Moodboards by Aurora

We've started the second round of interviews for these two positions which is not an easy task because the first 10 candidates we selected were all great people with a nice personality/work ethic and good experience. To help me to narrow down to the best two, the four candidates selected for the second round, have been asked to put together a marketing proposal and to write a press release on House Doctor's new collection. Initially, I wanted to ask them to put together a moodboard because I felt, it was the easiest way for them to express how they perceive our brand (plus it was a fun exercise) and for me to see how creative they were. However Steve felt that although I do moodboards on a weekly basis, it may be too complicated for them (guess who is the creative type in our family :-)...so imagine how happy I was when Aurora presented me this morning these two beautiful, inspiring and summery moodboards....
What do you think?

I like this...

I think the contrast I like the most when it comes to interiors is when sleek, contemporary designs like this gorgeous cluster light are enhanced against rustic, vintage, industrial materials.

Via Casalil

Inspiring stylism

I've always admired the stylism and the photography of Tine K's catalogues which are beyond beautiful...I never felt the need to post about it because I'm sure you've seen each collection everywhere and anywhere on planet blog but as I'm dipping my toes into photo stylism, I just thought these were far too inspirational for not being added to my mood moard and hopefully yours....
PS:
I've enrolled to Holly's course Blogging Your Way to get better at this time-consuming but yet inspiring & addictive hobby and consequently I have made a few tweakings to my About page. If you have 2 min, I would be hugely grateful if you could read it and let me know what you think. Merci

J'ai toujours admire le stylisme et la photographie des catalogues de Tine K. Tout est au-dela du sublime...Je n'ai jamais ressenti le besoin de les poster parce que je suis sure que vous avez deja vu chaque collection de nombreuses fois sur la toile mais je commence a etudier le stylisme photo, j'ai trouve que ces shots etaient trop inspirants et beaux pour ne pas les ajouter a mon moodboard et peut-etre le votre aussi....
PS:
Je participe au cours de Holly: Blogging Your Way et du coup, j'ai apporte quelques changements a la page A propos. Si vous avez 2 min, je vous serais tres reconnaissante si vous pouviez la lire et me dire ce que vous en pensez. Merci

I like this...

swing made out of pearls by Johanna Richter...so pretty and poetic

via Edholm Ullenius

Moodboard in my lounge...work in progress

This weekend, I happily pottered around the house...Made some green soup out of courgettes and broccoli that had seen better days, made some orange soup out of tomatoes and sweet potatoes, polished my silver cutlery, made some pancakes and this moodboard for our lounge...

Still work in progress...I'm trying to make a really cool one out of family pictures rather than beautiful pages from magazines (I know... Charlotte Gainsbourg is not exactly from my family but this photo was taken by Thierry, Clare Vivier's husband and was a gift from Clare to me so it is special). And of course... I went to the 'hairdresser' (Mila thinks it's hilarious to make rabbit ears to her mum who is attempting to take a decent picture of herself looking groomed once a month).

What did you do? Did you have a nice weekend?

Ce weekend, je me suis joyeusement occupee de ma maison...J'ai fait une soupe verte a base de courgettes et broccoli qui n'etaient plus vraiment frais, une soupe orange a base de tomates et patates douces (Kurma), nettoye mes couverts en argent, fait des crepes et ce moodboard pour notre salon...

Il n'est pas fini..j'essaie d'en faire un beau avec des photos de famille plutot qu'avec des pages de magazines (Je sais... Charlotte Gainsbourg ne fait pas partie de ma famille mais cette photo a ete prise par Thierry, le mari de Clare Vivier et Clare me l'a offert donc elle est une valeur sentimentale). Et bien sur, je suis allee chez le coiffeur (Mila pense que c'est super drole de faire des oreilles de lapin a sa mere qui tente de prendre une photo pas trop pourrie)
Qu'est ce que vous avez fait? Avez-vous passe un bon weekend?

I like this...

This is basically the haircut I'm hoping to achieve next time I go to the 'haircoiffeur' as Mila says...Right now, my hair is just....well...living in hope.
I wouldn't mind her eyes, her mouth, her body and her breasts either but let's not be greedy...

PS: On Friday I saw a t-shirt in Paris that made me laugh....It had printed on it: "I don't like anything...I'm a Parisian" :-)

Bon et bien c'est en fait la coupe que j'espere arriver a avoir la prochaine fois que je vais chez le 'haircoiffeur' comme dit Mila...POur l'instant, ma coupe est...erm...en mode je fais avec...
Ca ne me generait pas non plus d'avoir ses yeux, sa bouche, son corps et sa poitrine mais bon ce n'est pas la peine de tout vouloir a la fois...

PS: Vendredi j'ai vu un t-shirt dans une boutique dans Paris qui m'a fait rire...il disait: "J'aime rien...Je suis parisien" :-)

Pssst.....our January sale are still on!

