Faire Makers Mixtapes x Abigail LaBranche

I’m thrilled to share a really fun collaboration with the most beautiful and inspiring (I really, really mean that!) Faire Magazine. Editor Ruth Ribeaucourt asked me to curate a playlist of some of my favorite work music and share more about my art and process and I had such a wonderful time delving into it all! Music is such a personal thing but I hope you will find something to love in the playlist.

Read all about when I started making art, what inspires me, and even what is on my nightstand here.

Thank you for having me Ruth!

xo,

A.

Advertisement

Weekend Sale!

To celebrate Small Business Saturday there’s a sale in the Brocante Moderne shop! 15% off + free gift wrapping on orders of 30€/$32 or more from now through Cyber Monday. Hurry over as this is the only sale of the season!

Also, beautiful limited edition gift wrapping is now available to add on to any order during the holiday season, one less thing on your to do list, right? 😉

Here’s a peek at some of the latest editions to the shop (click the pictures to go right to the listings). Hop on over! And happy weekend!

xo,

A.

 

 

Balade on the Foggy Loiret

There’s not a lot to say. And there doesn’t need to be on a day like that one. But when we took a foggy morning balade along the Loiret River that we love so much on the first day of November, I couldn’t help but want to share what we were enveloped in.

It was an unusual day. The previous day, October 31st, had been balmy and beautifully sunny. But the next day brought the mood one might have hoped for for Halloween: thick fog from morning well into the night.

There is something about the fog. Something that makes light both softer and sharp, colors diffused but vivid, sounds muted but clear. And something else too, something that makes the space between us and the mysteries of the world much, much thinner. It’s a time for listening.

It was a peaceful and beautiful start to the month. I hope maybe a sign of some small comfort as France heads towards the one year anniversary of the terrible events of November 13th. But whatever it was, the fog that day on the river was too special not to share.

xo,

A.

Christmas Tree Anticipation and a Loving List

2011 sapin de Noël

Word on the street the texts I keep sending to R. is that tonight is get-a-Christmas-tree-or-else night! Here in France the most common way to set up you tree is with the trunk fitted into a whole drilled in a halved log. This is hard for a Maine girl who most of the time cut her own tree from farms to swallow. It means that the tree dries out much faster (or fossilizes as my mom calls it) and we both love having the tree up through January if we can. So I had this idea that buying the tree sooner would mean a fresher tree that would be more able to suck up water for a good long time. We didn’t make it to the garden center last weekend but I really want to get there tonight and then I’ll test that tree freshness theory out. I bet you already have you tree, don’t you?

~

Here’s some things I loved this week:

• I love reading posts by E who writes so well and with such funny honesty. Her latest post where in her little EE meets the doctor and the mall Santa in the same day with unexpected mixed results cracked me up!
• I really, really, really want to get my box-loving cat one of these for Christmas. Could I ever get him out? I’d have to tempt him with a ball of brown paper or by pulling a tissue from a box, both of which have his complete and devoted attention. (Blowing your nose at our house must be awkward for guests. Sorry guests.)
• The pretty Griottes blog posted a list of wonderful boutiques in Paris to find treasures. Virtual windowing shopping anyone?
• In the past two weeks I’ve stumbled upon some incredible food blogs. One of them is farmette and her Juniper Junket recipe had me at ‘juniper’. I can’t wait to try it or her Sh’mores but I’m sure to be spending plenty of time in the future getting lost in her archives because her posts feel like sitting in a warm country kitchen with a friend.
• Then there’s the French country kitchen, Manger. Just click that link. (Oh my gosh! A Scottie in a brocante!!)

I would like holiday cards, hot chocolate, Muppet Christmas Carol, decorating, Christmas music, and gift wrapping to be on the menu for this weekend, please. What have you got planned? If you’re near Boston, MA, you must stop in at one of Aran’s events!

xo,

A.

Loving List – Thankful Version

These two little scenes have been making me happy all week while I’m working at my desk: a pretty glass and a pitcher of water with cucumber slices and the shelf above my desk that has a vintage postcard of the center of my tiny Maine town, an old photo of a French stranger strolling a beach boardwalk, and some pretty stones I’ve dragged back with me from some trip (I always bring home rocks. Poor Romain.). And I truly feel lucky even for these little details of things that can put a smile on my face, make me feel at home. So I thought this week’s loving list, should be a thankful list for the holiday. It also prompted me to dig through pictures back to 2007 – how much happens in so little time!

• I’m thankful for this guy, Romain. My husband. The guy that laughs with me as we imitate foo dogs and who doesn’t bat an eyelash when I’m dripping with sarcasm (it’s genetic! I swear!) and who is so gentle and patient with me. How did I get so lucky?

• I’m thankful for these rings he put on my finger and what they represent. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t love being married more. We’re on this adventure together. (Picture taken the day after our wedding)

• I am thankful for these two – the best parents anyone could dream of. They gave me a dream childhood that I never wanted to grow out of (and still don’t!) and encouraged a free and creative spirit in me. All the best of me, comes from them.

• I am thankful for my Maine. My home. It always was, it always will be. I grew up in magic; this land was my third parent. I would not be who I am without that salty and rough water and those strong, fragrant trees. My roots will forever stretch from that ground.

• And I am thankful for these two: Molly, my first cat, who was very patient and loving from when we adopted her when I was 7, to 20 years later when she had to leave. I’ll always feel a rush of sadness that I wasn’t with her to see her go, it still makes me cry, but I’ll be forever grateful for the time she spent with us. She was indeed a soul-mate, a furry version of a sibling I didn’t have. And for Albert (and his doppelgänger that my mother bought him). He is silly and playful and loving. He doesn’t always escape the influence of his unhappy first four years but my heart is full knowing that he is truly happy crawling into our laps after dinner and chasing the paper balls we toss for him. That he knows he can trust us to keep him safe. And that he is, for both R. and I, a second chance at having that kind of connection in our lives.

So I hope your Thanksgiving was joyful and loving. May you carry the spirit of it through the whole holiday season. And Happy weekend!

xo,

A.

The James Bond of Chairs, Maybe.

I gushed about my Klismos desk chair finally being finished and lookin’ pretty gorgeous last Friday and today I grabbed some pictures to show him off! We bought two of these chairs for a great price on the other side of Paris and dragged them back home on public transportation but they needed a lot of work. They had been coated in (what seemed like) three-inches of brittle, cracked varnish. It was like the chair had been dipped in really strong Jolly Rancher liquid and it took me forever to get it all off. It cost me a lot too: a lot of joint angst over the following days. But once I got it all cleaned up and put a coat of satin black paint and a new black velvet seat on, I couldn’t believe the transformation.

Above is the chair after I managed to get everything off it, including the dirty and water-stained old vinyl seat covering. See all those little dark spots on the seat frame? That’s how many old staples I pried out. Ouch.

And who better to demonstrate the chair’s strong-but-sexy (dare I say James Bond-like? Yes, I dare.) lines but Albert? Work it Bug! Look at those curves. The chair lives at my desk which is next to the kitchen so I can see it in profile when I glance over while cooking. Seriously, did you see those legs in the first picture?! Sexy. I love it. And I’m so glad it’s done!

Just had to share it with you. But I’ll be back tomorrow with a recipe that I trying to use to ward off the endless Paris drizzle. Are you keeping dry?

xo,

A.