The nursery project #4 - Playing with fabric

Dear readers, as a lot of you already know, I am a little bit of a Liberty addict. I just finished a baby blanket with Liberty fabric on one side and a very pretty Japanese fabric on the other side. I will show it to you later. Yesterday, I have been playing with three different Liberty of London patterns to decorate the walls of the nursery. I used embroidery hoops to frame them. It is a very easy way to display your favorite fabric on the walls. I bought them at the German DIY shop Idee. Here are the three fabrics I picked from my collection - I chose fabrics that fit in the colour concept of the nursery.

Becci Tana Lawn from the spring/ summer 2012 Glencot House collection was inspired whilst a member of the Liberty Art Fabrics team was reclining on an old patterned chair in the drawing room at Glencot House in Somerset. A layered design of leaves and flowers creates three dimensions drawn from the gardens at Glencot. Becci A is shades of blue, jade and grey.

Poppy and Daisy is on the Classic Tana list since 1979, Liberty Poppy and Daisy was designed in 1974 by the Jack Prince Studio. Version K has brown, blue and purple flowers.

Wiltshire is a leaf and berry pattern which was designed for Liberty in 1933 and redesigned for Tana in 1968. Wiltshire has been on the Classic Tana list since 1979. Colourway L has blue, lilac and olive berries on a dark background.

I also played yesterday with Muslin squares and Liberty bias tape. I gave it then yesterday night to my friend Sabrina for her 6 weeks old baby - but I will definitely also make some for baby love!

My next project is a nursing pillow with Marimekko fabric. I can't wait to show it to you!

Speak to you soon!

Elodie

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The nursery project #3 - mood board - the colours

Hello everyone, As promised there, I will share the evolution of my "nursery project" with you on the blog. Today I want to show you a little mood board I created in order to illustrate the overall look I want to give to the room and decide on the main colours in want to use in the decoration of the nursery. As you can see the two main colours are blue and grey/silver.

1. Pompoms to add some lightness and fluffiness to the decoration 2. Print Everyone's friend from seventy tree - looks perfect for a future multilingual child 3.Wall hooks in different shades of blue 4. A unicorn - this one has already moved in... 5. A lovely star carpet. 6- The Egmont bunny lamp - In fact I have had this lamp for ages in my living room. Now, it lives where it belongs: in the nursery! 7. Lovely fabric: from left to right: Liberty art fabric - Capel blue Liberty art fabrics- Eloise blue Liberty art fabrics - Betsy grey France Duval-Stalla - Grey with white cloud of stars cambric 8- soft toy - dog - in Japanese Zakka style

1. Why blue? I decided to pick blue as the main colour, even if I am expecting a baby girl. The baby's bedroom is going to be set in our former bedroom in which we painted one of the walls in midnight blue last year. I still love this colour so much and find it so peaceful, that I decided not to change it and build the decoration around it. To make it a little more girly, I am adding some flowery Liberty fabric. I am a big fan of british stylist, shop owner and book author Abigael Ahern and her choices of dark colours in decoration, and decided to apply that to the nursery. I also decided to mix different shades of blue.

2. Why grey/silver? First of all, grey is my favorite colour in decoration. I painted the main wall in my living room in grey and I really love it. Grey/silver is more going to be used as accents in the nursery, as a contrasting colour to blue and in fabric. We will leave the other walls in the nursery plain white. For me silver as something magical in it and I hope it will inspire my little princess.

3. The Patterns I am going to use a lot of stars in the decoration of the room, as well as animals, as I think they both fit perfectly in a baby's room.

So! I hope you got inspired. I think we are also going to add some neon yellow to the room.

It's all for today. I will be back tomorrow on the blog with a great flower project - so stay tuned.

xxx Elodie

The nursery project #2 - online inspiration

Hello everyone,The birth of baby love is approaching (the end of August) and I can already tell you that you will see less flowers and more decoration and DIY on the blog in the coming weeks, as I am decorating the nursery and planing to make some stuff for the baby. I will show you some pictures of the room slowly transforming into a nursery and some great resources to buy furnitures and decoration items online. Today I will start with my online inspiration and first where I store my inspiration when I am surfing the web. I created a Pinterest board, that I names LOVEly nurseries. You can have a look here

A great website, when decoration the nursery and waiting for the baby to come is the French blog called The Socialite Family - A SAMPLE OF SMART AND COOL FAMILIES .

