The past 3 months!

Hello, it's me! I can't believe I haven't written anything on the blog for almost three months! I think I've been so busy with work and personal life that the blog was the least of my worries haha. To be honest, I feel that people don't really read blog posts anymore and are more eager to have a look on Insta stories instead (ahem, I do this too). BUT, I like to share things with you guys and a blog post is great for doing little résumés of our life in general so I felt it was a good time to let you know what I've been up to since mid-February!

Well first, let me show you the amazing brunch we had at the Café des Orfèvres on the 17th of February! If you remember well, I created the whole brand for them last year and since then, every time we visit Vannes we try to make a stop at the café to eat some delicious treats. This brunch was just so good and it was super nice and sunny in Vannes, which was a bonus!

Life has been good the past three months, although a bit stressful with work but it's all fine in the end! Stress is sometimes part of work life purely because of the type of projects we take on and poor Jason was very very busy at one point with clients that kept coming back to him for more! We feel so lucky, and it's truly amazing to have regular clients coming back to us, but we also need to be careful not to go down the burn-out route and find the right balance. It seems to be a recurrent problem for freelancers!

That said, I was lucky enough to work on some very cool projects (one of them I can't share with you yet but is probably the most important project I've ever worked on in my career!). I collaborated on some more Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter inspired designs for Not Very Lady Like, created a box of inspiring and educational flash cards for Choulala Box (coming very soon!), and helped Innersense Organic Beauty raise awareness for Williams Syndrome Month by creating a hand-drawn lettering that was printed on t-shirts, mugs and make-up bags.

Oh and I've also released two new products on my Creative Market shop! The Magical Forest illustrations seem to be a hit so far ;)

I'm also taking part in the Instagram challenge 'Bon Voyage Week' and so far so good! I'm a bit overwhelmed by the responses I've had so far and it feels great to get so many nice comments on the fun and colourful illustrations I created for this challenge. It does show the importance of doing some personal work alongside client work. Check them out!

On the personal side, the weeks have been flying by to be honest but we've tried to take our time and relax as much as we could whenever possible. We visited my family a couple of times, explored other parts of Bretagne when the weather permitted it and had one or two VERY relaxed weekends, walking by the river, cooking delicious meals and playing Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch ;) Some photos below!

Tasty crêpes and a walk on Guidel Plage:

Perfect day out at the Domaine de Trévarez (jaw-dropping sight):

We also decided to take the day off for Jason's birthday (which landed on a Friday) and visited the Parc de Branféré! I loved walking around that parc and realising that all the animals were not stuck in cages and that a lot of them were completely free to roam around people.

AND, last but not least, I finally got my first tattoos ever!! I created the illustrations based on two of my favourite Miyazaki movies (can you guess which ones?) last Summer and waited a long time before starting to contact some tattoo artists that would be up for it. I was SO scared of the pain and honestly thought that I would be in agony, but overall it wasn't bad at all! Yes, it hurts, but I honestly feel way more pain waxing my bikini line!

I'm so pleased I did it and I'm already planning my other two (it will be a set too)! I'm also planning on taking some better photos than these ones with a better light and setting ;)

Hope you're all doing well and you enjoyed seeing this little recap!

Tweet

Unexpectedly Amazing Dinan!

WOW. We were definitely not expecting this! On our last vacation day, we didn't want to just leave our Airbnb and go straight back home (depressing!), so we thought we would stop in Dinan on the way back as I'd heard it was a nice place to visit. Well, we had a slight shock when realising how beautiful the whole place was and we kept telling ourselves 'how the hell did we not visit this town before?!'

I think the photos will speak for themselves even though it's of course much nicer in real life! What I love about it is that it didn't feel touristy at all on that day and we could walk around the cobbled streets in awe of all the old timbered houses, not feeling like we had to move out of the way for somebody to take a photo of his wife (you know that feeling?).

It's like discovering a little gem and feeling so special about it haha. Anyway, get ready for quite a few photos!

