I know Sania Pell; the creative mind and stylists behind The Homemade Home, because I had the pleasure of featuring her on the cover of Family Home.  Who can forget that precious baby and those fab Prada wedges teamed with fishnets.  This booked is packed with easily accessible create ideas and in doing the hard part of conceiving them, Sania offers the reader the pleasure of translating them with absolute ease.  The photography is by the talented Penny Wincer, who shot my Family Home book, so you can be sure The Homemade Home by CICO Books will be an inspiring visual treat – out now.

I have just been given a copy of New London Style.  It’s interesting that not only does London have a unique eclectic style, but that each area/postcode has a distinctive design code of its own; a reflection of the people who live in it.  Anyway, it’s good for peeping into the homes of some of London’s well-known style guru’s such as Mathew Williamson and Erin O’Connor and many more.

When it comes to choosing presents for children, take it from me, you can’t go wrong with a book and all the better if it is one that is part-created by the recipent.  The wildly successful series of books on doodle by Taro Gomi for Thames & Hudson with their quirky drawings and intelligent, stylish imagery are perfect for doodlers and daydreamers of all ages – including me!

These charming books are deeply engaging and make wonderful keepsakes which capture random thoughts at a moment in time.  The latest book in the series is called Doodle Numbers and is available now for just £9.99.

I suspect many of you will have read Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilert, but for those that have not read it, go and buy it now and then buy it for your friends.  This is a sort of self-help book for those that don’t do self help books.  The author has devided the book into 108 small sections because of the spitural relevance of the japa mala, a necklace of 108 beads traditionally worn in India to support meditation and mantra’s.  You can find them on my botique – happinessitself.com

meditation beads look good with anything and remind us of keeping a check on our thoughts

Books on the workings of the mind fascinate me and whilst many repackage the same message, The Eureka! Enigma, by Ron G. Holland offers a fresh approach that is easy to understand and practice.  The author suggests that anyone can come up with Eureka ideas and solutions to problems, anytime and at will, by cracking the codes of our mind, much like those of a bio-computer. Whilst I am not a technical person, I found the concepts easy to follow and had positive results almost instantly.