crafty mum in changing places

French Friday (even on a Saturday...)

Dear readers and friends of Paris, the last week I gathered some more things to share about Paris and the preparation for our trip this summer: books, links and paper goods. 

I've been looking for some Paris related books around the house and made two stashes to share with you:

I have to admit there were originally two staples but you know me:

1. It was too high and I could not take a nice picture. and
2. The colours were too mixeds so I had to make two out of the one...

The outcome was quite heterogenous in subject (apart from the Paris theme) as you can see.

But there is also some prevalent theme there: Paris and the Lost Generation. And when I picked up the worn out and yellowed copy of Ernest hemingway's "Paris - A  Movable Feast", I opened the book knowing I had it for so many years know and also knowing I would find a date in ther: When I was a teenager, I started noting the year and the location I read (and reread) it somewhere on the first pages:

So it was 1983 then - I turned 16 and came back from Paris for the first time. I loved learning French at school but I did not like Hemingway's writing. But because the book was about Paris I had to buy it. I read it in one sitting and loved it. I found out about "Shakespeare and Company" and Sylvia Beach and also that so many writers and artists formed a circle back then in Paris (Including F.Scott Fitzgerald  whom I loved reading as a teenager). So it was totally exiting for me. 

It was then back in 1989 when I studied Literature at University after my apprenticeship at a Newspaper when I reread it and dug deeper into the subject and included Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes and so many more to my reading list. And I never really got tired of them!

I will reread A Moveable Feast (and add another date and location to the book - reviving this tradition I once started and gave up for whatever reason) and I am already rereading Gertrude Stein's "The Authobiography of Alice B. Toklas" on my Kindle when I am out in a Cafe or waiting for the children at school.

I will leave you here with the book theme but will come back to it in some of the following posts. Tonight I will watch "Surviving Picasso" again because Markus hasn't seen it back then.

 

But now to one of my favorite topics: Paper ( or shall I say Papeterie?)

I got this lovely weekly scheduler at a bookshop here In Seoul. I won't use it as a scheduler that much but I love the papes and Photos. So the children will be using it for their Paris diary this summer and we will continuosly using some of the pages in our crafting and also in the project life album.

I really canot wait to get my hands on them and use them!

And here is more beauty made in Korea:

A set of mini postcards in a metal tin. 

Can you imagine what to with all these cute things? Writing letters, packing presents, scrapbooking etc....

And just in case you might want to know about the must have ingredients for a Parisian cafe, then hop over to this blog post  and have a look! I The cafe is located in one of my favorite streets of Paris: rue Vielle du Temple. 

And how about you? Are you a Paris lover? Have you been there? Are you dreaming of going there? 

I'd love to hear about it!

Enjoy the week end!

Yvonne (written ther French way - bien sur!)

 

 

Seoul Markets - around Namdemun, or: Bring the Neon in!

Once a reader remarked my pictures of Seoul looked so European. That might be because Seoul is very much influenced by Europe, mainly France when it comes to shops and cafes. But there is also the other side of it: The colourful, kitschy, bright and varied scene of the street markets. 

Yesterday we went to Namdemun market because some moms from school are leaving and wanted to stock up upon crafty things from here. So we went to the street markets: a shopping paradise for everyone and it is really colourful and Neon:

So if you were looking for that: here it is:

You find almost everything out there in the streets and it reminded me of Istanbul a lot. When it comes to the markets Seoul is very much like Istanbul My vendours in Istanbul told me that but then I could not believe it!

Did you see the but-shapeing pants in the rear? Incredible! Did not even know it exists - but what do I know? 

I could not take pictures in the handcrafted section of the market because they fear being copied... What a pity. But I will try again!

Looking at all these things makes hungry and we had a typical working day lunch at one of the hundreds of food stalls ther: Bibimbap, hot soft tofu soup, swordfish, kimchi, seaweed salad, Korean omelette, raddish etc. It was delicious!

I just love this kind of food!

We ate in this shop and the lovely ladies on the picture were cooking for us. My husband would have had difficulties eating there but I just love to eat where  it is most unique and typical for the everyday-eating out. Also this reminded me of Istanbul and Brazil

Fish anyone?

I hope to have provided something more "exotical" for you today - other then the usual pictures I am posting. I will keep that mix up if you like. 

We are off to dinner to an Arabian restaurant today and I will be back later for another version of "French Friday"

See you soon!

