Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

I'm officially out of office until the 6th of January from this afternoon and I couldn't be more excited about it :)

This year I'm spending my first Christmas in North Wales, staying with Jason's family. Although I lived in North Wales for 5 years, I would always come back to France during the holidays to spend some quality time with my family that I didn't see very often at the time.

So we decided to take two full weeks off and really enjoy it all. It's definitely going to be different from the Christmas I know, but I'm sure I'm going to love it anyway (as long as there's good food) ;)

I'm taking the opportunity of this last post for the year (!) to let you know that I won't be 'blogging' as much next year as I'm trying to shift things around and focus on what I really need: a new website.

I'm hoping to create a new website on Squarespace (with Jason's much needed help of course!), and am planning on having a blog and shop section on it.

I'm also thinking that if I make the move to Squarespace and have a new blog on the same platform, I'll probably think about changing the content of my blog posts and will focus more on design and behind the scenes. I'd love to share more about my day-to-day work, how I illustrate and create in general... Something more in line with where I want my business to go! I've already started to refine my logo so that it represents my current style better. Exciting :)

I very much hope that you're going to enjoy the end of the year with loved ones (with a thought for the dear friends and family members that are sadly not with us anymore) and that your new year will start amazingly!

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Portfolio Update - Christmas Tales from the Woodpecker Tree

With Christmas approaching very fast now, I thought that my last Portfolio Update of the year had to be this amazing festive book!

I loved working with Lesley on the first Tales from the Woodpecker Tree book so I was of course more than happy to work again with her on the Christmas one! First of all, her stories inspire me so much and I knew straight away how I would illustrate all seven of them. Her writing is so poetic that my imagination starts going crazy the moment I'm beginning to read her beautifully written tales. And I really think that's it's a great book for children of all ages, wether they're old enough to read them themselves or if they still need the help of a parent to read the stories, all comfy in bed on a cold Winter's night.

Have a look on my website to see a bit more about the book and get your copy in time for Christmas!

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Wallpaper Giveaway - Slow Down

Hey guys! It's time for a new wallpaper giveaway, full of good vibes, cosiness, and soothing pink and purple hues :)

It's almost December (say what?!) and when I realised that, I thought it was time for me to relax a bit more and slow down. I'm not talking about work really, because to be honest, this time of year is always a bit busy with clients wanting to get things done before Christmas (and it's great!), but I'm talking about everyday life. I love the fact that my days are buzzing with new projects to work on, but I also enjoy taking it slow in the evenings and weekends to recharge the batteries.

Although in the Summer I always feel like doing something, going outside and exploring, when Winter comes, I tend to be less eager to do all that and prefer to stay cosy in the house. I think this is mostly because passed 5.30pm it's completely dark outside ;)

This year has been a bit crazy again and I think I'm ready to relax for the last month of 2018. When thinking about the new wallpaper I wanted to create, I couldn't help but want to add a nice cup of hot chocolate with some Christmassy inspired pattern as I felt it was a good representation of December!

You'll notice that I used the same style for the steam as I did with the smoke on my Folktale illustrations. Well, what can I say, I thoroughly enjoyed creating the Folktale Week illustrations and it taught me quite a lot in the end! This challenge really helped me figure out a lot of things with my way of illustrating and I came from it feeling more confident about my work and my skills :)

Anyway! If like me, you're ready to slow down a bit, feel free to download these new wallpapers!

These wallpapers are free as usual but I would just like to remind people that they're only for personal use, thank you :)

Download:
WHOLE SET // PHONE 1 // PHONE 2

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Everything has to go!

I'm back from my holiday and ready to rock the end of the year! With Christmas exactly 3 months away, I thought it would be a good time to run some massive sales in my Etsy shop so that you can all stock up on some cards and posters way in advance!

I mean, you get 50% off on all my latest collection, AND, my previous collection (or what is left of it) is back too for super cheap! Whoop Whoop! And at 0,95€ the card, if it's not a bargain then I don't know what is. Yes you've guessed it, I'm getting rid of aaaaall my stock so I can start fresh whenever I'm ready. So the sales are basically going to be on until my stocks are all gone.

Check out the shop RIGHT HERE and feel free to share the news with everyone around you!

Thanks as always for your support :)

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Noël à Bon-Repos

This is my last Christmas related post, I promise! January is just around the corner so I have no better time to share our festive day at the Abbaye de Bon-Repos. Plus, I don't know about you, but I intend to stay in that Christmassy mood as long as I can!

The weekend before our holiday, we made our way to this beautiful place that we always like visiting, expecting to see a full-on Christmas market. Well, that wasn't quite the case but we still had a very nice time! I think I didn't quite understand the fact that although there were a few activities inside the Abbaye and that the place had been decorated for the occasion, the rest of the area didn't have anything Christmasy happening, so of course, no market was taking place at the same time.

Anyhow, we still went inside and enjoyed hearing the band playing whilst looking at the current exhibition. More photos below!

