Life Lately... 2019 so far!

Well hello guys! No, I'm not dead! I just took a very long break from the blog and let me say this: the past month and a half has gone by in a blur.

This year didn't quite start like I hoped it would. It was a bit slow and painful to be honest! We came back from North Wales at the beginning of January and went back to work on the 7th. I think it didn't help me to think that a week had passed already and I hadn't done anything in particular. I was putting quite a lot of pressure on myself to achieve more with my work at the end of last year (still kinda am) and because of this, I felt even worse about starting work again!

Getting back into the swing of things was a bit hard and I mainly felt like hibernating haha. But then I started to feel a lot more motivated mid-January and all of sudden, loads of ideas for personal projects came. Since then, I've been struggling to find a balance between client work (which really is the most important and pays the bills), my personal projects (which are important too as there are so many things I'd like to do!) and my private life (my poor husband and I are not having a lot of time to relax together lately...).

So I've been fighting against time the past month, trying to do everything whilst keeping a schedule that means I won't end up with burnout! I keep thinking: How do people with kids manage? Honestly though, we're working so much that when we're not working, we'd barely have the time or energy to look after a child.

We love to take some time during the weekend to go for a walk, get some fresh air, discover a new part of Bretagne and eat something nice along the way. These moments just the two of us are always so good and we definitely feel like we need more of this and less of work. But you know what, we love what we do so sometimes it's hard to switch off, and when we do, if I'm still at home, I'll find a way to get my iPad and sketch some ideas. Funny isn't it?! It's very hard to have a good balance, but all that said, I'm the happiest I've ever been for a while and it must be that we're doing something right :)

A few photos below!

From top to bottom: Afternoon shopping and bagels in Lorient / Winter walk in Pont-Augan / Sunny day in Guéméné-sur-Scorff where we visited Les Bains de La Reine and discovered the castle walls / Gloomy Saturday spent well in Domaine de Kerguéhennec

I've been creating more for social media as well, which has been really good for me as I participated in the #kidsincolorz challenge earlier this month and absolutely loved it! I have more ideas about templates and freebies (wallpapers mainly) that I'm planning on sharing on my stories and adding on my highlights as I'm probably not going to do wallpaper giveaways over here now. I'm still working on getting my new website right but I'm still at the stage of sketches and I only just started to create some custom typography for it, so you'll have to wait a little longer to see it!

You might have noticed as well that I've finally opened my Creative Market shop! Something I've been thinking about doing for a very long time. I've realised mid-last year that having a stationery shop on Etsy wasn't really working for me anymore. The main issue being the fact that I couldn't invest anymore in printing more goods that I wasn't sure were going to sell. I've been having a massive sale on Etsy since then as I would love for my little greeting cards to not gather dust in the spare room! On top of that, Etsy has upped their charges (which means that I'm loosing a bigger chunk on my profit) and shipping from France is getting ridiculously expensive. I mean, people don't want to pay shipping costs that are actually more expensive than what they're buying right?!

So I decided to take a step back, have a real good think about what would make me really happy to create and how I could potentially sell it, and I came up with the conclusion that digital goods was the best idea. There's no need for shipping or paying for prints up front not knowing if it will have any success, and I get to create illustrations and graphics that other creatives will use, which is kind of cool! I'm still at early stages as I have just a couple of bundles available at the moment, but I'm planning on adding more bit by bit :)

So that's pretty much it guys! Things are going well and we're happy with where we are at the moment, but we keep in mind that there's always room for improvement ;)

I'm so grateful that I get to live from my passion and for Valentine's Day yesterday, I decided to give a big shout out to all my followers. I wanted to send my love to each and every one of you that have been sticking around, following my adventures, supporting me and my work, and motivating me in my every day life <3

I hope you've liked this little catch up, and make sure to follow me on Instagram if you'd like to see what I'm up to!

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Marché de Noël in Poul-Fétan

The first weekend of December marks the beginning of Christmas for us, and I guess it does for a lot of people! We put the tree up and decorated the living room on Saturday and we made sure to prepare a festive lunch that consisted of a platter of cheese, homemade mulled cidre (based on the recipe from Jamie Oliver!) and apple stollen for dessert. Our tradition is to watch Elf (or Harry Potter) on the same day and we absolutely love it. It's bound to put us in a good mood, no matter what's going on in our life.

On Sunday, we went to Poul-Fétan's Christmas market to carry on with our festive weekend. Although we felt that there wasn't enough decorations around and that the Christmas spirit was a bit low, we enjoyed going back to this beautiful place (previous blog post here!) and we found loads of great crafty items and foodie products, all artisanal. Plus, the galettes and biscuits were delicious!

