my lonely bouquet

Hello everyone, Here are some pictures of the lonely bouquet I made yesterday for the first International lonely bouquet day. As I don't have a garden myself, and didn't have access to one during the week end, I had to improvise a bit. I created a bouquet with flowers I already had at home from three different bouquets and decorated my recycled jar with washi-tape When the bouquet was finished and the "take me tag" attached, I left it at the tube station Eppendorfer Baum in Hamburg. I hope I will receive some news from the new owner.

I wish you a great start in the new week!

Elodie

The International Lonely Bouquet Day

Hello everyone,

Today I want to share a great project with you. Do you know "the Lonely Bouquet". This a project by Emily Avenson, an American girl living in the Belgian Countryside. That's how she define her idea:

A movement dedicated to spreading happiness and smiles, one flower at a time!

The ultimate goal of this initiative is to dedicate one day a year to making strangers happy. The method chosen is… flowers! and this Sunday (30th of June) is the first International Lonely Bouquet Day.

How to participate in the first International ?

All you have to do is:

1. pick flowers fresh from the garden or forage straight from nature. If you don't have a garden, like myself, you can of course go to the market or to the flower shop.
2. arrange the flowers in a small, recycled jar
3. add a signature “take me!” tag (you can download my template in English, French and German here: Lonely Bouquet - Tags), and
4. leave the arrangement behind for a lucky local to take home. Voila! You have just delivered a handful of flowers that will surely put a smile on a stranger’s face.

To sign up for the event, please pop on over The Lonely Bouquet facebook page! If you want more information, please visit Emily's website.

So I hope you are now motivated to help us spreading happiness and smiles, one flower at a time. I will definitely take part as a flower girl!

You can also follow the Lonely Bouquet on Twitter and on Instagram and use the Hashtag #thelonelybouquet.

FREE DOWNLOAD - The Lonely Bouquet "Take me" Tag in 3 languages: Lonely Bouquet - Tags

Take care and speak to you soon, Elodie

Photos: Emily Avenson

The nursery project #3 - mood board - the colours

Hello everyone, As promised there, I will share the evolution of my "nursery project" with you on the blog. Today I want to show you a little mood board I created in order to illustrate the overall look I want to give to the room and decide on the main colours in want to use in the decoration of the nursery. As you can see the two main colours are blue and grey/silver.

1. Pompoms to add some lightness and fluffiness to the decoration 2. Print Everyone's friend from seventy tree - looks perfect for a future multilingual child 3.Wall hooks in different shades of blue 4. A unicorn - this one has already moved in... 5. A lovely star carpet. 6- The Egmont bunny lamp - In fact I have had this lamp for ages in my living room. Now, it lives where it belongs: in the nursery! 7. Lovely fabric: from left to right: Liberty art fabric - Capel blue Liberty art fabrics- Eloise blue Liberty art fabrics - Betsy grey France Duval-Stalla - Grey with white cloud of stars cambric 8- soft toy - dog - in Japanese Zakka style

1. Why blue? I decided to pick blue as the main colour, even if I am expecting a baby girl. The baby's bedroom is going to be set in our former bedroom in which we painted one of the walls in midnight blue last year. I still love this colour so much and find it so peaceful, that I decided not to change it and build the decoration around it. To make it a little more girly, I am adding some flowery Liberty fabric. I am a big fan of british stylist, shop owner and book author Abigael Ahern and her choices of dark colours in decoration, and decided to apply that to the nursery. I also decided to mix different shades of blue.

2. Why grey/silver? First of all, grey is my favorite colour in decoration. I painted the main wall in my living room in grey and I really love it. Grey/silver is more going to be used as accents in the nursery, as a contrasting colour to blue and in fabric. We will leave the other walls in the nursery plain white. For me silver as something magical in it and I hope it will inspire my little princess.

3. The Patterns I am going to use a lot of stars in the decoration of the room, as well as animals, as I think they both fit perfectly in a baby's room.

