What you eat can have a profound effect on your health as you grow older. This workshop, hosted by Nutritional Therapist Sue Vaughan, will look at how making the right food choices can help to increase your energy, reduce mood swings, get rid of cravings, improve your memory, reduce anxiety, and even help you to lose weight without dieting.
You will discover which foods can balance your hormones naturally as you get older, to help with PMS, peri-menopause, menopause and other female health issues, helping you to achieve optimum health at every stage of your life.
With practical tips, recipes and recommendations for what to add to your weekly shopping list, find out how nutrition can help slow down the ageing process and give you natural health and beauty from the inside out!
This course accommodates 10 people.

2 in stock
Whether the place where you live is a mansion or a studio flat it is your ‘castle’, your anchor and your life under one roof. But does it currently feel like a place of welcome and comfort or more a functional collection of furniture?!
This short course, run by Charlotte Reynolds, aims to give a fun and informal introduction to Interior Decoration. Learn the principles of making the most of the space you have.
There will be a practical workshop putting together a sample/colour board for a fictional client.
Bring a photograph (if you would like!) of a room or area of your house that you feel doesn’t ‘work’, for discussion during the morning.
Refreshments, goody bags and all materials will be provided.
This course accommodates 5 people.
Find out more about Charlotte Reynolds and the other workshop leaders.

Places Available
In this session Nicola Farrow from Mapletree Farm Flowers will help you arrange her locally grown, seasonal blooms using sustainable techniques for a relaxed “gathered from the garden look.”
This is a hands-on workshop where you will put together your own hand tied bouquet to take home for yourself or as a gift.
This course accommodates 8 people.
Find out more about Nicola and the other workshop leaders.

Places Available
Vegetable Gardening with Julia Parker will cover all aspects of what to plant now for both a late autumn harvest and planning ahead for Spring and Summer next year.
Including herbs, vegetables and flowers, Julia will give advice and demonstrations of what and how to plant and where.
Having worked with Alitex Greenhouses giving online tutorials throughout lockdown, running her own vegetable garden design business and having co-authored a gardening & cookery book for children, Julia is confident, enthusiastic and wonderfully encouraging to the novice and green fingered gardener alike.
So, if you, like us were tempted by tomato growing, basil breeding or potato picking during our long summer at home, come and learn the top tips and insider guide as to how to make your plot (even more) productive!
This workshop will take place outside, under cover, safely and socially distanced. There will be access to toilets, hand sanitiser and masks will be available, if required.
Includes homemade refreshments and goody bag.
This course accommodates 8 people.
Find out more about Julia Parker and the other workshop leaders.

Out of stock
Learn the importance of the psychology of colour and how it affects our decorating choices.
Charlotte Reynolds, from Studio Portobello, will start the morning with a presentation showing how you can introduce and incorporate colour, pattern and texture to ultimately enhance your interiors and to ensure happy and harmonious living.
This is followed by questions and a general discussion session and ends with a hands on practical workshop where you can explore mood boarding.

Places Available
Colour makes the heart sing, but how do you use it in your home to recreate the feelings that nature can inspire?
In this workshop we will explore the psychology of colour, how it affects us and how to translate that in your interior to better create a home that truly is a comfort and refuge.
Confidence Using Colour in Interiors will be a mix of discussion and a practical, hands on session, creating your own mood board to take home with you.
This course accommodates 6 people.
Find out more about Charlotte Reynolds and the other workshop leaders.

Out of stock
Lampshade Making with Katrina de Toney of Lampshade Parade on Thursday 25th May. During this 3-½ hour course you will learn how to make your very own 30cm drum lampshade to take home with you. All the tips and skills that you acquire on the day will enable you to confidently recreate the steps at home to make more lampshades as and when you wish.
Katrina will provide all tools, equipment and materials required to make your drum lampshade.
The course is suitable for complete beginners as all steps will be carefully explained and demonstrated, along with all the short cuts, finer techniques and advice that will take your lampshade from amateur to professional!
This course accommodates 10 people.

5 in stock
Learn to craft your own drum lampshade, suitable for either a table or ceiling light, with Katrina de Toney of Lampshade Parade.
During this course you will learn how to make your very own 30cm drum lampshade to take home with you. All the tips and skills that you acquire on the day will enable you to confidently recreate the steps at home to make more lampshades as and when you wish.
Please bring your own choice of fabric, 100cm x 40cm, all other materials and equipment will be provided.
The course is suitable for complete beginners as all steps will be carefully explained and demonstrated, along with all the short cuts, finer techniques and advice that will take your lampshade from amateur to professional!
This course accommodates 8 people.
Find out more about Katrina de Toney and the other workshop leaders.

5 in stock
‘Inkspiration’ this workshop will give you a chance to explore and learn a new skill in a relaxed environment.
Judi Wymark, an experienced teacher and a practitioner of calligraphy and calligraphic art for a number of years and currently the official scribe to the Mayor of High Wycombe, will guide us in the art of Decorative Calligraphy where you will learn the skills to shape letters and create both a decorative label and a name card (perhaps as a gift for framing!), to take home with you.
All materials, paper, ink and nibs will be supplied and Judi will also have available packs of vintage nibs for sale.
You will be using ink and sharp nibs during this workshop, so we suggest that you wear an old overshirt and an apron to protect your clothes from ink stains.
This course accommodates 6 people.

Polly
An excellent course – informative, relevant and well organised – all in the beautiful surroundings of Studio Portobello.
The refreshments were delicious too!