Happy New Year!

Dear Friends and loved ones, I wish you all a great 2013! See you soon much love- Chantal

Merry Christmas

Christmas is almost there, such an exciting time of the year. I decorated the house just a bit, but the pictures dont do it justice, they were taken at night with my iphone. I am at a place where there is no good internet connection, thats why I havent been posting often. It's a big adventure and I'll tell about it soon.








With a baby crawling around the house, I have guest slippers saved in a faux python magazine box near the entrance, a good way to avoid street dirt in the house.




I did a little DIY the other day. The painting above our sofa, needed a little makeover, I bought 3 little containers of gold glitters and used 3M sprayglue to attach them to the painting. On top of that I used a coating so the glitters stay put.




An image up close, again pic doesn't do it justice, it's really pretty an sparkly.




The painting before the glitter proyect.




Matteo is almost 10 months, he is quite a personality.
Merry Christmas to all and see you soon.

Our trip to London

How pretty is London, especially during Christmas season. We had a wonderful time, and the weekend went by so fast that I have to make an other trip in a near future. 

Mr Beau, with his hat he looks like a cute farmerboy. It´s nice to spend the weekend in Casual clothes as during the week it´s mostly business suits.

Som yummy goodies for on the way..

Chloe Alberry, great shop on portobello road. For me Portobello road is one of the main reasons to visit London, I love to treasure hunt, and bargain with antiques dealers which you have so many of here in London.

A nice hot coffee and a piece of home made pie to warm up after a cold rainy day.

This was heaven, and vintage/ antique shop filled to the brim with vintage jewelry...  ofcourse I couldn´t leave without a nice pair of earrings.

Love you London!

Bold & feminine

Love at first sight, bold yet feminine. I am very attracted to graphic wallpapers, but have my roll of graphic wallpaper still rolled up and stuffed away, one day I dare myself to decorate a wall in our house.

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Desk

Yesterday we had a National holiday...Mr Beau took care of Matteo early in the morning, playing, feeding and getting dressed, and let me sleep longer. So lovely, I am so happy with my guy, he is such a great daddy. We enjoyed the day together, making a walk and having lunch in our favorite restaurant and in the afternoon we both organized the house.

I love colors, but I also love a soft natural colors like soft greys and white´s.

This desk, the above picture,  says to me: organization, relaxation and nature. A nice cup of coffee or tea, mobile switched off, reading a good book, do some blog posts, being able to look outside of your windows and seeing the trees! Sounds perfect.

Enjoy your weekend tomorrow

colorful Christmas by Maria Barros

How about a non traditional Christmas decoration? I was totally in love when I saw this decorated tree (and everything else in that same house) made by Maria Barros. Maria is a very talented interior designer and a close friend of Ana Antunes from Home Styling.

So colorful and fresh

I am a grl that always ha the summer in my heart, choosing bright colors in clothes and jewels instead of dark colors and I see Maria does that naturally.

Maria barro´s book Casa Feliz is om my wishlist for Santa Claus, I hope he reads it and put´s the book under our tree! Do you want to see more pictures, please visit Dolce Vita.

Things that wow-ed my weekend

This weekend we made a stroll to the flower market and got some fuchsia/ruby red peonies, tulips, and gold branches. These gold branches I absolutely love and are an easy DIY to make. With my baby 24 on my arm it was impossible to spray paint these myself and bought them this time.

I am very fond of my antique malachite planter that is been filled to the brim with walnuts. 

Our Christmas tree is up. A vintage DIY spray painted bird that I had from last year I used to top the tree. I chose this white tree as I wanted something diferent. To soften it up I used some gold branches and stuck them in between the white plastic branches of the tree and gold and white christmas balls.

Maybe I add something more, maybe not.

I am in the gold phase, as you can see things added to the decor are mostly golds...I am thrilled with this gold mirrored monogram I bought over Me and belle. Me and belle is an online boutique that makes custom monogram keychains, wall appliqués, silhouettes and more...so recommendable to pay the shop a visit. I stuck it to the wall above our bedboard. Before we had a Vintage sunburst mirror there but with our baby playing on our bed I had nightmares about that thing falling down, off it went and now finally the wall doesn´t look so empty any more.

Another great change is that I had black ribbon sewed on to a simple white duvet cover from Ikea and now it looks so much more interesting. It has this square design in all 4 corners of the cover.