Via Slumberdesigns

Dutch inspiration

By Day...
16/12/2010:
2pm: Crisis hit us...No more Royal Mail Dispatch Express labels. Over 350 parcels sitting on our packing table which we can't send.
3pm: Body gives in and neck gets stuck...purely and simply. I can't bent over, turn left or right without being in excruciating pain
5pm: off to bed to fool my body and make it believe I will relax
9pm: Steve emailed me from Hong-Kong where he and Mila on the first leg of their flight to N-Z
17/12/2010
8am: Neck back to normal, off to work
4pm: Call Royal Mail to track down supply order. Get told they may arrive the day after we've closed for the holidays. Stress level get a promotion...Email everyone I know at RM including IT and accounts to get someone to help...no luck
4.30pm: Call back RM. Luck strikes...The person on the phone tells me that I should have ordered them before...
And I'm sitting on my chair full of 'can do/there must be a solution' attitude...thinking...that's bound to help me...I have been working from 8am to 11 pm for the past 8 weeks, had our Customer Service Advisor leaving us suddenly for health reasons at our busiest time ever and all this girl can tell me is that I should have planned this...nevermind
6pm: Come up with a back-up plan to print label on normal office labels. Crisis sorted in 24 hours (call me Jack Bauer)
8pm: Order curry, skype Steve & Mila who are now in New-Zealand. Mila has already fed the cows, had ice-cream for breakfast and is watching Barbie...
By night
Since I saw this home in Elle Decoration, it has been the template of what I would like to achieve with our kitchen in London...a simple, yet functional space stripped of the unnecessary...no kitchen units on the walls to keep a sense of space, just simple shelves to display beautiful, organic tableware (mine is Vera Wang's Naturals first spotted at Merci in Paris and tracked down in the UK), ideally a mix of vintage, wooden furniture with industrial, concrete finishes and a big, big table to have at least 12 people around. So here is more images of one of my favourite homes.

Via Design shimmer

Album di Famiglia

I've always loved this brand but I think I love their stylism, aesthetic, photography and greys even more....will go and see them at the end of Jan. in Paris...

J'ai toujours aime cette marque mais je pense que j'aime encore plus leur stylisme, esthetique, photography et leurs gris....J'irais les voir a Paris fin Janviero...

Mood board for a white something

Kick me if you think it's FAAR too early to mention Christmas but frankly I spent hours putting this mood board together for here and there is no way, I'm not going to put it here for you to see!

1. White Paulistano chair 2.Star t-shirt 3. Cluster light
4. Jacqueline Morabito ceramic bottle cooler
5. The Old Oak's Last Dream handmade print
6. Cote Bastide French armchair 7. ceramic tea-lights 8. Hang lamp
9. Jacqueline Morabito candleholder 10. Pigeon light
11. Angel babygro 12. Jacqueline Morabito ceramic hearts

Tapez-moi si vous pensez que c'est vraiment trop TOT pour mentioner Noel mais franchement, j'ai passe des heures a faire ce montage pour ici alors il n'y a aucune chance pour que je ne vous le montre pas!

I like it...

I've mentioned Chou (or glouglouandchou) before here but she makes me laugh and I love her photos and collages.

J'ai deja parle de Chou (ou glouglouandchou) ici mais elle me fait rire et j'adore ses photos et collages.

Lamp room gray or Pavilion gray?

I apologize...this is going to be a long post but they always are when they are personals...
For some people, bedrooms are their sanctuary and I envy this. For me it is a place to sleep. Having too much energy to spend, I often feel that lay-ins at weekends are wasting my time when there is a lot of creative things I could do, so I have been struggling with what to do with our bedroom to transform into a space I would love to relax.
I wished I had time to source one of these gorgeous French chandeliers in France but not this year so I have been letting these gorgeous bedrooms in grey, especially this one, sink in and on Saturday afternoon, while going through all my interiors mags, I came across again Paula Leen's bedroom which somehow I had missed first time around. Suddenly the penny dropped. Forget French glamour, I will go for inspired simplicity a la BODIE and FOU.

Image: (C) BODIE and FOU, magazine Living Etc, necklace (my own)

The challenge was then to decide which grey to use and where to use it. It had to be different from the grey used in Mila's room. Last but not least, would it work better as a feature wall behind the new linen bedhead I made with my mum or on the wall-to-wall built-in wardrobe?

This is important because I loathe painting wood and I can't get started until I'm really sure (let alone the fact that I really wanted it to look like this but Steve is freaking out about house prices going down and the costs of replacing all the doors to achieve Abigail's look wouldn't make sense so, for the time being, they will remain the way they are).

Image: (C) BODIE and FOU, white sunglasses from The Little White company

So after hours of reflection, I came up with this look....Soft greys, white bed linens, gray throw, white ceramic lighting....

