A while back Sande Chase, the blogger of ‘A Gift Wrapped Life’ asked me to tell her how I wrap my Christmas gifts for a blog article she published on Sunday. I decided to rather show her…

Thank you for a lovely article, Sande! Wishing you a wonderful Christmas.

Jena Quinn, a senior design consultant whom we regularly work with at NH Design has wonderful vision and expertise. Jena is completely unfazed by rapid schedules and eye is one with mine in creating elaborately simple rooms in record time. I asked her to share the background on a wonderful project - published in the December 2010 issue of American Architectural Digest - with you.

View the full article online here.

View the online slideshow here.

Jena writes:

What a wonderful Christmas gift, having one of our recent interior design projects published in the December issue of Architectural Digest! When Nicky asked me to write this description for our blog, my first thought was that the whole project had the perfect beginning…

Nicky and I met with the dynamic young couple who, unexpectedly considering they heve a major 20th Century art collection, said, “We don’t want ultra-modern or a stuffy, towny look…we are not afraid of florals or pattern, but nothing is to feel new and we trust you. Oh, and by the way, it must be done in 6 months!”

To which Nicky and I responded, with one voice, “Not a problem!”.

Undaunted, we took the house down to bare walls, opened some doors and closed others. We custom-designed the seating, several fabrics and wallpaper and, rather unexpectedly, the stair-carpet as well. Key to the success of the whole project was achieved by ’knocking-back’ the colour and distressing any fresh paint, adding glazes and umber washes to create the faded grandeur we all secretly admire but cannot achieve without an extra 100 years (or, as in this instance, with the help of some masterful painters and craftsmen!)

Click on each of the scanned pages to see a larger version.

My super hot new shoes by Camilla Skovgaard were a big hit when I wore them to Nicky’s cabaret performance at The Savoy. As you can see, they had a great time (and that’s Nicky singing in the background).

How he laughed when I showed them to him…and we both agreed that if we were to design a shoe we would have come up with something like this. A sort of Biker boot with a leather tassel in place of the heel. Genius.

Black leather is not something I have used a lot of in interiors, but I think there is a possible idea in this glove advert I found in Harrods magazine. Black leather wings might convince me yet again that wings are not an exhausted cliché.

Nicky’s been sporting some biker looks too as you can see…and to help us all along in our quest for uber coolness, I’ve attached the dictionary of new street lingo he’s been studying after finding it in the Evening Standard. (Nicky’s even been dropping some of the lingo on Twitter - how cool is that?)

Nothing ‘butters’ on this blog, and I’m not talking ‘gas’…or should that be ‘gased’?

Bang – punch

Bare – a lot

Bate – obvious

Blud – friend

Booky – suspicious

Butters – ugly

Chug – good-looking

Dutty – Nasty

Fam – friends

Gallis – womanizer

Gased – taking nonsense

Gem – fool

Ghost – to be frequently absent

Greezy – bad

Junge – whore

Liccle – small

Marga – extremely skinny

Moist – no ratings, silly, naff

Murk – attack

Nang – good

Peak – used to highlight an eventful situation

Peng – good-looking

Shank – stab

Shower – cool, good

Skadoosh – goodbye

Skettel – loose woman

Slipping – to be caught off guard

Swag – crap

Tekkers – technique

Wallad – idiot

Wavey – high or drunk

Just received these most delicious cupcakes from my great friend Amanda Eliasch - skyblue icing with my initials in gold, delivered in a pink box by Peggy’s Cupcakes!

This is really rather embarrassing as I should be the one sending Amanda presents as a thank you for letting me use her house last week for a tiny party for Lucian Freud, who was 88 the next day. It was a wonderful affair with delicious food by Sally Clarke from Clarke’s Restaurant and guests were served Chateau Talbot and Sloe Gin.

My wonderful pianist Paul Guinery and I sang all the songs from American musicals that Lucian loves - and knows the words to. He joined in several times with his children and grandchildren and a few other friends like Kate Moss, David Dawson and Jools Holland, Bryan Ferry, Tom Stoppard, Jemima Khan and Lady Avon, the widow of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Sadly, Debo, Duchess of Devonshire was snowed in at Chatsworth and had to cancel at the last minute.

Thank you Amanda, darling. Your house looked beautiful that night. And so did you.

It’s wonderful when the children of great friends turn out to be not only be beautiful and clever, but also brilliantly artistic. Alexandra Llewellyn and Celia Weinstock are both exactly that.

Alexandra’s astonishingly original and opulent backgammon boards, some with points inter-leaved with feathers, others with delicious buxom naked ladies, would make even the rashest gambler up his stakes.

There is a waiting list to own one of these beauties - she is now taking orders for March 2011 and also makes bespoke pieces for her select London clientele. Too late for this year, but possibly the perfect Christmas 2011 gift for that person who has everything?

The exquisite craftsmanship of Celia Weinstock‘s Jewellery has an luminosity and glow that quite simply cries out to adorn the most stylish of ears, necks and wrists.

The delicious kit of both these beautiful girls are currently on view at Talisman, Ebury Street, London. And here’s your invitation: