My year 2013 in flowers

Good morning everyone, I hope you had a nice week end! I have been writing my New Year's Cards today. In France, you usually don't write cards before Christmas but in January, and you can write them until the end of the month. So I thought it's not too late to look back at 2013 and show you some of my favourite flowers from last year.
Speak to you soon
Elodie

1. MOODY BACKGROUNDS:
I love flowers on the dark background and would like to do more of that kind of pictures in 2014. You can see more photos here and here.

moody background

2. BLUE HUES:
apart from moody backgrounds, I seam to have liked blues and greens a lot this year.
You can see more photos in those blogposts - from top to bottom and from left to right.
table decoration for the Metropolitain//Favourite Flower//#2flowergirls //
cactus farm//blue variation//sweet peas//
#2flowergirls - Hortensia edition//dry petals//vase story

Shades of Blue

 3. LOVELY FLOWER SHOPS:
Those pictures belong to the series I made for my floral guide for sisterMAG. My second contribution for my favourite e-mag was a great experience. You can read the complete feature here.

Lovely flower shops

 4. SHADES OF PINK AND RED:
another red thread through my blogpost last year was the use of reds and pinks.
from top to bottom and from left to right:
crepe de chine et macarons//in my neighbourhood//pink and red roses
//pink still life//#2flowergirls - garden roses edition//wild flowers from Spain//
#2flowergirls - peonies//dahlias for baby love//#2flowergirls mums edition

best of 2013-pink

decorating with trophy animal heads

Hello everyone,
Let's talk about one of my favorite topics in decoration, decorating with animals. As I was putting together my moodboard for the nursery, it was clear I wanted a trophy for my daughter's bedroom. I picked this beautiful Unicorn, I love it and I was important for me to teach my daughter from the beginning to face reality!
She really loves it too and it's one of the first things she could actually see, as the newborns only see strong contrasts and the white unicorn head is hanging on the dark grey wall.
Here are a couple of the lovely animals I came across while doing some research.
I hope you will enjoy them.
What about you? Could you imagine decorating your home or even a baby nursery with one of those? Do you like them? Which one is your favourite?
Talk to you soon,
Elodie

Trophy animal head for nursery

1. Unicorn // 2. Bear // 3. Hippopotamus // 4. Hare // 5. Monkey
6. Badger //7. Rabbit // 8. Fox // 9. Polar Bear

First Mini-Bouquet of the year

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a good week so far. I was inspired by my blogpost from yesterday about the flower shop Saxifraga and its small bouquets. It's not the best season for flowers but you start finding anemones and ranunculus in the flower shops and I love them so much that I couldn't resist, so here is my first bouquet this year for you. And don't forget: Small is beautiful and you can do a lot with just a few flowers! Have a great day! Elodie do small bouquets with great love

mini-bouquet on Liberty

anemone on Liberty

LOVEly Flower Shop: SAXIFRAGA

Hello everyone!Here is another flower shop I visited for my article in sisterMAG last year. This shop is all about mini-bouquets. If you read my blog, you know I like mini-bouquets. My lovely #2flowergirls Inga from glomerylane calls me the "mini-bouquet lover"!

Saxifraga in Hamburg, is one of my all time favourite flower shop. Forget everything you know about flower shops before you go there. The owner Carola Wineberger is a very creative lady and really manages to create atmospherical flower compositions.  The shop is situated in the very creative district called Karolinenviertel or Karoviertel and surrounded by many small shops with a lot of handmade fashion and decoration items.

She makes some very small bouquets and displays them in recycled jars or shot glasses – they really look like the ones I loved making when I was a child - and still make now. No vase is small enough for these little beauties. She sells them for a couple of Euros. I find it so refreshing to find that kind of bouquet in a flower shop. So far away from all those pre-formated bouquets you find everywhere with gerberas and a lot of green.

