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Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

weekend wishes


I hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far!  It is going really nicely here.  The weather is perfect and I am doing a little "summer cleaning" as Spring completely passed me by.  I found out yesterday that our container has left France and I could not be more excited!  It means a lot of work but hopefully fun work to come.  Keeping our fingers crossed that it all goes well!

Just a few things that caught my eye this week ...


Another fantabulous looking lemon tart recipe.. (I say looking because I like a good photo with my recipes)
I am completely smitten with Jenny's art..  simply wonderful to have an original piece!



image via christina for greige
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Recovery...

 Just wanted to share a few of my favorite instagram pictures from the trip.  I promise to go through my photos over the holiday weekend and share a bit with you next week.  Every time I visit Paris I fall for it all over again even though she really makes you work for it!  I am exhausted when I return from these trips both physically and mentally!   This weekend I will do my best to fully recover!

I also want to extend a huge THANK YOU to the girls that were nice enough to guest post for us while I was away!  I could not have done it without you!  Thank you to Andrea, Si, and Shari!




 

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Returning from France...


Arriving home from a long trip can be bitter sweet.  I love traveling and seeing amazing things but I love being at home with my family more so.  I was so glad to get back to the California sunshine and my sweeties!  I am spending the day getting up to speed, organizing and answering emails and messages!  Looking forward to sharing our buying trip with you and some of the amazing pieces and places we found!

image by christina for greige

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Weekend wishes...

Perfect for relaxing the weekend away!  

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!  We are soaking up the last little bits of France while in Normadie today and tomorrow... shopping of course.

To check out what we have been up to follow me on instagram!



image via


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Design Traveler: Si from French By Design

Bonjour, I am Si from the FrenchByDesign blog. France is my home country, so it’s only natural that when sweet Christina asked me to guest post in her “Design Traveler” series, I chose a bed and breakfast located in Southern France. Ready? Pack your bags, we’re heading to the beautiful Cathare country, a few miles away form the gorgeous village of Carcassonne. 


Welcome to Camellas-Lloret, a culmination of a love affair with France and a desire by a couple, Annie and Colin, to share it.




Located in Montréal, a picturesque village, 15 minutes away from the gorgeous village of Carcassonne, and on the route of St Jacques de Compostelle, Camellas-Lloret is an 18th century family home fully renovated with two main focuses in mind: authenticity and comfort. Annie and Colin host this Maison d'Hôte [BnB] with brio: from morning croissants and café au lait, to evening drinks on the terrace, they will make everything they can to make you feel at home. Bon voyage!



All Photos Courtesy of Annie Moore and Camellas-Lloret ©

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Design Traveler: Andrea of The French Basketeer


Design Traveler Visits: Le Domaine de Chantilly, France
When thinking of Paris and châteaux, Versailles, Fontainebleau and perhaps the Loire Valley come to mind. But just a short distance from central Paris lies a gem of a château that has been carefully restored and offers some serious eye candy of paintings, decorative arts, gardens and equestrian displays.



The Domaine de Chantilly passed from different parts of the same family without ever being sold, from 1386 to 1897. The Château first opened to the public in 1898, less than a year after the death of the final owner, Henri d’Orleans, Duke of Aumale. As with the Louvre, the Château de Chantilly was improved, expanded, destroyed and rebuilt over the course of centuries. Its long history is complex, fascinating and, well…very French...

 
Chantilly was at its peak in the 17th century, when André Le Nôtre (who would be later become the head gardener at Versailles) created a Grand Canal, water features and parterres. Chantilly came alive with grand balls and fireworks displays, visits from Louis XV and plays by Molière.



The fun came to a halt during the French Revolution, when the collections of the Château were seized and carted off to the Louvre and the Château served first as a prison, then was partially demolished. The Château regained its glory in the 19th century when Henri d'Orléans, the fifth son of King Louis-Philippe, inherited the property (and great wealth) in 1830 at the age of eight.


 
Today, a visit to the Domaine includes the Renaissance-style Château, with grand entry hall and hunt theme, intimate chapel, a generous painting gallery, library with over 1,300 manuscripts and 12,500 books, private apartments and gardens. The collections are presented today just as they were in the 19th century as Henri d’Orleans had arranged them. The collection can be considered a mini-Louvre, with representation by many great French and Italian masters such as Raphael, Corot, Watteau, Poussin, Delacroix and Clouet.