Yvonne

Getting sidetracked by Pink chicks in the spice shelf

Yes, okay - I should be sitting at my desk working on some crafty stuff. But I really got sidetracked by my bloglovin list...

I've been following Rachel Meeks  from "Small Notebook" for quite a while now and love how she walks through life and lets us share. She is such an inspiration for me and today she made me smile from ear to ear with this post: 

On a bad day she came home to find all these chicks glued to her spice lids by her husband. It might not be the most practical thing ever but it is so charming  and makes me smile every time I look at the picture. It makes me want to do the following:

1. Roam through my spices and declutter
2. glue some chicks there on some lids I don't open that often

And to go overboard I could do this with Pink ones in the spice shelf and yellow ones in the baking shelf....

Isn't it so sweet?

See you!

Yvonne

Staying in or "Home sweet Home"

Some of you might know that I love to explore foreign countries and places and roaming the streets to look for inspiration.  Like the  Diane Arbus quote:

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been"

But there is also the other side: I am really a couch potato and if my husband is at home I love to stay in and talk and talk and cuddle and talk and so on...

And I also love being a loner! So today I was lucky because Markus took the children to school and I could just stay in. And I am free until 4 p.m. That is pure luxury. I will be pottering around a bit, read, craft, indulge in yesterday's leftovers over the day and enjoy beeing free here.

So I want to share some inspirational quotes about home from my Pinterest today. If you want to locate the originals you can just click through the photos to my Pinterest board and see who is behind these!

And I think Jane Austen was totally right!

 

 

But most of all: home is the people:

 

Being home alone, there are endless things to dwell on:

Whilst crafting might be one of my favorite pasttimes and I really need time for it and cannot do it in between. Another favorite pasttime:

As I just told my husband yesterday: I envy the children for all their time at hand to read books. I did it as a child and a teenager like crazy and I would sometimes love to have a week end like this again: reading all the time and just stopping for eating at the family table (and not having to prepare meals) - bliss!

But there are other things to do at home and I have to admit that I am quite addicted to this one:

Unfortunately this means also home: 

But I might hang this in the laundry room and maybe I even could have fun with it. Or perhaps I put on some earphones and listen to somebody reading to me whilst folding. That might be a solution! I really miss my laundry room in Lüneburg. It was also the bathroom for the children and had a view into the garden. It was so lovely in there that folding laundry became easier. Here we just have a cold small annex to our pantry. So I might make some effort to liven things up there when the temperatures rise! 

Some more tips for a better day at home: 

And if it is not working either I could easily follow this advice:

I will now do the following: Do a load of washing, have my Elevensies (ready cooked and packed chestnuts - I love Korean fast food treats- some pistaccios, green tea and a slice of cheese) whilst reading. Then I will be decluttering the surface of my crafting table and start working on my Project life again until lunch (fried potatoes and kale, beetroot salad and some coleslaw). Maybe there is time for more reading or crafting or a nap - I take it as it comes!

And not to forget: I feel grateful for a day like this!

See you later!

Yvonne

 

 

 

The dwarf and the swan

Hello my Dearies!

Last week Pauline had her Carnival party at school with the theme of the enchanted forest. As lots of pixies and princesses were expected she refused to turn into one of them. She never has been the princess type. She wanted to be a dwarf like the ones from Snow White.

I love her for being such a fun little girl. it turned out that her best friend at school also turned out to be a dwarf that day: the one you can find in German gardens. 

The next day she had an appointment at the hairdresser and dressed up a bit for the indulgence. She suddenly looked so much more grown up and I realized 

1. that she was wearing my bonnet that day
2. and that she turned into a little lady. 

My little swan is growing up (she never was an ugly duckling though). You see them every day and suddenly you realize that they are growing up at an enormous pace. And I remebered the sentence I red in "The Happiness Project" as a quote: The days are long, but the years are short! And there are a lot of days when raising three children really wears you out and the days seem so long but then you look at last year's pictures and see how time just flies!

And so I sat there at the hairdresser, relaxed and watched her playing "grown up".

And all the mums of you might know what I mean with this.

A few moments later she was the little girls again making nonsense with her brother

And that felt like there is still so much time at hand for us: being a mom and a little girl...

Have a wonderful start into the week! 

I will show you a bit more of my "project life" tomorrow as I will be completing more pages then!

Yvonne

 

And the winners are...

So we had a lucky drawing this weekend and our children helped to find out the lucky ones who will get one of the tag bundles from Valentine's day.

We did the drawing the old fashioned way with the names written on paper and cutting them out. Moritz did the writing, cutting and folding part.