We found this tree made out of palette wood and we felt it would look perfect in our house! The lady that sold it to us had a cute stall with loads of products sculpted from palette wood and the prices were so reasonable that we couldn't resist. We also found some delicious chocolate products from Lady Merveilles for my parents but I didn't take a photo of these unfortunately. We did try some samples though, and thinking back, I think we should have bought a couple more for ourselves ;)

All in all, we had a nice time, but we're hoping to go to another Christmas market soon that will have more of a Christmassy atmosphere and maybe more stalls with a larger range of products. We'll keep searching!

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Auray in Autumn

We visited Auray a little while back and we instantly loved it. It's one of those small port towns in Brittany that still have a traditional feel with its old bridge and cobbled stone streets. You can also find a lot of renovated old houses with their wonky wood beams that I can't help but taking loads of photos of.

It was really nice to stroll around the town at a really quiet time and the Autumnal sun was just perfect. They started to put up the Christmas decorations but sadly the lights weren't on. Well, I guess we're not quite ready for Christmas yet... Right?! More photos below!

See what I mean when I said it was empty? I think we just timed it right as when we decided to head back home, we realised it was getting busier and busier by the minute.

Because the atmosphere was so nice and relaxing, we felt like we could take it slow and decided to go for a walk along the river. I had the brilliant idea of stopping by Maison Georges Larnicol to get some treats though so that we could stop and savour them on a bench when we were ready for a little break!

We got four little Kouignettes (which are basically small versions of the traditional Kouign Amann) and they were delicious. Our favourite was the orange/cointreau. Yum! I have to say though, I've tasted them back in Nantes as Larnicol has a shop there too, and they were definitely nicer over here! Maybe the fact that the lady at the shop warmed them up for us just before we ate them helped a bit ;)

We really felt like treating ourselves that day so we also went for a nice coffee (and a beer for Jason) at L'Epicerie. Not only does the outside of the café look great, but the interior is also really welcoming and cosy. Loved it! No wonder they've got such good reviews on Trip Advisor. The cream on my coffee was homemade and it was the most delicious and thickest cream I've ever had! Honestly, you have to taste it to believe me.

No doubt we'll be back very soon! But for now, get ready for more festive posts next month as we're heading into the season of Christmas markets and I'd like to visit one or two pretty soon :)

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Abbaye de Bon-Repos' 30th Anniversary

Every year, all the regions in Brittany organise a week long Fête de la Bretagne, and we definitely wanted to be in the loop to see if anything was happening around the area we live in. When I learnt that the Abbaye de Bon-Repos was organising a massive open day to celebrate this Fête as well as its 30th Anniversary, I told Jason that we had to go.

After a week of grey weather with quite a bit of rain, it felt so good to be outside in the sun for a whole day! We arrived at around 12.30pm but the performances and activities weren't starting until 2pm, so we took the time to have a picnic (that I prepared quickly before leaving the house) and explore the grounds of the Abbaye.

We were pleased to find so many beautiful historical buildings as well as a nice area around the river where you can find a local market every Sunday morning. Plus, we met a British group that meet regularly at the Abbaye with their retro cars and Jason was over the moon. It's nice to know that there are local British people that are crazy about their cars and we can't wait to bring back the Capri from Wales so that we can take part in their meetings (they obviously warmly welcome French people too by the way!).

(PS: I loved this turquoise 2CV!)

This amazing building was built a couple of centuries ago alongside the ruins of an ancient Abbaye (there's definitely not much left of it!). However, at the beginning of the 20th century, it was left unoccupied and it was quickly covered by ivy, with trees growing inside its cloister.

It was exactly 30 years ago that the council decided to start the renovations and to open it to the public, organising regular exhibitions and activities around it. I'm so glad they did! You know how crazy we are about these types of places, full of history and intriguing architecture.

There were plenty of activities planned all afternoon and we didn't get bored for one second. I really enjoyed watching the 19th century traditional dances and it was nice to see these people in their costumes walking around and having fun too.

We also watched a few horse shows, which is always impressive! We almost missed the jousting that was taking place in front of the Abbaye. I didn't manage to take good pictures when we caught up with it, but it was amazing! Obviously their goal wasn't to kill the other knight, but you could tell that the horses were really going for it and the settings and costumes were beautiful.

Towards the end of the day, we indulged in a traditional homemade crêpe with salted caramel. Yum!

We're so glad we found this place and we cannot wait to go back and explore the area further, walking alongside the river and the Lac de Guerlédan.

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