Christmas tree

Last week my children and I started to decorate our appartment - I pulled a big box, labled "Noël", out of the closet and they happily took out the ornaments one by one.

We wanted to make a Christmas tree but there isn't enough room in our flat so I decided to use a big fir tree branch that I took from my mother in law's garden (thanks, Michou!) and put it in a flower pot on top of our new side table; I wrapped its bottom end in a plastic bag, filled with moist paper so it stays fresh for as long as possible. Since the branch is too heavy to stand on it's own, I tied it's tip to a hook in the wall.

We didn't use many ornaments, soft little branches couldn't take much weight - but we are happy with the result.

Now we have to hang some twinkle lights and put presents under our tree!

Winter is here ...

... and the first snow on the last blossoms of autumn ...

... and warm, wooly slippers on my daughter's feet ...

... and more snow to come.

Days of the week

I recently did a friendly swap with Fallon, an Etsy friend who runs the lovely pillow shop Olive and two other shops with vintage treasures and supplies; and today my package arrived!

In exchange for my zippered pouch and a key chain I asked Fallon to make me a special garland to mark the days of the week. My son goes to preschool here in France and the classes are only four days a week with Wednesdays and the weekends off. Sometimes he finds it difficult to understand which day it is and whether we have time in the morning to play a little or if we have to hurry to school. So Fallon made me a banner of little houses in two colours, green for school days and blue for no school days, and she sewed the names of the days on them in French. She added a sweet little bird clip to attach to each house as the days go by.

I love the cheerful garland so much I decided not to hang it in children's room, where they don't play very often anyway, but to pin it on the wall by the entrance to our appartment, where we put our shoes and coats on in the morning. From our breakfast table we can see over the kitchen counter straight onto the wall and from now on the whole family will have our day "synchronized".

A fresh look

I finished another Pippa shoulder bag today and the winter sky was kind enough to let me take some pictures by the natural light.

I set up my photo shoot (using a piece of dark khaki paper for the background) on our beautiful old-new side table, a little DIY project from last weekend.

The IKEA side table with two drawers used to stand in our kitchen but in our new appartment there is no room for it any more. Since the table had a bit of water damage on top (from our tricky expresso machine) and the wood had turned yellow in some places, it needed a thorough sanding after which I repainted it in a brighter, pastel shade of pale aqua.

The picture doesn't show it but the day was very windy and my paint was drying faster than I would have wanted so the table ended with an uneven coat of paint and many little imperfections - it gives it a sort of distressed vintage look so I'm quite pleased with the result.

The table now stands in our living room, next to the children's corner and I hope it remains neat and tidy for as long as it's humanly possible...

Have a nice weekend!