I've been very lucky for Bombay Sapphire to choose me as one of their five British Creatives to create an amazing infused
gin and tonic for the Diamond Jubilee. The wonderful Sam Carter helped me create a transmogrification cocktail.....
Transmogrification means when two flavours are put together, they create a new one - grapefruit and vanilla = chocolate!
I must say it's so delicious and perfect for a sunny day. 

See the exciting project here.

And here's the recipe. It's so good!

Zesty Surprise (Rhea Thierstein)
Ingredients 50ml Bombay Sapphire 15ml Vanilla sugar syrup* 10 fresh grapefruit segments 100ml Fever-Tree Tonic Water Method Pour the syrup and gin into the bottom of a tall glass. Stir to mix. Add the grapefruit segments. Fully fill the glass with cubed ice then top with Tonic Water. Stir for a final time to combine. Garnish Vanilla pod   Enjoy!

I was asked by Mother to write a few pieces for their Something for the Weekend issue last weekend.

I covered the culinary odyssey from the future, for the future, a cape made from spider's silk and silk producing goats,
re-illuminating abandoned towns as microcosms of fantasy, The Big Egg Hunt and the creative industry and the waste it
accumulates.
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See here to read it.
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Here is my finished egg and at it's new home at the boutique Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel in fashionable Belgravia!
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My egg takes inspiration from the destruction of the environment.  The little Blue Tit, Caeruleus, is the element of optimism.
The hope is that through sensitivity and awareness we can nurture our habitat and environment back to health.

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I am so excited about being involved with The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt. Both the charities are really close to my heart.
I visited Borneo last August and witnessed first-hand the alarming rate of the destruction of our environment and our
natural world. I think it's amazing that an event like this helps  raise awareness in such an innovative, creative and
fun way.

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In celebration, the hotel's restaurant Lowndes Bar & Kitchen is serving up an Egg inspired menu:

Eggs Royale - toasted English muffin with Scottish smoked salmon, poached eggs in blood orange hollandaise sauce with salmon roe
LBK Crepes - filled with scrambled eggs and covered in hollandaise sauce with melted parmesan cheese and fresh parsley
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Go and check out my egg and the limited edition menu at Jumeirah Lowndes Hotel!
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I was asked by The Big Egg Hunt to create an egg for their charity egg hunt. Very Egg-citing!
I designed my egg to look like an old globe with a little blue tit sat on the top using the same
technique for the bird and nest which I'd used for the recent Porcelain shoot with Tim.
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The egg hunt starts on the 21st of February and is sponsored by Fabergé. Get involved through their website
and hunt the eggs which have been created by many artists in London. All the money raised goes to two charities
- Elephant Family and Action for Children. The winner of the hunt wins a bespoke Fabergé necklace and
the eggs get auction off at the end at Sotheby's to raise money. I'm so pleased to be a part of it and please help
support this amazing event!

Working out how to papier-mâché a round object on to an egg shaped object proved to be rather challenging.
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We worked it out and here I am doing what I love - Papier-mâché-ing!
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The nest and bird now need to be finished. The nest was pretty messy to cover in paint and took 4 days to
dry!
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Little Bird.
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Here it is finished. It looks pretty surreal.
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The finished blue tit sitting proudly on his egg!

I was asked by Tim Walker to make props and wrap a kitchen and a dining room to illustrate a couple of articles in
American Vogue. The first shoot was about flawless porcelain skin. I made porcelain looking hats, flowers and lots of
birds to look similar to a tea set which had originally inspired the colour scheme and the shot. These were used in the
shot with the model who was painted and dressed (in an amazing dress) to look like a porcelain doll.
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The secret was to dip / pour gloss paint over everything. Hey presto - it all looks like porcelain!
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A bit of varnish, colour and gold spray paint made the flowers look really beautiful.
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Voila! See the final image here.
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Whilst we were shooting the porcelain shoot, the rest of my team were in Oxford wrapping everything in sight to create the
set for the second article - mail order - sending food as a gift for Christmas. Now this isn't as easy as you may think
(nothing ever is). Hours of wrapping and attention to detail is the key to making it look believable.
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You can see the final images here.
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