Ayesha's Memorable-Meals Scrapbook

Ayesha Patel, the style director at Martha Stewart Living magazine, savours all things food-related. Her job involves styling those glorious photographs of beautifully-set tables and mouthwatering food we swoon over each month in the pages of the magazine. Some of her inspiration is drawn from her travels, as well as the many restaurants she visits on her journeys abroad. Her love of pretty packaging led to the creation of this beautiful scrapbook that documents some of her most memorable restaurant meals. Paper muffin cups, tags, tea-bag packages, bakery twine and paper shopping bags with lovely designs are all fashioned onto the beautiful pages. Ayesha used a simple blank ledger with blank pages for her book, which I find so inspiring. Below are some examples.

Materials associated with food are used to embellish the book. A strip of waxed paper decorates the cover, sealing an assortment of compressed paper cupcake wrappers.

Tabs, made from book-binding tape that was rubber stamped with numbers, were cut into two-inch strips, folded and secured to the pages using glue. They mark each page with an easy reference.

Paper bags that once contained delicious pastries or chocolates will add a further note of nostalgia through smell; many of the tantalizing aromas associated with restaurants linger inside the packaging for an even more evocative experience.

Ayesha has arranged these cupcake wrappers beautifully, fastening them to the page using glue and twine. Other additions to a Memorable-Meals scrapbook might be coasters, pretty paper place mats or business cards. The key is to arrange them artfully.