Country Style Magazine

Styling: John Mangila, Photography: Brigid Arnott

2017 has been one for the history books. Not only did I release my first decorating book, run decorating workshops with West Elm, travelled to Bali for a photoshoot and got the book into my all time favourite store Anthropologie and now I can add Country Style cover shoot to the list of achievements for the year.

A few weeks ago the Country Style team travelled out to my family farm in the Hunter Valley to take some photos of the house for their Christmas issue. Country Style has been my favourite magazine for as long as I can remember so I was jumping out of my skin with excitement when we got the phone call!

We spent a fun filled two days with the team styling up a storm and wrangling all the farm animals to behave perfectly for their close ups! We have four fluffy donkey friends on the farm and little Toby was the one who landed the cover along with our resident wallaby friend Cracker who wanted in on the camera action and literally just hopped up into the shot. It was such a magical moment out in the paddock and one I’ll remember forever.

As a stylist myself it was fascinating to watch the team wander through the house and style things differently to the way I would have styled things. It’s always great to work with other stylists to see how they work and expand your styling skills. John Mangila the stylist brought the most amazing flowers with him to make the stunning garland over the fireplace. Brigid Arnott did a beautiful job capturing the magic of the farm in the photos, we will treasure the pictures of the farm for life.

I don’t share a tonne of my personal life online but the Christmas issue of Country Style shares a lot about my childhood and life at my family farm in the Hunter Valley so I thought I’d share a little bit about “the farm” here.

  1. My parents bought the farm when I was 10. We would go up every weekend after school sport and my two younger brothers and I would make motocross jumps for our motorbikes (much to mums horror).
  2. Mum and Dad renovated a number of years using sandstone quarried from the property.
  3. We spend most family Christmas’s at the farm and go tree hunting once everyone arrives to find the perfect Christmas tree.
  4. I had an Appaloosa pony “Jay-Jay” when I was a kid. Now we have 4 of the cutest donkeys you could ever meet.
  5. Mum and I have spent years collecting bits and pieces to add to the farm’s decor and every time I visit we redecorate or revamp something (wonder where I got my skills?!?)

The team from Sixty Four Films were there to capture the behind the scenes magic and put together this breath taking video.

 

For more of the stunning photos of the farm grab a copy of the Christmas issue of Country Style Magazine and read more about how magical the farm is.

Emma x

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