The blog is written by Constance Gennari who used to be a children’s fashion journalist. The purpose of Socialite Family is to observe interior design through the eyes of a family and I find her blog very inspiring. The interviewed families so far live in Paris, New York, London, Milan and Nantes, Los Angeles and Barcelona. (the interviews are available in French and English). It is a very visual blog, and I find extremely inspiring.

Speak to you soon, xoxo

Elodie

Cat on dog

Hello everyone, 2 weeks ago I received a little package I ordered some time ago on the online shop fab.com. Fab is a members-only website and mobile app that offers curated sales, featuring designers and manufacturers from around the world. You usually have to wait a pretty long time between the order and the delivery, but it is generally worth it. My last order was for my cat Cheddar and I promised on Instagram, that I would post some photos of the little present, so there you go:

The funny scratching dog is from the US company Imperial Cat. They are not on sale anymore on the Fab Website, but you never know, they might come back at some point. Anyway Cheddy loves it! I wish you a great day! Speak to you soon

Elodie

The nursery project #1 - book & magazine inspiration

Hello! As a lot of you already know, I am expecting a little girl at the end of August! I am so excited about it. That also gives me a great occasion to start a new decoration project - and I would like you to share my thoughts and my decorating journey with you. The nursery will be set in our former bedroom, and my old office/workshop is now our bedroom. You have to have a little bit of imagination if you live in a relatively small space (80 m2). The room is approximately 10 m2, but you don't really need much space for a newborn baby who will sleep in our bedroom to start with anyway. Today I would like to share with you where I find my inspiration offline. That's a question I am asked all the time when talking about the blog or about decorating in general: Where do you find your inspiration? So, here are some answers, some great books I am reading at the moment and the French magazine Milk (which also has texts in English). And what about you? Where do find your inspiration when you want to decorate/redecorate a room? Have you got some tips regarding kid's and baby's rooms?

Talk to you soon, for some more baby inspiration.

xxx

Elodie

1. Decorate workshop by Holly Becker  (the founder of the decor8 blog). This book is like no other decoration book I have read before. It can be used for any decoration project, it is more a guide, a companion than a book - very inspiring! 2. Children's room by Terence Conran (the founder of habitat). A very interesting book with a lot of tips, written by a design guru. 3. & 4. two brilliant books from my favorite publisher Paumes. This small Japanese publisher has some great books about children's rooms and family life in various countries. Most of the texts are unfortunately in Japanese, but the pictures are really inspiring. You can order them online via the online concept store Bodie & fou 5- The French Magazine Milk about children, now has a decoration issue, which I really love, with a lot of home tours and creative ideas. A lot of the texts are in English too.

From Switzerland with love #2

Hello there, Lucile is back on the blog today with more Swiss adventures. I am so glad to have such a talented visitor on my blog!  Talk to you soon! Elodie

Hey everyone!

March just ended and I have to say, it’s one of my favourite periods. Once a year, spring just pops up in the middle of winter and says hello. It happens every time in March, just for few days, just for everyone to be surprised and to think again of all the good memories from last summer… Now I’m used to this little joke and I know it’ll pass, it’s not spring yet and the snow and the cold will be back soon… But these few days are so good ! It's a perfect excuse to go out, sit at a terrace, drink a coffee, do nothing and just feel the air and enjoy the sun. I like this little preview, it's helping me to get through this never-ending final part of winter.

So, today I decided to present to you my favourite place from last summer. It’s a café/bar called Zar, located in the Mattenhof area. I like this spot because: 1. it’s like being at home, a small place where people stop by after work and it seems that everyone knows everyone and even if you know none you feel instantly welcome. 2. they serve delicious cocktails. Last summer I used to drink Amaretto Sour (after of course having tried all the different ones) and this winter I have been enjoying Zar, a hot drink that mixes calvados, apple juice, cinnamon syrup and a slice of orange. Mmmmh !

This month too, I was glad to recieve my grandma’s Christmas gift. A real Eames coat-hanger! It’s said it was designed for children but I don't care, I love the flashy colours.