We didn't take the time to head inside the castle but apparently it's a good one! To be honest, we were also watching our money and if we had to choose between a nice lunch and tickets to visit the castle, we would definitely choose the food (although it was hard because you must know by now that we LOVE castles, but food always wins) ;)

Actually, we found this great crêperie Au Coin de la Breizh which was very affordable and delicious, so we didn't regret our choice!

I think the best cobbled streets that you have to walk along is the Rue de Jerzual that becomes the Rue du Petit Fort. That's where we found the most authentic-looking houses and most of the photos above are from these two streets! Also, we loved walking on the fortified walls to get a better view of the town.

Oh and don't forget to have a look at the clock tower (Tour de l'Horloge) and the Basilique Saint Sauveur!

At one point I just felt so lucky to be able to see such a great place and living so close to it that we could come back whenever we feel like it.

We definitely don't have a lot of money (I mean, hello, we spent our honeymoon just a couple of hours away from home), but money isn't everything and I know for sure that some people can't even afford to go somewhere, even if it's not far from where they live, purely because they can't afford to take time off or book an Airbnb for a few nights. So I do feel lucky and I do cherish these rare moments.

We also know that our real honeymoon will be our trip to Japan in a few years time, which we are saving for, so we're definitely looking forward to it!

Tweet

The Fortified Town of Saint-Malo

If you're on the North Coast of Bretagne, you cannot miss Saint-Malo. This old fortified town has such a unique atmosphere and is really worth exploring! Although like with Mont St Michel, it can get very busy in the Summer, so I would definitely recommend to visit it outside the months of July and August. Otherwise, you might have a lot of trouble finding a parking space and walking along the fortress walls (some bits are narrower than others and I can imagine how it would be tricky to enjoy it when super busy!).

It was a bit overcast when we arrived in the morning but I was still snapping away, too happy to be in this beautiful place with my brand new husband ;)

In the morning we decided to walk on the fortified walls that are still standing strong all around the town, which really made us work up an appetite as by lunchtime, we were absolutely starving! I didn't take any photos of the meal we had at La Bouche en Folie, but honestly, if you're searching for very good typical French cuisine, you need to stop there! It's quite small so I would recommend to book in advance, but the food was absolutely delicious. A tad expensive for us, but it was our only treat during our holiday :)

We were lucky enough to be exploring St Malo during the festival 'Journées du Patrimoine' where historic buildings and places exceptionally open their doors for free, or spaces that are usually not opened to the public. For the occasion, the cathedral allowed people to visit the cathedral's bell tower with a guide and we managed to be part of one of the small groups that went up! We felt so privileged to be able to climb up to the highest tower and discover Saint-Malo from above.

By the end of the afternoon, it was very sunny and warm so we did what a lot of people did then: we made our way to the beach! Like Mont St Michel, Saint-Malo has some very changeable tides throughout the day, and parts of the beach that were submerged under water in the morning were completely dry by the afternoon. Tourists could even walk to the nearest island to visit the Fort National! It was so nice to enjoy some time on the beach and it allowed us to have yet another different view of Saint-Malo.

Before leaving, we thought we'd enjoy a nice beverage at the very well-known and quirky (get ready) "Le Café du coin d'en bas de la rue du bout de la ville d'en face du port"! We loved it there! It's so different and a bit crazy. At the bar, you could sit in swinging chairs from an old fairground ride and you couldn't find one piece of the wall that was bare. We were very surprised to see that it was a bit quiet as we were expecting it to be absolutely full of intrigued tourists like us ;). Definitely a great experience!

Oh, and let's not forget about the most scrumptious doughnut I've ever had in my life (apart from the first time I tasted one from the same place back in 2014) from Maison Hector! Apparently their waffles are to die for too. Just seeing this photo makes me want to have another one right now!

So yeah, did a lot of walking, but also ate a lot of food that day!

Tweet