Dans mes cartons

Hello Lovelies!

 From Pia's book

This post's title is a pun: it means I am both "in my cardboard boxes", sorting things out and decluttering, as well as having interesting stuff in my paper files, waiting to be published here. Simply because "cartons" means both "cardboard boxes" and "paper files". ;-)

So, what's up? I'm not perfect, but I feel at home, despite the mess that is going on right now in my house. Don't declutter like I did: avoid taking all of your possessions at one out in the open to be sorted. Be patient, work one room at a time. Maybe I feel good during difficult times because there are 2 or 3 things I know about wabi-sabi, or happiness.

Hearing about Seamus Heaney's death, this end of august really feels like the end of an era. Maybe we all need new beginnings - and ask to be given light.

On another note, I've been thinking about sharing my own version of the hummus recipe. Soon. and end of summer doesn't equal the end of dipping one's toes in the nearby river, either. Ditto:

 

photo, my own.

Links in this post will all lead you to lovely posts on blogs by people I admire (found through Pia's blogroll. Pia's book is very high on my want list right now, too.

Enjoy!

-Alix of TeaButterfly.

[Upcycling] Random Scraps of Paper

Hello Lovelies!

 "La leçon de sagesse" - an ATC I did back in 2009. (c) TeaButterfly.

How are you today? I'm in the midst of a huge decluttering process, in order to make my future moving house project much, much easier. More about that here in this insightful midway simplicity article.

Actually throwing away useless stuff is much more fun than I thought (I used to think of it as of something very, very painful). If you're ready and ripe for it, it is a totally enjoyable process.

"Hope" - an ATC I did back in 2009. (c) TeaButterfly.

So during this process I found lots of paper, of all kinds, around the house. I'm swimming in a sea of paper! And this morning I just thought: "How about making new ATCs with all this paper? indeed!

I just conceived the idea, so the ATCs you see here were done back in 2009, I hope to post new ones, fresh from 2013 here soon.

"For Life" - an ATC I did back in 2009. (c) TeaButterfly.

This is living proof that moving house can be a creative process!

Enjoy!

-Alix of TeaButterfly.

Things I Like Friday: The Decluttering Edition

Hello Lovelies!

"Softly glowing Japanese paper lamps" - photo, my own. 2013

Today is Friday, and I'd like to share with you a couple of links and highlights of beautiful and/or useful stuff I have found online this week.
I am in the midst of a major decluttering process which you can view and follow here.. It's (not-so) hard work, yes, but mostly, i am having fun doing it! This will give me freedom, and will help a situation like the one I told you lovelies about a year ago LINK and will my moving house (soon) process a breeze.

I am loving simplicity and embracing minimalism in my daily life now because of the sheer happiness & joy it gives me.

 Fall 2011. Photo, my own.

So, what did I find worth a read or a look this week?

Well, through the ZenHabits forum, I have found a new blog called "The Minimalists". I really like their blogposts, the most popular are listed here and Joshua, one of two authors of this blog, has a cool playlist to share with us.

JFM's Top 12 Albums of 2012

I am also very excited by this upcoming Fall season - as end of summer (2011 LINK) and back to school are my fave time of the year!

I have listed a few pros and cons about Fall. Enjoy!


A few cons a friend of mine reminded me on Facebook recently:
too much to do, rushing arounf, being stressed out, mess daylight etc...

Painting session with my nephew. Photo, my own.

But... lots of pros!

The heat is bearable again. It's Indian summer, with its beautiful "golden hour" light still lingering.

My fave designers & artists are showing their new creations. I plan to buy an original painting by Jane Cornwell as soon as I can afford it, to add to my small personal collection. F&B has a new range of paint colours due in September 9th. It's the "rentrée littéraire" in France - hundreds of new books are published between end of August and September each year. I plan to read 1% of it all. This means about 5 new books to read by Halloween (details here).

I am enjoying my end of summer decluttering process so much that  I have decided to make up a new tradition: very year from now on, from august 21st to 31st, it's assessing your own possessions and decluttering time!

 

"Shadow of a chair". Photo, my own.

Now is also a great time to enjoy the outdoors and take great photographs (I eally like the shadow of a chair I took, shown above). Or you can go visit a city and admire its street sculptures and monuments, like in the pic below:

Or visit local artists' market:

 "Haiku". Photo, my own.