Have a great day and speak to you soon! Elodie

Saxifraga_mini_bouquets

Saxifraga_big_table

Saxifraga_3

Saxifraga_4

SAXIFRAGA Website Glashüttenstraße 100 20357 Hamburg Mo-Fr. 10:00 - 18:00 Sat.: 10:00 – 16:00

Herr Max

Herr Max Hello everyone,
as promised yesterday, I am presenting you today the lovely Herr Max in Hamburg where the Räder presentation took place.
It is located in the Sternschanze district in Hamburg, in the same street as the great flower shop Grüne Flora. It has this rough flair I particularly like. If you are visiting Hamburg, I really recommend visiting this amazing place for a coffee, a piece of cake, or an ice-cream in the summer. Herr Max is open everyday from 10:00 to 21:00.

Herr Max Decoration

cake

Herr Max lamps

HERR MAX
Konditorei & Patisserie
Website
Schulterblatt 12
20357 Hamburg
Mon. to Sun. : 10:00 - 21:00

New vases collection by Räder

Hello everyone,
Last year in November I was invited to the press event of the German company Räder, for the presentation of their new home collection, with among others some new vases that I am very found of. I will be styling some flowers in those vases this spring, but now that the presentation has been shown to the public (It was shown today at the Nordstil Fair in Hamburg) I can show you some images of those pretty vases. I am so happy to see some more creative vases on the market this days. The mini vases collection is great and I am a big fan of the lady looking at the fishes. The size is really good for bigger branches and bouquets.
The presentation took place in one of my favourite cafés in Hamburg called Herr Max. A very stylish and nostalgic café with a lot of flair. I will show some pictures of Herr Max later this week.
I wish you a great week!
Talk to you soon,
Elodie

Raeder New Vases Collection

Le salon du thé du jardin des roses in Compiègne

Hello everyone,
first I would like to wish you a happy new year! I hope you had a good start in 2014! Those following me on Instagram know that I have been spending Christmas in Picardy with my family. I was there for the first time in months and it was really great seeing everyone.
Between Christmas and New Year, my mum took us to a magical place in the garden of my home town's Castle (the Château of Compiègne). A new tea salon opened last summer in the roses garden of the Castle's park. The place is usually closed during the winter, but it was open during Christmas time, and it was just magical. We had Brunch there and the cake was delicious!
I Just love it when historical sites are given a second life and used like this. What do you think? Isn't it just very special and beautiful?
Here are a couple of pictures for you.
Speak to you soon
xoxo
Elodie

Orangerie_Compiegne_Tree_corner

Orangerie_Compiegne_cake

Orangerie_Compiegne_cakes

Orangerie_Compiegne_decoration

Orangerie_Compiegne_from_the_back

Orangerie_Compiegne_statue

Orangerie_Compiegne_Christmas_pudding

Orangerie_Compiegne_cupcakes

Orangerie_Compiegne_tee_boxes

Orangerie_Compiegne_Christmas_tree

Orangerie_Compiegne_wreath

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Green Festive Vignette

Hello everyone, I am so happy to be taking part for the first time in the #urbanjungle monthly series initiated by my dear friends Igor and Judith. This time Igor and Judith asked us to compose a green festive vignette.
I have decided to show you my dry heath plant. It is not exactly a Christmas decoration but I think that it looks pretty festive with my black house doctor star on my green cabinet in my living room. What do you think?
I have decided to show you a dry plant as it's about as green as I can be with plants. I love plants in gardens, but I don't like having any in my flat. I prefer fresh cut flowers, as you well know if you are a regular reader of my blog.
I find heath looks much prettier when dry. It makes branches bend in a very elegant way and you can keep the plant forever, without having to worry about watering it.
You can also check out UnDueTre Ilari,  Fluxi on TourPeg LondonMouseblossom and Emerald Green Interiors for more festive decoration ideas!
You can also have a look at the beautiful Urban Jungle Bloggers Pinterest board.