A Bust in your home

I absolutely love Busts...only if they look like roman or greek sculptures, because these give a sophisticated feel to your home. Don´t show me busts of a young gypsy boy crying, those will go to the trash. In above picture its a small bust on a pretty vignette, it´s not too overwhelming.

This above bust does, it´s huge, but in an all white interior it  looks amazing.

Not so fond of brown busts, I prefer the from white stone or marble, but I do love those black and white benches.

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Above busts are the kind of busts that I prefer.

Matteo 9 months

Our little boy has turned 9 months already. He has 7 teeth and wants to walk most of the time, with our help ofcourse. But I am not suprised if he starts walking by himself soon, the cheeky little boy he is. One thing we love to do is hug...those thight hugs with his arms around my neck, so sweet.

He stands up alone in the bath, cot and with help of the furniture.

 When meeting other woman, they want to show me pictures of their baby girls, or baby nieces and tell me that they ( matteo and the babygirl) make a nice couple in the future... Is this normal that woman already think fo far in the future? I found it hilarious that it happened 3 times already.

We went to London last weekend, hopefully soon i can post some pictures, we had a lovely time, wich I would love to show.

New Love - Papier d´ Arménie

Recently I came across this pretty booklet that had a vintage design, it was called Papier d´Armenie (or incense paper from Armenia. Inside the booklet are papersheets, that are divided in serveral smaller strokes. You have to tear one of them, pleat it and burn it in a dish. The original Papier d´Armenie papers perfumes and deodorize cooking or smoking smells in your house in a natural and organic way. This company exsists over a 120 years and it´s french founder came across Benzoin during his travels in Armania. Benzoin is used for Papier d´Armenie, for it´s deodorizing and mood uplifting benefits.
Not only am i fond of the scent of it ( they have many diferent scented paper right now) the design is adorable and petite. It makes a sweet little gift to someone. I am burning a stroke each day and it leaves the house with a nice welcome home smell. Available here.

current wish list

This is my current wish list! Hope you like them too! oops i forgot nº 5...it got lost somewhere...
1. /2 ./3. /4. /6. /7. /8. /9. /10. /11.

Toys organization

What about this girl from Beau Lifestyle...lately she hasn´t been posting regulary. Since our little one goes to the baby day care he has been sick continuously, and so am I. We are going to cancel baby day care and figure out something else as thing hasn´t been working so far.

To top off all my healt issues, this weekend I had a salmonella intoxication. We were given lovely wild mushrooms by friends, we made them with an egg omelette and oh my gosh, what a bad, bad, bad experience...Today I am feeling a little bit better, and tossed the remaining mushrooms into the garbage bin, no more wild mushrooms for us no more...

The only thing I have changed in our house is that I cleared the bottom 2 shelves of where we keep plates and dishes and stored Matteo´s toys. He is crawling and getting on his feet and was always attraced to my plates and dishes, so now I turned it into his toy storage. I like toys to be concentrated and organized in a part of the house, and become a part of the decoration, instead it to be scattered all over.

Hopefully I can get things back on track soon and return to my old self again. Thanks for being there for us and your lovely comments!

Tiny art

Last weekend I attended an art class for babies and that was fun! Matteo discovered he had an artistic side. It´s so funny to see how other babies interact with other babies, they either can´t get their hands off of each other or the ignore other babies totally. My mom went back home yesterday, It was also lovely to have my mom over this week, sorry for abandoning you guys. It´s when I have family over I really like to spend quality time with them and no time for sitting behind the laptop! During working hours I was very busy preparing my biggest order ever, my biggest customer (with 75 shops!), placed an order and I had to get that order out. It took me 4 entire days to prepare everything according their instructions but thank god it´s send!

Seeing matteo getting his hands dirty doing some DIY, I remember I got to do some DIY myself.

I still have a wonderfull vintage faux Bamboo mirror to paint and hang up.

Soon more to come as my baby inspires me...

London calling...

Packing my suitcase for...a weekend to London. It has been many years ago since  I have been to London, and I am quite excited to go again. Will be packing my umbrella and big scarfs as it is mighty cold already. Above suitcase is the yellow suitcase from Jcrew, It´s now added on to my wishlist...

Having a hightea...

Hopefully be visiting Portobello market again...

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Do you have some tips what to see and do in London? A favorite restaurant or place... Let me know!