Of course, back to shool is an exciting time for a stationery junkie like me! I just need to carefully write down a wishlist and assess my wants vs. my needs.

image via

 

image via

There are also plenty of photo-a-day challenges out there from you to choose from, so...

Enjoy!

-Alix of TeaButterfly.

Apartment Therapy Style Cure - part I

Hello Lovelies!

This is the color scheme that inspires me - paint chips from Farrow & Ball (link). 

More inspiration here.

As I mentioned earlier on this blog, I am doing the Style Cure hosted by AT. Yesterday was day 8 of the Cure, which means it is time for an update. To review day 1 (aka my starting point, please read here).

So, this is where I stand for the Style cure - day 8:


First, picking the room to cure.

 image source via

The room i picked up for the Cure is: a very large room that is mainly a living-room with its "social triangle" by the chimney (read: two-seated sofa and two vintage French old chairs), plus a large wall that will become a rotating personal art gallery (complete with shallow and narrow white metallic shelves wehre I can display my own art as as my small personal art collection) and a nice corner that serves as a home office, complete with desk, lamp, shelves and two bookshelves.

example of shallow shelves for a rotating art gallery at home: image found on a tumblr blog.

Then, determining your own style - I wrote about this before. And i have a pinboard about this.

Also, taking measurements and drawing (hastily and by hand in my case) the floor plan. you can see my sketch here.

And now, After much hum and ho, picking the right colors for the room:

Example of the paint color i want to use: "Elephant's Breath" by Farrow & Ball.

Main color for the room is inspired by this color theme: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teabutterfly/9452299040/

So, I will paint most surfaces in a warm off-white paint (inspired by the Farrow & Ball range of whites, maybe "Elephant's Breath" or "Blackened" the former having a greyish and pinkish undertones, but reproduced by my local paint shop).

Ceilings look OK to me right now, but if after the paint job is completed they don't seem clean in comparison with the freshly repainted walls, I will paint them a bright, pure white.

Since my room is lacking *a lot* in terms of visual depth and cohesion, i will need an an accent color on the wall that faces the street and has two high French windows. I will paint it in a color inspired by F&B "Dead Salmon". The windows will get covered in sheer white drapes and a second layer of thick anti-cold and anti-noise thick off-white ( a warm shade of white anyway) drapes.

More varied textures will be found in a new cover for existing sofa (think: satin velvet cover in medium to dark grey), pillows (I will work with the many pillows I already have, occasionally buying fabric that will best fit the color scheme and the upcoming cold season to sew inexpensive new covers for existing pillows), woven baskets for books & mags storage, I need to buy a new reading lamp, too.

image via

The color scheme used for these accessories will be matching shades of pale grey, dark grey, rich brown, off-white and a touch of zesty mustard yellow. Maybe i can contrast warm and cold shades of grey.

 

spiky origami pendant lamp available here

shopping list:
"Elephant's Breath" and "Blackened" sample paint pots
"Dead Salmon" sample paint pot
off-white paint inspired by "Elephant's Breath"
medium greyish taupe paint inspired by "Dead Salmon"
new dark grey slipcover for sofa in a shiny dark grey satin.
repair reading lamp and buy a new patterned lampshade for it
a pair of sheer white drapes
some patterned fabric in graphic grey/white/brown/yellow for covering up pillows
place existing woven basket - i have only one - in the room

shopping list for later in season:
some more patterned fabric in graphic grey/white/brown/yellow for covering up pillows
a couple more woven baskets
a pair of opaque curtains
new reading lamp (optional)
a graphic origami chandelier to hang from ceiling (I found a great shop on etsy - Zipper8Lighting - for that, my budget for this can go up to 150€). link is: https://www.etsy.com/fr/shop/Zipper8Lighting the seller is extra friendly and helpful!

I foresee that the whole painting job will take over a month, though! But at least i'll have a direction with this project and a precise to-do list!



Wanna see more? Check this out.

-Alix

Amateur of Design: An Ongoing Personal Journey (update part 3).

Hello Lovelies,

Shown above: my FAVORITE apartment therapy house tour, ever! Liz Fabry's Well-Edited Half of a Durham Duplex House Tour

Remember my personal journey through the world of design as an amateur? (You might to read here for a quick reminder).