I wish you  a great Wednesday - Thank you Igor and Judith for this brilliant idea.
Elodie

Urban_jungle_blogger_by_madame_love

Urban_jungle_blogger_by_madame_love_1

Urban_jungle_blogger_by_madame_love_2

Urban_jungle_blogger_by_madame_love_3

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madame love loves: minted

Hello everyone,
I hope you are not too stressed out with the pre-christmas madness going on! Today I would like to introduce you to minted. Minted is an online stationery store powered by a global community of designers. Minted has for instance a great Holiday Cards designs selection, that you can combine with your own photographs. The paper quality is excellent. I just received a card from a friend yesterday and I loved the look and feel of the paper.
Apart from their great stationary, I am big fan of their photo backdrops for wedding and parties.
I also love their art prints, which are highly customizable - you can pick the colour and get them in many different sizes.
I also love one of their new products, that I haven't seen in any other online stationery shop: the personalized wrapping paper. You can transform the templates with your own words and photos. Isn't that great?
Backdrops_by_minted

art prints by minted

wrapping paper by minted

In France, you send Christmas Cards after Christmas actually, more as a way to wish your friends and family a good year ahead - and I am thinking about creating my own card with minted this year.
What about you?
Are you sending Christmas cards?
When and what do they look like?
xoxo
Elodie

 

 

Lovely flower blogs #8: Grown and Gathered

Hello everyone,
I am back today with the 8th and last "lovely flower blog" this year. Don't worry, I will be back next with some more gorgeous blogs for you.
I have been waiting for the relaunch of their website, and I am so happy and excited to present you the gorgeous Grown & Gathered blog today!

grown and gathered bouquet

1.  Who are you and what are you talking about in your blog?

Hello all, I am Lentil and I, like many of you reading have a love of flowers. My partner and I have our own business grown and gathered, his love is the vegetables and mine the flowers.
I find it super difficult to talk about what exactly it is that we do – because I am one of those ideas people. I always seem to want to try something new ha. But in a nutshell, we grow and forage cut and edible flowers seasonally. I love the simplicity of flowers, I like how they grow and I like to represent them as they are.
We focus on local produce and sustainable as well as organic growing practices. As the business has grown, we have realized we are most passionate about sustainability, more than anything else. We only use post consumer green-waste and farm manures for our growing practices and are trying to create a closed loop system, where what we sell comes back, i.e. We give vegetables, fruits, herbs and edible flowers to restaurants, they give us back their biodegradable waste to add to our compost and we use that compost to grow the restaurants more vegetables, fruits, herbs and edible flowers! Brilliant!

grown and gathered - Lentil

grown and gathered - Lentil

2.  Where does your passion for flowers come from?

Well, I grew up in the country and was one of those children who liked to run around, play in mud and pick flowers. Then as I grew older, for some reason, I felt as though I needed a “real job”, so I went to university, got a Speech Pathology Degree and got that “real job”.  While I worked in my “real job” I dreamt about working with flowers and I remember in my spare work hours researching flowers secretly ha.
Speech Pathology is all about helping people in many ways, but what I realized while doing this is that I wanted to help people in a more simple way. I wanted to help people focus on the positives, the simple things and to stop and think about what they have, not what they don’t. For me the answer was flowers. I feel as though flowers have their own little language. Of course the fact that I hated working in offices helped to make the decision much easier.

grown and gathered

3. What inspires you?

Many things.
My lovely Matt and how we live most of all. We try to live in a simple and sustainable way.
The next is probably our ideas, we always seem to have more ideas and things we want to try than hours in the day.
And People. Not reading about them, but meeting them and talking with them, any type of person really.

grown and gathered tree

4. What is your favorite flower?

This is probably one of the hardest questions I have ever been asked, but I think I’ll have to choose a poppy (of any variety).

grown gathered field of poppies

5. Which other flower blogs are you reading regularly?

To be honest I don’t really get around to reading other blogs often, we don’t have great internet in the country and life gets busy! But I would like to think I read Cecilia Fox and Pomp and Splendour blogs when I can haha!

grown gathered

So I hope you enjoyed this interview today even if it is not very christmasy!
I wish you a great day! Talk to you soon!
Elodie