Each one of our children took a turn in drawing one pice of paper from the tin.

So please email me your snail address via yvonne.stehle@web.de and I will send them to you in a hurry!

Yvonne

 

 

 

 

French Friday

Hello Dearies!

Some of you might recall that our children have only been living in Europe for 3 years in their life. (I do not count Istanbul here). And when we lived in Mexico we became suddenly aware that my husband and me had so much luck that we have been raised in Europe where all the countries are so close. Whenever you move to another county your view on the world map changes. You have new neighbouring countries and  and you clearly see that Germany certainly is not the navel of the world... And from Mexico Europe was so far away and so many people have never been there. During our years of studying in a multicultural environment at University even in Germany we had so much opportunities to meet people from all over Europe and travelling there. It was easy: you knew somebody abroad and you just visited them and their family. That had so many benefits: you got to know different countries, you got an inside view because you stayed with locals and you could build up friendships that might last for years or even a lifetime. So blessed we were. And Markus and I we both have been bitten by the travel bug even before we actually met (when we were already in our thirties). And because we have lived at Lake Constance we had 3 other countries nearby: Switzerland and Austria as the neighbouring countries and even France and Italy within a two-hour's drive. 

So yes, we travelled a lot through Europe these days and now realized that our children who have been raised in Istanbul, Mexico and now Seoul (see how far is that away from Europe and how the perspective on the world changed again) maybe would not see all this Europe like we did. So when we go back for holidays this upcoming summer they uttered the wish to see the European capitals. We have never been the beach-type family and even the children who have the opportunity to go to the mountains and the beach here in Korea a lot wanted to see another city because they loved our Istanbul experience last summer.

So they have chosen Paris. Markus and I spent a lot of time there already because we both had friends who lived and studied there. But this time will be different: we will be doing this together and with children. So it will be a totally different experience and much more touristy because we really don't need to have a look at all these fantastic sights again and would explore different areas of Paris, but it is wonderful to see it again AND for the first time with the eyes of our children.

They are very exited and wanted to "prepare" for the trip because they learned from our visit to Istanbul that they benefitted from all the stories and anecdotes they have been told about Istanbul. So they knew more and therefore saw more.

And being a (sometimes) clever mom I am also redirecting their lust for knowledge about our next destination to make them learn something: Moritz has to get better with his writing skills  and both older children have to learn things at the computer. So now they have assigned tasks for themselves: they will do research about things they are interested in and will read and take notes and prepare some pages for a "travel-album". So being there they can tell us something about the places we are going to visit, about the food, the habits etc. So they can do things at the computer= research and are writing something. And they don't have the feeling they are doing something for school whilst preparing pages and oral presentations for their next trip. So I saved myself some fights over reading and writing more.

But there are more things we do with them to make them get aquainted with France:

We are watching French films with them, they read books from French authors or books that are about Paris or France, they are learning some French words via apps on the iPad or the iPhone (I now really love to have all the technical gadgets to use them for this purpose and not only for my indulges...!)

And we also already started eating French food and telling them which food we already eat is French! We either buy things or try out recipes. We are also showing them a bit of Paris in Korea because so many restaurants and cafes are Paris-inspired or are truly French and have dependances here. And I get stationary and scrapbooking supplies for them to make their own albums and diaries for the trip.

So, what does this all have to do with you except maybe giving you an idea about how to prepare a trip with your children in advance so they might benefit more? I will be sharing each Friday some tips about this journey we are currently on: hints about Apps, photographers, food, recipes, Korean stationary about Paris, films, crafting tips, etc. And because we will be crafting we will also have some Paris-related giveaways from time to time. I am also preparing things for my shop. The shop has been sleeping for ages now but it will be reopened in March with some new things and some oldies but goldies!

Today you'll get a peek onto some cute paper goods made in Korea:

I absolutely love these stickers with all the Parisian images. The same stickers also exist for Tokyo, New York, London, Prague and some other cities.

I cannot wait to use them on actual pages but I also love them how they are: neatly tucked into their tin box!

And not to forget: the gorgeous vintage Parisian map inspired scrapbooking paper from October Afternoon! Oh how I love their products!!!

And here is a sweet little app for iPhone and iPad called: My little Paris. They have a lovely web page and I like the design, their little daily tips and the ecards you can send via the app.

The drawings are so delicate and "French"...

I like the drawing Of Li Edelkoort here:

 

I like to get a sweet dose of Paris from time to time, don't you?

