#8 Alice in Scandiland on building a (sustainable) homewares & interiors brand

In today’s episode I share breakfast with Alice Collyer, otherwise known as Alice in Scandiland, which is the name of Alice’s award-winning homewares and interiors brand that encompasses her blog and social media accounts, along with shops – both online and in the market town of Lostwithiel in South East Cornwall.  It’s a fascinating story, not least because Alice has no formal training in the skills that she has so cleverly honed including interior design, photography, writing and managing a business.

Alice in Scandiland is founded on principles of sustainability: sharing tips and inspiration for recycling and repurposing what you already have or can source affordably (which includes Alice’s ongoing renovation of her modest family home in Cornwall), and when buying homewares, seeking out long-lasting products made with natural materials that have a story to tell and connect you with their maker.  Despite this, one of the reasons I was keen to hear Alice’s story is because she doesn’t use the term ‘sustainable’ in relation to her work (hence the brackets around the term in the title) and there are interesting messages that come out of our conversation about how included and comfortable people feel locating themselves within the ‘sustainability’ space.

Along with Alice’s work, we discuss the positives and perils of social media, parenting feral children, and much more.

For breakfast with Alice I cooked Pumpkin Porridge; this recipe is like autumn in a bowl – it’s warming, comforting, uses seasonal ingredients and is both lightly spiced and sweetened as well as being a great option for using up excess pumpkin flesh and seeds that might otherwise go to waste.  You can find the recipe, along with behind-the-scenes photos from our breakfast, more information about Alice’s work and the sustainability issues we discuss along with suggested actions that each of us can take to address the issue, via the Episode 8 web page.

Huge thanks to organic skincare company Phoenix and Providence for their support of Episode 8.  To browse their range of beautiful, hand-crafted products - which include face and body oils, face masks, soaps, body balms, bath salts and more – as well as receiving their free Seasonal Self-Care Rituals guide, head to www.phoenixandprovidence.co.uk and enjoy a 10% discount using the code BREAKFAST10. 

Thank you for listening, I’d love to know your thoughts on today’s episode.  Do join the conversation, you can email me [email protected] or message via Instagram @breakfast_and_beyond

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