We really liked some of the artist's illustrations and you can tell straight away that he's passionate about the whole celtic culture around Bretagne. Some of them really had a nice feel. He's known under the name of Brucero and you can have a look at his work right here.

Also, even though the photos don't look great because of the lighting, we enjoyed discovering some parts of the Abbaye that were all decorated for the various activities they'd planned. The dragon was quite impressive!

After warming up with some hot mulled wine (you can see the steam coming out of the glasses!), we went for a long walk around the Abbaye, waiting for the sun to go down so that I could take some photos of the historical building with the lights on. We didn't stay until it was properly dark though so the lights don't look very impressive unfortunately!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and I'll see you in the new year!

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Joyeux Noël + some news!

First of all, Merry Christmaaaaaas!! I've been off work for a couple of days now and I'm currently staying at my parents to spend some much needed time with my family! My sister is home too and as she's been living quite far away the past year, it's so nice to catch up with her too.

I'm looking forward to a nice meal tonight with my auntie and uncle Nadine and Titi and my cousins that I haven't seen for a long time too. And of course, I'm looking forward to a very festive Christmas day tomorrow, exchanging gifts, eating way too much food and spending time with some more family. It's days like these ones that I feel so grateful for life in general and even if things are not always perfect, it's so much better to concentrate on the positive and spend time with the ones you love :)

I'm hoping that you're all having an amazing time too!

As for the life update, boy have I got some news for you... Last weekend, Jason proposed to me!! Yes, we're ENGAGED! I feel so grown up just saying it haha. We're both very happy and although we're not spending Christmas together this year (he's back in North Wales for two weeks), the fact that he did it just before leaving made everything feel extra special. Every time I look at my pretty ring, I have a big smile on my face and it makes me think of him and how much I can't wait to be married to the love of my life. I know, very soppy indeed, but it's the truth!

You should have seen our parents reaction when we announced the news! We kept it a 'secret' for a couple of days as we wanted to see Jason's parents on Skype to tell them and we waited to see my parents before announcing the news too. Plus, I definitely didn't want to share it on social media before telling our close family first.

You're going to ask me 'So how did he propose'? Well, it was nothing crazy or over the top but it was perfect to us. He took me to a restaurant for a nice meal on the Saturday night and as we didn't come back home late, we just watched a bit of TV before going to bed. The problem is that he didn't plan the fact that I would fall asleep on the couch in my PJs! But it turned out quite good for him as whilst I was snoozing on the couch downstairs, he prepared the bedroom all nice upstairs and put some candles on so that when he woke me up and I opened the door, it was a proper surprise to me! He said he wanted to treat me to a nice massage but that first he had something to ask me about.

And so he kneeled down (bear in mind that I was half awake and in my PJs) and asked me to marry him! I of course said yes :). We're super excited about it all since then! If you'd like to see a picture of the ring (that is just so beautiful and perfect for me), head over to my Instagram!

I'll probably post some updates about the wedding but I have to say, don't expect anything big because it's going to be the smallest wedding in the world ;)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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A Christmassy Break in Port-Louis

Last Saturday we went to the Christmas market in Port-Louis for a couple of hours and one thing is for sure, it definitely felt more festive than the last one in Poul-Fétan! When we arrived, there was a band playing Christmas songs and when they decided to take a break, we could still hear some nice songs all around the main square thanks to the buvette (the stall where everybody was as that's where they served the drinks!).

There were a few long tents dotted around outside the chapel and we found a lot of very cute homemade products. It was hard not to buy them all! We did splurge on a couple of mini Christmas stockings hand-made by La Boutique Célia (photo above). They were too nice to resist and very reasonable in price. I took a photo of one of them in our tree! It matches the rest of the baubles perfectly :)

We loved the fact that all the small shops made an effort and decorated their windows and shop fronts with loads of garlands, lights and pine branches. It really helped the old streets to feel Christmassy and even though it was cold and grey (only 2°C!) we enjoyed walking around and taking some photos. We also walked all the way to the citadelle and Jason took the camera to snap some photos of me (which is really rare!). You should see some of the 'behind the scenes' photos haha! On many of them I was either making a weird face, closing my eyes, or my legs looked like they were deformed.

We found this stall with homemade jams that are a bit different than the usual jams (photo above) and we bought the prune jaune et eau de vie one that tasted DE.LI.CIOUS! We honestly liked all the jams that we tried so we could have bought more :). The lady making them is called Stéphanie Saliot and everything she does is organic!

We finished our little break with some hot mulled wine and a piece of chocolate cake, with all funds going to the community in Port-Louis. Everybody was super nice and we could see that they all put a lot of effort into organising and putting together this Christmas market. It's a shame it wasn't sunnier as I'm sure more people would have shown up!

We've got one more Christmas market we'd like to go to before Christmas is here so I'll make sure to share it with you all too! This one is supposed to be quite big as it's happening at the Abbaye de Bon Repos (you might have noticed that we love this place already!).

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