London Impressions 2014 / I

London Impressions 2013 / III

London Impressions 2013 / II

London Impressions 2013 / I

New room make-up

We have been changing a lot in Sofia’s room lately to make it more cosy and suitable for an almost 2-year-old girl.

The bay in the room has changed to a cosy place where she can sit and read or play. We have recently added some curtains to make it look nicer.
She has liked it the very moment she saw it and now loves to snuggle up in the cushions and ask us to read a book.
Some pom-pom in one corner help to bring some colour.
I have bought these at a lovely shop called PinkFisch. When I bought the pom-pom, I thought they were quite a lot and would fill the whole corner. I like the result but I would like to add some more of them.

We have also bought a second-hand romantic bed in case she should decide she wants to sleep in her own room. For now it is a place she likes to sit now and then to look at a book.

And there is one little open project. While visiting one of the many markets during our holidays in Provence, we found these:

I don’t know the name. They are used to do cross-stiching etc. but I once saw them as a decoration.
We found a lovely haberdashery shop in Avignon, full with wonderful fabrics, called Le Cartonnier de Marie, where we spent quite some time. I just looove these kind of shops, filled until the last corner and full of little surprises or things you don’t even know they existed.
The web site is a bit of a mess but if you like little shops with fabrics, buttons and such other things, it is worth a visit.

The last thing to do is to place the fabrics into the frames and to hang them up. I am not sure if I want to use some paint and stencils on the fabrics…
Will show you the result once it’s ready.

Letters

Letters are an always present topic in Alex’ and my life. Without even noticing, we have gathered a quite big amount of different letters: wooden letters, electric letters, lego letters, cardboard letters…

As Sofia keeps on growing, her reach is also wider and we needed to find a solution to our picture wall in the entrée as she started grabbing the pictures and throwing them around.

I think the idea came during our holidays in London this summer. Alex discovered a really nice shop called Glyphics Shop. He was so keen to see this shop that he even said he was going to divorce if we were not going!
It is a letter lovers paradise!
You can find letters from all over the world. Brian, the owner, can tell you a story to almost every single letter. He stores the letters in drawers and all over the place. And by the way: what an incredibly pleasant and enthusiastic man he is! If you are travelling to London, make sure you are visiting Brian.
An idea of what the shop looked like when we visited (as the decoration changes):

We decided that we needed to find a word or a phrase we wanted to create with the letters and then come back to find the suitable ones for us.

After some days we knew what we wanted and we spend 2 hours in the shop, on the floor, opening the drawers, taking out letters, combining, changing again until we finally had the chosen ones.

And this is the result in the shop:

And this is how it looks on the wall:

It means ‘welcome home’ in swiss german and is like a welcoming greeting when you enter the door.
We had a helping hand from my father, who painted the wall and put all the letters in place. Most of them are not really heavy, so a simple velcro was enough.
The E is from an old pub, it is a simple wooden letter painted in gold. I wanted to include this one as soon as I discovered it. It almost falls into pieces, but it has a story to tell.
The M was another story. It weights 3 kilos, so you want to make sure it does not come off the wall when going to the bathroom! It has some old nails on the back, so we have used a wire around them and then hung it up on two nails with L shape.

The space below the letters will be a magnetic chalkboard, but this will be done later on this year.

Cambridge Impressions

The sling thing

Sofia is now 19 months old and I still carry her a lot.
That means that although I use the pushchair, the ergo carrier is always at hand.
Until now it was the perfect solution when she was tired of the pushchair and needed more closeness. But since she has started to walk, she wants to quickly decide when she wants to walk and when she wants to be carried. And the procedure with the ergo carrier is too slow for her, so she also refuses to sit in the ergo. What she prefers is to be carried one-armed, but this is a pain and not very comfortable for me.
So I have done a bit of a research to find a sling that is quickly put on and easy to take Sofia in and out. Of course there are millions of options, but I have decided to try this one:
The SUPPORi baby sling

This sling can be used for children that can sit upright and weight up to 14/15 kg. It is easily put on, is lightweight, does not need much space when stowed away, is washable and made out of a fabric that prevents sweating. In my eyes perfect if you want to carry your child in the summer or even at the beach. You don’t even have to bother if it gets wet.
The only negative point I can see at the moment is that it is not adjustable, so depending on your and your children’s height, you have to choose the correct sling size. This means that it is not probable that your partner is going to need the same size, but you can still buy a second one. Especially if you choose the pink one, ha!

I am waiting to receive my SUPPORi baby sling (and have been moderate with the colour: cream) and will let you know if it works!
If you are interested, you can find them here if you live in Switzerland.

Mini-me

Mothers that dress their daughters like themselves used to give me the creeps.

Now I am one of them.

Paint it!

Here is a nice idea I have found in Paris:
A tablecloth which children can paint on. Once the party is over, you can throw the tablecloth into the washing machine and reuse again, as the ink is washable.

There are several sets you can buy. We opted for the “Paris Monuments”.
And you can find them here.

I recommend buying an additional pen set, as they dry very fast (and children usually forget to close the pens).
I must confess, I had a great time painting! I cannot even draw a stick figure, so I am quite happy to fill in the blanks!
It says it is not suitable for kids under 3 years old. I can imagine it is because they could put the pens into their mouths. In any case, my daughter is 18 months old and I do not leave her unattended when she is painting.
She really likes it a lot and asks me to take it out when she feels like painting. In this age, she is not really interested in filling the blanks but paints around wherever she wants and likes looking at the many figures that are drawn. This is perfect as long as she enjoys what she is doing!

And in case you want to keep the “art d’oeuvre” for ever and ever, you can buy special pens for clothing.

Have fun with your little ones!