Christmas Decorations

I love these Christmas decorating ideas from Interio, the amazing Swiss Home Shop. I particularly love the idea of decorating the space between the inner and outer windows and filling up a nice glass vase with ornaments and weaving a string of lights through it. The effect is modern, classy and still very Christmasy. All  Photos by Interio.

Christmas Makeovers

I love these before and after images from Interio's Catalogue. Sorry for the slightly blurry images. I scanned these myself from my own copy of the catalogue.

Interio is a lovely Swiss home store. Rosie and I wandered into one of their shops while in Lucerne this past October. I fell in love with their products and picked up one of their free store catalogues for inspiration this holiday season.


Photos from Interio

Fragonard: The Scents of Southern France

I love perfume and dream of amassing different scents that I can pick and choose from depending on my mood. I like fruity, floral and citrusy scents.


While in Grasse, France last month, Rosie and I took a tour of the Fragonard perfume factory. We learned about the fruits, flowers, herbs and plants perfume scents are sourced from and how the scents are harvested to create perfumes and other scented products such as soaps and lotions. Our guide also let us smell different Fragonard scents and they even gave us small sample bottles to take home. Sweet!


After the tour we got a chance to explore the factory store. I was in olfactory heaven and in my opinion we didn't have enough time in there. Nonetheless, I ended up getting two eau de toilette bottles as presents for my sisters.


A bottle of Etoile, French for Star. This was the first perfume I smelled and the one I like best. This scent is described as a "woody, floral scent with citrus accents."

For my younger sister I asked the saleslady to recommend something appropriate for a young teenager and she led me to Mademoiselle Amour, "a mischievous eau de toilette brimming with tenderness, offering a tangerine, strawberry and apple top note, a rose, jasmine and sweet pea middle note and a raspberry back note." This sweet little scent came in a cute cosmetics pouch with a heart motif and was accompanied by a small pocket mirror. 

 For myself I ended up with a lovely free sample bottle of Marche aux Fleurs, described on the website as "a magnificent floral, fruity mixture of melon and black currant with a hint of sweet pea, lily of the valley, vineyard peach along with a lasting scent of jasmine, orange blossom and musk that lingers."


 It's a lovely scent, bright but gentle and I find myself trying not to use up my little bottle so quickly so as to keep it lasting longer. Scents have such powerful memories attached to them and when I smell this one I'm transported back to that lovely day in Southern France. 

What perfumes and scents do you guys love?








Photos from Fragonard perfume and Swiss Spring.

Never Regret Staying Home With A Good Book: Wonderstruck

It's been awhile since my last book recommendation, over a year in fact. I tend to lean towards a lot of young adult literature in what I read, and today's pick is no different. It's Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck.

To quote the blurb on the book's website,

"A boy named Ben longs for the father he has never known. A girl named Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room, and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.

Ben's story, set in 1977, is told entirely with words, while Rose's story, set fifty years earlier, is told entirely with pictures. The two stories weave back and forth before ultimately coming together. Rich, complex, affecting, and beautiful—with over 460 pages of original artwork—Wonderstruck is a stunning achievement from a uniquely gifted artist and visionary." 

It's a wonderfully written and illustrated book (Selznick is a Caldecot medal awardee) and I really appreciate Selznick's ability to tell two different stories in such rich detail using two different mediums. I also love how Selznick pays homage to another great book, I adore.

Do check the Wondestruck out. Chacic posted some images in her reccomendation post Wonderstruck Friday

P.S. Selznick's other book, the award-winning,  The Invention of Hugo Cabret has just been released as a film by Martin Scorsese called Hugo and its been getting good film reviews. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but I plan to do both.

Book cover photo via Ringo the Cat

Giveaway! Hop on Over!

My good friend Carla is having a giveaway to celebrate the 1st year anniversary of her online clothing store Carla's Closet. It's over at her wonderfully photographed blog Carla Reads the World! The giveaway is open until December 28, 2011 so hop on over there and get a chance to win some pretty neat clothes, bags, jewelry etc!

Advice I Need To Remember

Sources:Unknown (Meaning I forgot where) YMC, YMC, Swiss Miss and another unknown except I know its from tumblr.  

HEMA

We took a three week sojourn to explore Europe together hence, the blog neglect. We left in late October and arrived home last Thursday. While exploring Amsterdam, one store in particular caught our eye, Hema, a homegrown Dutch brand that designs and manufactures a plethora of items ranging from clothing and cosmetics to food and dining items at reasonable prices.

I fell in love with their party materials. Including

 

 these cute floral and plaid print containers

 

these sunny printed napkins in floral and nature themes

the pirate paper plates 

festively packaged apple and strawberry drinks

 

and their festive party streamers.

And for cleaning up lovely 4 packs of dishtowels for 5 Euro and in a variety of colors.

All images via Hema