So I wanted to tell you lovelies that I am doing this month's Style Cure, as hosted by the Apartement Therapy blog. One of the first assignmernts of the Cure is to fill out our personal style form (see link here). Actually,  using pinboards for the last few years helped me determine my own personal style quite easily. As i have stated on this blog before, here is what I am personally drawn to:

"My inspiration is mostly gathered here.  This main pinboard helps me define my style, a little "industriel", a little "wunderkammer" with a "masculine flair" twist, thogh none of these decor style pinboards are really realistic nor affordable. It's about dreaming (which is a necessary function, too).

Image above: In a petite living room, pairing a sofa boasting a sleek design and a low profile with a large artwork and a statement-making light fixture will give the room a bold sense of personality. Image source: here.

My general home decor pinboard presentation goes like this, and this sums it all up:

"

#10: Home Decor - general inspiration

my personal style tends to: Wunderkammer, Masculine Flair, Warm Industrial, Belgian Greys. I also love to use Botanical Charts and insect drawings as home decor.

And of course, I amdrawn to simple clean lines as shoiwn in Japanese and Scandinavian or Shakers' interiors.

To sum it up, i guess i really like it bold & dramtic, with a strong sense of personal style. (image below is from this post on the sfgirlbybay popular design blog).

Before actually starting to decorate, decluttering is in order. How timely! This month's ZenHabits simplicty challenge is all about decluttering your life!

Here is the ZH plan: zenhabits.net/declutter

"Decluttering" could mean a lot of different things to me, from getting rid of too many belongings, not-useful-to-me material things but also getting rid of unnecessary assignments that burden my day or even better yet, toxic relationships that simply bring me down.

what about you lovelies? What does "decluttering" mean to you?

-Alix.


Oh! and I almost forgot to mention I am also back on instagram with this August 2013 photo-a-day challenge,vie the ideas room blog:

I guess I am alive and well and bursting with new projects! Right? Right-O!

However Vast the Darkness: Thoughts on Simplifying One's Day & the Meaning of Life

Hello Lovelies,

One of my main goals in simplifying my day & life is this: "Do more of what makes you happy".

So... I have started to simplify my day and joined the June 2013 ZenHabits challenge. Part of my simplifying project consists in simplifying my online life, too.

I started emptying my email inbox, 35 emails at a time, 70 per day. My inbox currently has over 11 000 unsorted emails in it! I file away the important messages, answer immediately the really important and urgent ones, and toss the rest. I have subscribed to a gazillion newsletters over the years, as I surf the net daily since 1997... I unsuscribe from one newsletter a day. I still need to do the math as to know when exactly my inbox will be finally 100% clean & empty.

After that, I plan to go on a light media fast once i complete the June challenge, at the beginning of July 2013 (more on that later).

Simplifying my online life means that I started to clean and empty my email box, as I said before, but also cleaned my computer desktop icons - now I only have 10 of them, along with a new beautiful abstract painting desktop wallpaper from Ghostly, found via apartmenttherapy.com. It looks like this (you right-click the image in order to save it as a desktop wallpaper):

I also organized my many, many digital files, all the photos I have been taking digitally since 2003! While cleaning my photo files, I found this gem, and wanted to share the wisdom with you lovelies.

Excerpt from a Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick:

Enjoy!
-Naomi of TeaButterfly.

Deep Cleaning My Attic

Hello Lovelies!

Philo the cat enjoying the bed in the guest-bedroom. Photo, my own.

I live in a small town apartment, but I'm lucky enough to have a mezzanine that doubles as a guest room for one, and beyond it, a huge attic.

simplicity

I have been "seduced by simplicity", as you may know, but before reaching a simpler, easier, more satisfying life, one has to clean, clean, clean. Sort out, edit and throw away stuff.

For the last 3 hours, I have been cleaning, vaccuming, editing and throwing away stuff from my mezzanine, so that a dear friend could stay over for three days. It's a very satisfying and rewarding activity, as the Apartment Therapy blog super-site points out! :-)

...especially if you that to a music you love. I chose Purcell, of all possibilities!

If you're curious about my process, you can head over my flickr photostream and see the progress for yourself! I love taking before/after pictures, because it's really rewarding, plus you get to actually see and grasp your progress.

Enjoy!

-Vic from TeaButterfly.