Image: (C) BODIE and FOU, gray Grafton cotton knit throw from The White Company, Black & white prints from Therese Sennerholt, White cluster light by Kathleen Hills, Tribeca table lamp from WhereDidYouBuyThat.com, Familia tableware by Normann Copenhagen, ceramic owl vase by House Doctor DK

So despite the title, I have already made up my mind (sorry!) regarding the hue of gray I'll be using but I would love to know what you think of this, how you decorated your room and how you get the inspiration...

★★★★

Alors que pour certaines personnes, la chambre est un lieu de repos, pour moi c'est juste un endroit pour dormir. J'ai beaucoup trop d'energie a depenser pour gaspiller mon temps a faire des grasses matinees alors que je pourrais faire plein de choses. Du coup, cela fait un petit moment que je bataille pour transformer notre chambre en un lieu ou j'aurais envie de me detendre. J'aurais aime trouver un de ces magnifiques chandeliers en France mais je n'aurais pas le temps d'ici la fin de l'annee. Du coup, ces derniers temps, je me suis laissee bercee par l'atmosphere de ces belles chambres, surtout celle-ci et Samedi, alors que je feuilletais tous mes magazines de deco, je suis tombee sur la chambre de Paula Leen. Et tout d'un coup, c'etait une evidence....Oublions French glamour pour un look simple et inspirant a la BODIE and FOU. Le challenge pour moi etait maintenant de decider quel gris j'utiliserais et surtout ou dans la piece. Tout d'abord le gris devrait etre different de celui utilise dans la chambre de Mila. Et ce gris serait-il mieux en 'feature wall' derriere la tete de lit que ma mere et moi avions faite ensemble ou sur les portes du placard en bois qui couvrent tout un mur. Pour moi, cela etait super important parce que je deteste peindre le bois donc je ne voulais pas m'y attaquer avant d'etre super sure. Apres des heures de reflection et quelques essais de peinture sur le mur, je suis arrivee a ce look...des gris tres doux (probablement le Pavillion gray de Farrow and Ball), du linge de lit blanc en lin ou en cotton bio, un jete de lit gris, des luminaires en ceramique blanche et des photos de famille en noir et blanc.
Malgre le titre (desole), j'ai deja decide le gris que je vais utilise mais j'aimerais beaucoup savoir ce que vous en pensez, comment avez-vous decore votre chambre et comment trouvez-vous l'inspiration...

I like this...white balloons

The first images because they are dreamy and beautiful. The last because...well...doesn't it make you crave for soft grey walls at home?...and I just noticed how gorgeous the stairs look half painted...

(C) Photos: Pia Ulin

Halloween mood board

Top one via The City Sage, bottom one from Snippet and Ink

I like this...

Sorry guys, I'm posting this as a memento for myself because my computer is SO slow, I need to throw away some stuff and I want to keep this in mind because I like the look of the storage boxes on the right hand side with the brown labels. I think they sell similar boxes at Ikea. I also love the moody mood board on the left which is quite dramatic with its B&W images. Something like this would be fab for a home office

I like this...very calming

and I need this because I just got a call from Mila's school telling me I had forgot her lunch box!!! Bad bad bad mother!

Image via Emma

Last post for the day but I couldn't resist....

OK one last post for the day because if I spent my day in front of the computer, I'm not gonna get anything done but I couldn't resist this white cotton pendant light and the whole atmosphere of the room....simply beautiful

What do you think?

This light designed by Nelson Sepudelva for Ay Illuminate reminds me a bit of the spirit of the Koushi XXL pendant light (with Coton Kandhi, 350 €) by Mark Eden Schooley I fell in love with at MERCI in Paris.

(C) Image from Dutch magazine VT Wonen
Ay Illuminate: www.ayilluminate.com

Blog love: A thing for...

My blog love this weekend is for A thing for....a beautiful blog of inspiring, pretty moodboards put together by Maritza Teodoro. Her choices of photos are flawless, eery and she also has another blog Design Relevant which has also stunning images.

What are you up to this weekend?

My sweet mum went back to France this morning and Mila and I are missing her a lot already. As we were wiping our tears on the train platform, the lady who signals when the train is ready to go, came to check on us and then she felt tearful too thinking about her mum...so sweet, we almost hugged each other. It's funny hey...no matter how old you are...your maman stays your maman forever.
So this weekend to take my mind off, I'm just going to potter around the house, start putting ideas for Halloween so that Mila and I can have as much fun preparing it than when we planned her birthday. Paint a couple of French chairs I found in the street in white and select some family photos to get them enlarged in B&W and create a mood board like the one I saw at the Martin Margiela Exhibition and hopefully Steve will also put Lucas' new home together

Have a lovely weekend with those you love....

PS: A warm thank to Jo and lots of kisses to Toby for her mention of our lovely Star scarf

Mood board inspiration

I love the light, the feeling of lightness and freedom and the hues of soft beige, greys from this old building.

(C) Beautiful images from Elle Bella illustration

J'aime...

the colours, the montage of these beautiful images on a torn piece of paper, the sea...

Via Glouglou et chou

Albert rules!