And if you want a colourful dose of it don't forget to visit SF Girl Bay over at her blog and read last week's post about Paris! That makes you want to move there immediately! And I cannot tell you how much I like her blog and her style!

I am leaving you here after quite a long post today! Hope you are not totally exhausted!

I would be happy if you'd join me on this journey every French Friday from now on!

 

 

Winter into Spring

The mood of today:

1. lace paper doilies, 2. yummy organic cotton..., 3. K for keys, 4. 'Q' IS FOR QUAIL EGGS, 5. Snowball Fighting In Paris (1905), 6. I'm back, 7. hers, 8. fuzz, 9. Christmas lights

 

It is still Winter but first signs of Spring are in the air

I am really loving doilies over and over. They are just so delicate and beautiful
Wishing to knit the whole day long - endless projects await me
Wanting to sit at the typewriter and fill out the blanks in the project Life album - the letters of a typewriter can never be beaten by a printout from a computer
Thinking of Easter already when seeing beautiful eggs in nature
I want to join a snowball fight in wintery Paris someday
Resting - I always need to remind me of that in the bustle of life
Loving tea and beautiful teapots - I am planning to get a special one in a special shop this summer as soon as my feet reach Paris
May I take out the rabbits already or is it too soon? Is it ever too soon to put something sweet like this in a corner to make you smile whenever you look at it?
Twinkling lights always makes me happy. Instant beauty!

Hope you are in a good mood and I'd love to see you tomorrow!

Yvonne

 

 

No chocolate for me but much love

You asked if I got some chocolate because I posted the list about Korean monthly customs of giving things to a loved one. NO, sorry - no chocolate for me. I think I have to wait for the 14th of March and see what will happen...

But I got some love the other day from Jakob:

That made it up for a lot of chocolate I can tell you!

So I let my husband get away with the chocolate he got at the office.

And that made also up for getting lost today again whilst driving to Incheon to go through the procedure of getting my Korean driving licence... Such a pity I did not take pictures of that procedure!

The navigation system in my car refused today to take me to incheon via expressways and took the route through the suburbs. So I had to google-map my way to the next expressway. 

I got home safely after passing the tests at the issuing office and now will enjoy brown rice tea and a book before I have a date with my husband tonight - it turned out to be a good day after all!!!

Little helpers on the journey

Hello there dear followers! Today I'd love to introduce to you some of my little helpers on my journey. Or should I better say secret weapons? 

Some of you asked me about how to manage three children and en ever moving household and stay sane or how I am taking some of my pictures and the like. So here are some links to people and Apps and homepages that help me on a daily basis.

I am a follower of these blogs that help me during my everyday struggle, journey, path through life:

• simple mom
• The Happiness Project
• Zen habits
• Be more with less
• Fly Lady

To record the daily happenings for later use in my project life or to remember when scrapbooking or editing photos on the computer I have been using this smart app called Day One recently:

The good thing about it is that you can set reminders throughout the day and it will just signal you from time to time that it is time to write in your journal. That is such a good thing because we know: we have all these plans but during the hassle of the everyday we tend to forget!

You can also perfectly print them out (I take a screenshot now and then) and add them to my journaling for the ongoing Project Life Album.

To help me get fit and reach my goals concerning better health and moving more I also have some helpers on the list:

• NTC Nike Training Club: This is perfect for me because I am sort of a loner and not a person who likes going to a gym. With this one I can be totally flexible and use the training intervalls whenever I have time.

This is such a great App and I love that the workout is shown in photos and you can see how much you accomplished already plus you can add your own music from your iTunes playlists.

• move more eat well with Cathy Zielske: I can combine training and healthier eating habits with scrapbooking. Who would have thought that even exists!?

An then there are the Photograpy Apps that help me a lot:

Isn't it amazing what you can do with photos without an expensive camera and equipment or enormous photography skills?

So this is part of what me keeps going every day - netwise. I did not mention any of these great blogs where I get endless inspiration about food, travel, interior decoration and life. You are following them anyhow and that could easily get redundant if I would also start it. This should be purely every day life "gear" apart from the decorative interior design world. And I did not mention books and people you can actually touch and feel - this will be another post. I just let you go here so you can explore for yourself and find out if any of them could be useful for you as well. And I maybe have forgotten some or will encounter more useful ones. I will keep track and tell you later - promised. One good thing about posting something here is also public accountability, isn't it? It helps me a lot not to get sidetracked all the time - which is so easy in the www....

See you later! Yvonne