Breakfast of the day : yoghurt, fried egg, crunchy choco muesli and black coffee. Last week, it was snowing again and it’s not warm outside yet, but I look forward to the real spring and summer!

See you next month!

xxx.

Lucile V.

Vase story - my little whale from Japan

Hello everyone, Inga from Glomerylane and I have been really overwhelmed by the success of our first participative edition of #2flowergirls. You can see the links to the participating blogs under Inga's blogpost and under mine. Thank you so much for all those flowers, and for the positive and encouraging feedback. It made us all warm inside - and we definitely need that at the moment in Germany. You can check out the result on the March Pinterest board of #2flowergirls.

Today I decided to blog not directly about flowers, but about vases - my other love! When I travel, I always try to bring a little vase back with me in my suitcase that reminds me of the great places I visited. I bought this one on our honeymoon in Japan in 2008. I found it at a gorgeous shop for handcrafted products in Kyoto. It always makes me smile when I see it. It combines my love for flowers and for Japanese design with my obsession about animals in decoration.

What about you, have you got a favourite vase? What do you bring back with you as a souvenir, when travelling?

I wish you a wonderful week!

Elodie

Antwerp #4 – Where to sleep

Hello everyone, I think nobody likes Mondays ... I think the best cure is to plan your next holiday and think back to your last holiday. While doing it, I realised I still wanted to give a last tip about Antwerp, where I spent a fabulous break last October. After telling you what to do in Antwerp by day and showing you the city by night, where to eat in Antwerp and where to shop, here comes my ultimate tip: where to sleep in Antwerp - and the answer is a beautiful Bed & Breakfast called Home @ FEEK. It is one of the most fantastic places I have stayed at in my life - it was the night of my birthday and it was definitely special!

It is located in the old house of the harbour master and five minutes walk from the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom).

The place is run by product designer Frederik van Heereveld. Frederik is known worldwide for his collection with FEEK and new materials, which he integrates into his interior designs. All the furniture in the rooms can be bought. Even the lift is really funky.

The changing colour lamp in the bedroom was also a highlight.

Hone @ Feek Website: www.http://home.feek.be Oude Leeuwenrui 23, Antwerpen

My fake christmas tree

Hello everyone, This year my family are coming to Hamburg to celebrate Christmas and we are going to buy a proper Christmas tree on 24th December. In the meantime, I made myself my own fake Christmas tree, with some white branches and home-made ornaments.I used some German polymer clay called Fimo, with some organza ribbons. To personalise them, I used a Love stamp from the German designer bastisRIKE and the letters are from Muji. I decided to have a Christmas decoration all in black & white this year. It's very much like Coco Chanel!

Next week I am on holiday and I am so looking forward to it! I will take some time to prepare the celebration with my family and spend more time on the blog, working on future projects for 2013. So there you go, here are a couple of pictures of my fake, temporary Christmas tree. You can see more photos on my Facebook page. Next week I will be doing some more ornaments, but this time in black.

What about you? Which colours are you using for your christmas decoration? Have you got a proper tree?

Speak to to you soon. xxx Elodie

a christmassy still life

Hello everyone, I hope you had a lovely week-end. We had dreadful weather in Hamburg today - we had a lot of snow and it has been raining on the snow, so it's all slushy now. Whatever! It is a good opportunity to finish my small Christmas decoration at home. This year I decided to use my little home-made table (made out of an old bathroom mirror) to display a little christmassy, wintery landscape and I am pretty happy about the result. I love the fact that the table reflects the scene, especially when the lantern is lit up.

I wish you a fantastic week. Only 15 days to go till Christmas! xxx Elodie

• The centre of this still life is a metallic candle holder in the shape of an old Dutch house that I bought in one of my favorite flower shops: Blumenküche.
• On the left, I made a little star bouquet using old bottles from the lovely interior shop Lieblingszimmer.
• The stars are hand-made glitter stars from the shop Nordlys and the paper ornament is from House Doctor. Around the neck of the bottle is an home-made star I made using the German polymer clay called Fimo. I stamped my name on it, with a lovely stamp from the German designer bastisRIKE.
• The plastic animal under the cloche is from a local toy store and I love the contrast with the big porcelain mushroom.

Here are a couple of close-ups of the still life.