Here is another poster which you’ll find hanging in the window alongside my cardboard eiffel tower at WHSmith bookstore in Paris. I like the two guys outside in the background chatting, Parisian style, in intense conversation while inside there are these fabulous, opulent handcrafted chandeliers.Turn to page 153 in the book for the atelier/boutique details.

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I’ve received so many wonderful emails from very happy (blog)house readers lately. Thank you! I wish I was able to manage my time better so I can reply to each and every one. If you have not received a reply from me then please know that my heart has replied to you, it’s my body that is slow on the mark. I am busy on lots of incredible projects that I am dying to tell you all about. Next week, I might even be able to talk about one in particular, so do make sure you come and visit then.

In the meantime, (blog)house reader & Aussie expat living in Sweden Sam sent me a rather wonderful report about her recent trip to Paris using Paris: Made By Hand as her guide! Sam has a fab blog and she wrote a number of posts describing her experiences and which shops she visited. Her reports are so terrific, I just had to share them with you. So, please go and visit sam’s notebook and read about her Paris: Made By Hand wanders.

Please click here, here, here, and here to read Sam’s posts. Thank you Sam!

xx

PS I’ve decided to call it an early night so I can continue reading Treasure Island. I’m hooked, it’s so goddamngood. That means I will be saving the rest of my posts for tomorrow. À bientot!

…beautiful new wall stickers for the kids room from harmonie-intérieure. Love the child’s growth chart.

…and the dreamy photography of yvette inufio. I love these coral colours combined with vintage pieces. delicious.

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So I’m thinking, splashes of red and coral in the home, with a backdrop of cream and soft grey. Beautiful. Thanks for the interior inspiration harmonie-intérieure and yvette inufio.

1. I’m loving this version of ‘going up the country‘ (originally by the ’70’s blues band Canned Heat) by Kitty, Daisy and Lewis – 3 young siblings from England. It totally gets me jivin’, check it out…

2. This sweet little vintage tin from etsy shop monkeys always look…

3. And you. You inspire me, but not just this week, all the time.

It is a beautiful day here in Amsterdam. The air is lovely, I went for a nice ride this morning and I feel so much more rejevunated than I did yesterday. So much so, that in between my work I have decided to blog my little heart out today, as there is much I want to share with you. So! today there will be a few posts coming your way, thanks in advance for stoppin’ by to say hi.

xx

PS Last weekend I went on a fabulous boat ride around Amsterdam with some friends! My dear (blog)house guest was one of those friends. Zoë took loads of great pics and wrote a wonderful post about it this week, it’s in the guest quarters right now, please click here to read Zoë’s post. (yes that is me in the cowboy hat. I love that hat!)

A collection of Jason Munn posters, whose link I found via sisalla.

…whose screen-printed posters, book covers, and illustrations are glorious. His posters are available to purchase online in his poster shop,  right here. Wouldn’t one of these make a great gift for a music/graphic designer/letterpress lover? The answer to that question is yes. I really like Jason’s website too, it’s super easy to navigate. One of the things on my to-do list is to update my own online portfolio, it hasn’t been done since I launched it about 4 years ago. Alot has happened in four years. And wouldn’t it be great to add a shop like this to sell some of my photos and illustrations? Would you buy my photos if I had a little online shop?

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

“In or out of ‘em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it.”

“Whether you get away, or whether you don’t;”

“whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular;”

“and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you’d much better not.” —The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame.

Oh, Ratty really did know what he was talking about. On a warm, summer weekend this beautiful city truly comes alive, and Amsterdammers take to the water in almost anything that floats.

To join a group of friends, both old and new, in an elegant, spotless bateau “painted blue outside, and white within”; to share in Prosecco, and tiny tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, and crisp, cheesy Italian pizza; to meander along the canals and river, the strains of Billy Holiday drifting across the water: to do all these things amongst the glints and gleams and gurgles of the water, is to spend a day cut straight from the pages of that wonderful childhood story.

And then, to escape the narrow canals of the city and take to the broad sweep of the river, where the steep brick walls of the canal houses give way to fields, and cows, and larger, old-fashioned farm houses – yes, I quite understand Mole’s enchantment.

For this entrancing experience we  had Pia and French Boy’s friends to thank. They invited us all on their recently renovated beautiful ex-lifeboat for the day. We were, in all, a cosmopolitan lot – Romanian, Danish, French, Australian, and Indonesian – and by the end of a long, warm day full of fun and sunshine, I think we all agreed that there really was “absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

all words and photographs by Zoë Yule