So! I hope you got inspired. I think we are also going to add some neon yellow to the room.

It's all for today. I will be back tomorrow on the blog with a great flower project - so stay tuned.

xxx Elodie

Etsy Labs Hamburg with Frau Sieben

Hello everyone, On Monday Evening, I attended my first Etsy Labs in Hamburg which was organised by my friend Trixi (alias Frau Sieben), a jewelry designer . I am sure you all know about Etsy - for those would don't know, it's an american online platform that sells handmade and vintage goods all over the world. They regularly organise craft parties in European cities called Etsy Labs - It's a free DIY event, on a special topic. The ones in Hamburg are organised in a brilliant location called LOKAL e.v.. The concept is simple but really enjoyable - you sit around a table with other people (okay, mainly girls...) and do something with your hands, while drinking a lemonade.  Yesterday's Etsy Labs was about creating summery bracelets - and that's what we did! I had a lot of fun with my friends Maria, Christin and Anne. Here are a couple of photos for you:

Talk to you soon! and see you at the next Etsy Labs.

Elodie

The nursery project #2 - online inspiration

Hello everyone,The birth of baby love is approaching (the end of August) and I can already tell you that you will see less flowers and more decoration and DIY on the blog in the coming weeks, as I am decorating the nursery and planing to make some stuff for the baby. I will show you some pictures of the room slowly transforming into a nursery and some great resources to buy furnitures and decoration items online. Today I will start with my online inspiration and first where I store my inspiration when I am surfing the web. I created a Pinterest board, that I names LOVEly nurseries. You can have a look here

A great website, when decoration the nursery and waiting for the baby to come is the French blog called The Socialite Family - A SAMPLE OF SMART AND COOL FAMILIES .

The blog is written by Constance Gennari who used to be a children’s fashion journalist. The purpose of Socialite Family is to observe interior design through the eyes of a family and I find her blog very inspiring. The interviewed families so far live in Paris, New York, London, Milan and Nantes, Los Angeles and Barcelona. (the interviews are available in French and English). It is a very visual blog, and I find extremely inspiring.

Speak to you soon, xoxo

Elodie

Dala horse - A Swedish tradition

Hello everyone, Last week-end was midsommar in Sweden, so I decided to write a blogpost about a pretty souvenir I brought with my from Stockholm last February, when I attended the Meet the Blogger Conference. You can read my other blogpost about Stockholm here, here and there. The little souvenir is called dalahästen in Swedish and Dala horse or Dalecarlian horse in English. I was in the small log-cabins deep in the forests during the long winter nights in front of the fire, that the ancestor of the Dala horse was born. Using simple tools, generally a knife, toys were carved for the children. The fact, that many horses were made was only natural, because the horse to them was invaluable. In the older days, the Dala horse was mostly a toy for children, but nowadays, it is a symbol for the kingdom of Sweden. The earliest reference of wooden horses for sale is from 1624. The pattern of today is about 150 years old and it reflects a style of painting known as "Kurbits". In 19th century, Sticka-Erik Hansson introduced the technique of painting with two colours in the same brush. Even today the Dala horses are painted this traditional way. Today's Dala horse is still a handicraft article, made out of pine, and at least nine different persons have contributed with their skills to create the horse. At the beginning, I wanted to buy a black horse or maybe a blue one from the flea-market:

But then, I had to choose a traditional red one, as it much better stands for the swedish style - So I found this one at Grannas:

And now it lives on my bookshelf in my living room, in front of my red books:

Granna A. Olsson Hemslöjd AB (were I found my horse) was founded in 1922 and is today the oldest company making Dalecarlian horses. Website: www.grannas.com