The private apartments have been undergoing extensive renovation since 2005, and the details behind that work are interesting from a design standpoint. The largest expense of restoration work on the Château is gold leaf. Pure, 24 karat gold leaf is used, not paint, and there is a lot of it. The walls and relief are cleaned, to uncover the original colors, and not completely repainted. The paint is made especially for the Domaine with a base of what is called colle de peau, or animal glue, which holds well for centuries and has been used since ancient times.


The Domaine de Chantilly is a marvelous and carefully restored château with its collection of period decorative arts, paintings, book & manuscripts. In addition to being beautiful, it is also fascinating in that it is the personal collection of one man, Henri d’Orleans. If you have visited the Louvre or Versailles, you will love this Château, for the intimate portrait it paints of the tastes and life of one of France’s royal sons after the monarchy. In the spring and summer, the Domaine also presents a series of live horse shows and dressage demonstrations in the Grand Stables.


 
For more information on the Château de Chantilly, visit www.chateaudechantilly.com
* * * * *
Andrea Drexelius is a devoted Francophile and divides her time between Laguna Beach and various destinations in France. In addition to importing classic French market baskets, she writes extensively on France. The first of her e-book series Rêve will focus on Paris (including Chantilly) and will be published imminently.  Information on Rêve and her blog can be found HERE.











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Design Traveler: Shari from Little Blue Deer

Greetings!  Shari from Little Blue Deer here!  I am so honored to have been asked by one of my very favorite clients, Christina, to guest post while she is in fabulous Paree!  I know she'll be chic'ing it up all over the 7th Arrondissement, while we're here slogging away stateside, right?! 
One of the many perks to my full-time job as a design blogger and blog and website designer to the stars (that's you guys!) is that I get to travel frequently.  All I need to work is my laptop and a wireless card, so I have the freedom to go wherever I want to when I want to.  It's a privilege and a luxury, and I try to make the most of it.  
The place I travel to most frequently is New York City.  As a former Manhattanite, I love to see all of my friends, and some of my favorite and best clients are there, so it's always fun to hook up face to face.  Since I go there so often, I wanted to share some of my fave NY picks with you!  
Hotels:  
Even though I usually stay with friends, that doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to what is hot and happenin'!  You can't go wrong with The Standard.  As far as I'm concerned, this hotel is the gold "standard" (get it?!)  in downtown accommodations (is this "Dirty"?  You be the judge.)

And the High Line location has floor to ceiling windows in every room, plus it's the home of the Standard Grill.  
If downtown hipster makes you turn up your nose, you can't go wrong with The Carlyle.   One of the Upper East Side's finest, last time I was there they served up Bulgari Green Tea-flavored toiletries, and I will be the first to say that I am not above stuffing a few of those babies in my bag!  

So, we've got the sleeping down, but a girl's gotta eat, right?!  Seriously, take the trip out to Sunnyside, Queens, and load up on Salt and Fat

For a quick lunch, grab the most fabulous grilled cheese you will ever experience at Little Muenster on Stanton Street.  Don't forget the tomato soup!

You guys thought I was going to talk about shopping, right?  While I DO love to shop while I'm in NYC, an even more fabulous, and longer-lasting, treat, is a haircut by the "dancing hairdresser" of the Lower East Side, Misin Shin.  I found Misin quite by accident, and what an amazing discovery.  One of his trims lasts for months, and honestly, my hair has never looked so, well, finnnne.  Also, uh, he dances.  Check it out.

Finally, one of my NY must-haves is my iTunes NYC playlist.  Load up with tunes by M83, LCD Soundsystem, CHVRCHES and Santigold and you'll retain your hipster street cred even while rocking Tory Burch. 
And...that's all, darlings!  Can't wait to hear all about Christina's fabulous trip, see you guys in NYC!

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Flowers of Giverny



I hope you had a wonderful weekend!  I spent some much needed time just relaxing and working on planning my trip.  This time we will not be visiting Giverny, but our last visit was so fun and beautiful I thought I would share it with you today.  My garden has been on my mind lately as I am going to have to start fresh once we are finished with the pool.  I cannot wait to gather more ideas from the beautiful gardens on our upcoming visit.  






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France once again...


It is official... I am getting ready for another trip to Paris in a few weeks and we are bringing back our first container.  I am a little nervous I will admit but excited at the same time.  We will stay in Paris and shop the flea markets there for the first week mixed with much site seeing and relaxing around the city, then it is off to Normandy to shop with Sharon from My French Country Home.  I am so excited to see her again and experience a bit more of her amazing everyday life!

These are just a few of the photos that we snapped on our last trip, some you may have seen and some are new.  I was just going through them and thought I would share some of my current favorites with you.  I have a few more posts lined up from our last adventure to share before we leave too!




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