirring around in my head. To create your ‘real life’ handbag from your sketches,
www.josyrose.com
is very good for fabrics, buttons, ribbons, handles, clasps, diamantes, motifs and zips. Everything you need to create your very own handbag masterpiece!

Whatever you do, just have fun and enjoy it. Happy creating! To see my own handbag designs pop along to
www.helenrochfort.com
and take a peek.

Helen Rochfort

xxxxx

If you enjoyed
Summer Daydreams
,
you only have to wait until October 2012
for Carole’s next bestseller,

With Love at Christmas

Meet Juliet, Rick and their family
as they get ready for a heartwarming Christmas

EXCLUSIVE!
Read on to enjoy the first three chapters!

Chapter One

You can tell that Christmas is just around the corner. Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ is belting out of the speakers filling the busy supermarket aisles with festive cheer. That’s a pension fund song if ever there was one and it never fails to get me humming along. I ask you, what would Christmas be without the dulcet tones of Noddy Holder?

I love this time of year. Even something as mundane as the weekly food shop is transformed into a magical experience. I’m at the bread counter in Tesco, squeezing the loaves to check their freshness. Cheery Santas hang above my head. Silver tinsel and colour coordinated balls spiral down from the ceiling. I wish it could look this jolly all year round. Someone at head office has put a lot of effort into planning this. Perhaps I could borrow their theme and refresh my decorations this year. My husband, Rick, would have a fit. He’s considerably more ‘bah humbug’ than I am when it comes to Christmas – the original Scrooge. Every year the expense of it all nearly gives him a heart attack. Every year I vow to cut back. And every year, I don’t. Maybe, for the sake of marital harmony, I’d better just get out the ‘old faithfuls’ one more time.

I’m happy to say for the record that I’m the complete opposite of my husband. My name is Juliet Joyce. I’m a forty-five-year-old woman with one gorgeous grandchild, two troublesome, supposedly grown-up children, an annoying mother, a gay father, a very grumbly husband and a rather stinky dog. I am also a shameless Christmas addict. And I’m not the slightest bit interested in a twelve-step plan to cure me of it.

Slade slides seamlessly into Wizzard and ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’. I heartily agree with that. We all need a bit of escapism from the daily grind of life, don’t we? Jesus picked a lovely time of year to be born into the world as it really cheers up the long winter months. It just wouldn’t be the same if he’d been born in, say, July.

Skipping down the seasonal produce aisle, I slip a Christmas pudding into my trolley, rapidly followed by some mince pies and a panettone, which has somehow become a festive musthave. None of the family are that keen on it really but, like brussel sprouts, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without it. I put in an extra box of mince pies – just in case. You can never have too many mince pies, can you? I don’t like to be caught out without some nibbles in case people drop in. I’d better get some dates and assorted nuts too.

I’d like to tell you that I make my own pudding, Christmas cake and all that – but I don’t. I’m working full-time now in the office of a busy estate agents and with that and the demands of my family, I hardly get time to breathe let alone anything else. I aspire to be able to produce a completely homemade Christmas, but every year it seems to slip further beyond my reach. I love the thought of creating a decadent Nigella-style celebration with a bit of Kirsty Allsop thrown in for good measure but, at this rate, that will have to wait – possibly until I retire. Even for a modest Tesco-based affair, like my own, you have to start early. That’s the key. I was very organised and bought my Christmas cards in the January sales. What’s the point in paying full price when you don’ t have to? I picked up a couple of great presents at craft fairs in the summer. It’s nice to find the perfect present, isn’t it? And, of course, you never do when you’re looking hard. Like middle age, perfect presents just sneak up on you. The festive napkins were safely secured in August, as were the crackers for the table. The only thing I have to do now is find the ‘safe place’ where I can put them all. It will mean a trip into the loft for Rick, which he’ll be cross about.

Since the first week of September I’ve been putting a few seasonal bits of food in the back of the cupboard but now, at the beginning of December, the Christmas food shopping must start in earnest. I’ve got a few things in here for Dad and his partner, Samuel, too just to help out as I know how busy they are. Queuing at the checkout, I close my eyes and listen to the sounds of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’. In front of me a harassed-looking woman is berating her child who’s whining for sweets.

‘I’ve no money for naffing sweets, Beyoncé,’ she shrieks as she shakes her little girl by the arm more roughly than is right. ‘If you don’t start bloody behaving right now, Santa won’t come to visit. He’ll throw your Wii out of the sleigh and it will break into a million pieces. Then what will you do?’

The child screams. I think I would too. I should step in and remind them both about the true message of Christmas but, before I can, she’s through the till and out, dragging the sweetless and still screaming Beyoncé behind her.

Would they both think I was mad if I’d have told them that at Beyoncé’s age I was given one of my dad’s old knitted socks – washed, I hope – filled with an orange and some nuts? That was it. Sum and total of festive present exchange. I couldn’t eat the nuts because mum could never find the ancient pair of nutcrackers needed to go with them and the orange went straight back into the fruit bowl where it had come from. I couldn’t ever buy presents myself because I was never given pocket money. But I was given some paper, glitter and some glue with which to make Christmas cards. Times were different then. We had so little. Our family Christmases were always cheerless, meagre affairs. We never had visitors to call. My mother put the moth-eaten tree up for a short a period as possible. Sometimes it didn’t appear until Christmas Eve, late in the afternoon when I was almost beside myself with longing, and then with much sighing. It was usually gone again shortly after Boxing Day. My dad used to do his best to liven it up. He’d laugh too heartily at the Christmas shows –
Morecambe and Wise
being his favourite. Tears would roll down his cheeks and I used to find that funnier than the programme. But Mum was never a Christmas person. To her, it was absolute torture every year and, consequently, we all had to suffer. Perhaps that’s why I like to make Christmas so special now. I like my home filled with laughter and love, overflowing with presents and food. If you can’t go completely over-thetop at Christmas when can you?

‘One hundred and forty-seven pounds and thirty-two pence,’ the checkout girl says when she’s rung through my shopping. Even I wince as I hand over the money. It’s going to be yet another bill that I hide from Rick.