Speak to you soon. xxx Elodie

crêpe de chine et macarons

Hello everyone, yesterday, I was lucky enough to be invited to visit the great pop-up store of the label 7 Chic Avenue. This is the gorgeous label of designers Marianne and Jutta. The pop up store is open until this Saturday in the Isestrasse 79 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. If you can't make it, you can purchase their very elegant and feminine creations online. They use some very exquisite fabric such as crêpe de chine. Another highlight of this event was the catering, made by Aurelie Gourmet. Aurélie is well-known in Hamburg for her macarons. You can find them every Saturday at the Marktzeit in Altona (currently on summer break). Yesterday, we didn't just have macarons but also chouquettes - a small choux pastry sprinkled with sugar and cannelés (the sweet speciality from Bordeaux) - and it was delicious - It felt like home for an hour or so. Thank you Aurélie!

Have a nice Friday evening. Talk to you soon

xoxo Elodie

2flowergirls #5 - peonies

Hello dear readers,Today is the big day for the start of #2flowergirls in June with madame love and glomerylane. The flower of the month is the peony and I am very much looking forward to seeing your creations and see which variety you found. There are more the 200 varieties of peonies, from white to purple, from yellow to light pink. Peonies are called pivoines in French and Pfingstrosen in German (Pentecost) as they usually bloom at that time of year and are many people's favorite flowers. No wonder, they just look gorgeous in the garden, in an exuberant bouquet and are a classic for weddings. So let's the peonie's explosion start! Please post a link to your blogpost in the comment field underneath or on Inga's blog and we will post your photos on our peony pinterest board. For those who don't have a blog or don't want to blog about it, you can just post a picture on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #2flowergirls or send us your peonies per email.

I hope you will like my pictures. I tried to show the variety as much as possible and found 6 different ones from 3 different flower shops yesterday, and displayed them in single vases.

Here is also a selection of Inga's photos. I am completely in love with the bloom in front of the mirror. You will see her complete shooting soon on her blog.

Speak to you soon! Your 2 flower girls - Elodie & Inga

Photos: (c) Elodie Love and Inga Lorig

#2flowergirls in May - a review

Good morning! Our #2flowergirls action for June is starting next week on Tuesday. Inga and I announced last week on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that this month's flower will be the peony and we are very excited about it! I think of it as a very photogenic flower that can be styled in many different ways that looks fantastic alone or as a huge bouquet or even as a flower crown. We are very happy about the participation, the enthusiasm around the project, and the wonderful blogposts that have been submitted so far for the ranunculus and the hortensia edition - and I am personally very happy I met Inga through her lovely blog glomerylane and that we are doing this project together.

I made a little collage for you, to show you some of the photos that have been posted on all those beautiful blogs or on Instagram. You can have a look at all the photos on our Pinterest board.

From left to right and from top to bottom: Ashley from the blog Nord & Süd - posted on Instagram: @ashleysued Igor from happy interior blog - posted on Instagram @igorjosif Kathrin from happy home blog

From left to right and from top to bottom: Sandra Wild (without blog) posted on Instagram @41sommersprossen Julia von Junifaden Eva von Emil und die grossen Schwestern

From left to right and from top to bottom: Clara von tastesheriff Katharina von Katharina kocht Sabine von Azur Weiss

From left to right and from top to bottom: Miriam from Miris Jahrbuch Judith from Joelix Susanne von Serendipity made with love

From left to right and from top to bottom: Julia from Junifaden Katharina from Katharina kocht Jule from Jules kleines Freundenhaus

I hope to also see your flowers for the peonies edition in June! Have a nice day and a stressless end of the week - and.... don't forget to buy yourself flowers! Elodie

at the cactus farm

First I thought, I didn't like cacti, and then I read the beautiful blogpost from my friend Inga on her blog glomerylane - and I realised how charming they can be. During my holiday in Spain, I visited Cactus Costa Brava in Begur, a 4.000 m2 plantation. It was just fantastic and I would have brought some back with me, if I wasn't travelling with Ryanair on the way back. Instead, I made a lot of pics, and I am going to share them with you today.Enjoy and speak to you soon! Elodie