Oh France, I'm still there a little, we spent such good time with all the people we love. After visiting different parts of the country and splitting the girls for a week, we got all together for 3 weeks of vacation before their dad goes back to work. The routine, as usual, a routine we love finally, working in the house and gardening all day and swimming or paddling at the lake at the end.
The rythm was so different than usual, real vacation time, even for the kids. Long days, lazy mornings and extended days with friends at night. I was so happy to see my daughters tasting total freedom to go here and there, improvizing playdates all day long with our lovely neighbors, running in the fields and playing hide and sick around the church, sharing ice-creams and cookies at snack time (when they take a quick break) and playing until the sunset.
Since I brought all my block-printing stuff for workshops, I was able to keep creating once I got my country side house in Savoie. My friend V. kindly landed me her sewing machine and I took advantage of it for about 3 weeks. For those who follow me here, you already know that I made a few new printed pieces for my home, indoor and outdoor as well.
Because it's full house all the time and we never have enough seats, I redid a bunch of olded folding chairs I inherited for a while from grand-parents. I changed the odd red scratched covers for an unbleached cotton canvas I printed with poppies flowers and poppies heads. At the end, we got 4 new chairs to complete our outdoor lounge corner.
For those who know this part of france, we can see the Massif de l'Epine at first and the Massif de la Grande Chartreuse in the background.
I got gorgeous cotton double gauze in Montpellier in mustard yellow, vintage pink and light grey. When I was at my mom's house, I made this hand-printed scarf, this scarf you can see line-drying in the sun with old fashioned bed sheets on the photo above. I appreciated to wear it for chilly nights.
I also made this one in vintage pink for my friend Olivia.
At the 1st floor, the back entrance of the kitchen. I found this hunger in my local antique store this summer. The wooden balls were initially red and green and the wire part was black. I sanded the whole thing and repainted with a neutral vernish on the wood balls and then, the wire was painted in silver grey. I was happy to find the right spot here that this kind of Eames Hang desserved.
We had a great summer and we couldn't hope better sunny and warm weather but luckily, a few showers allowed a couple of mushroom hunts. Hubby is passionate and could do that every weekend. The girls love to accompany him accross the woods.
Here is my vintage "monte et baisse" pendant my dad gave me years ago, a real antique one that you can put down and up. I found a modern retro light bulb, nice and energy efficient in same time.
In the back of a chest drawer in my bedroom, I found old nurse pads in organic cotton that I was using when I breast fed my kids. As they were clean and looked like brand new, I decided to print on and turn them into nice coasters. All dropped together, the table top turns into an herbarium.
I brought to France certain tea towels I printed in San Diego to show my students the variety of designs and colors we can match and mix. I love the blue floral prints of this towel, like indigo styled with these monochromic designs. It looks great with my collection of enamelware plates, cups and dishes.
Hunting enamelware is one of my obsession when I criss-cross vintage and flea markets. I got great ones this summer, more or less damaged, I love them all.
One of our favorite walk is going to visit our local farm and chat with the owners. As usual, after going to pick up milk at the farm, we made "petits flans au lait", a yummy "entremet", cream dessert all the family loves. Even not time to take photos, I had little hands stealing a couple of pots in the minute.
On front of the milk pot you can see a crocheted basket. Starching doily is one of my new crafty ability. I realized a pretty collection of tie and died doilies and you can see a few ones turned into baskets on the kitchen shelves.
About the shelves in the kitchen, they were the first work my husband and I accomplished when we arrived in the house in July. The kitchen is the most recent room we redid a few years ago and it's not totally achieved yet. Since we know we move back next year, it was time to create more space for our stuff we'll bring back from the US.
First, we painted the main wall with limewash paint and we built the String System shelves, a Scandinavian brand that created this genius concept of extremely thin and nice structure of shelves adaptable to your space on custom.
We took oak wood and white structure but it comes in various types of wood colors and wire. It's exactly this space needed, something light and plenty of arrangement, the success was unanimous, congratulated by all our visitors ;)
In our bedroom under the roof, where you can see the green surroundings by the roof windows and hear (too much) the bells from the church ringing day (and night), nothing new except this gorgeous bed cover crocheted by my mom. She completed the gift by telling me that to keep it in good shape, we must not seat on directly, otherwise we'd damage it very fast. She's right and I respect handmade goods. This crocheted bed cover represent about 800 hours of work so now, we roll over this piece of art everytime we just need to seat on the bed, a new routine...
And to accompany this bed cover, I realized these pillow cases with ferns and bees. It's again made from cotton double gauze, lightly grey. With the left over, I also made this jungly style pillow.
They looked very nice out there but I brought back all these pillow cases to San Diego to enjoy them longer. My sister's cat might miss it!
Happy end, the last week of our stay, I got my brother and sister together! My little sis is an artist, she drew this pretty face with chalks. Me, I put down there the wild flowers she picked up for me. Sad it was to trash this lovely bouquet last week, it's never easy to lock the door for a year but I think we enjoyed as much as possible the time we got out there, no regret. Now, we are happy to be back to San Diego and I hope you loved this little tour of my Frenchy home!
And for those ending their vac like us:
happy back to school, happy back to work!
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