Our Beloved Port-Louis

Ah Port-Louis... If it's lovely out there and we just want to go for a short walk, Port-Louis is one of the first places we think about. It's beautiful, close to where we live and it has a nice welcoming atmosphere. In the Summer, it's got that chilled vibe with people relaxing on the beach and outside the restaurants and cafés. Every time we've been there, it's been just busy enough to not feel like we're all alone, but never too busy or touristy. Perfect!

We just wandered around the town and its citadelle, and made our way on the beach, where I started to pick up washed up pieces of glass (of course). Jason has actually cleaned an empty bottle of Aberlour whisky for me to properly collect these pieces of glass and keep them in a pretty bottle. Now I just want to fill it up!

It was very windy, and not super hot, but still lovely nonetheless. After our walk, we stopped at the  Dame Blanche café for a cheeky drink. We love that place so much and we always make a point of stopping there when we're in town. The back garden is the type of place that feels very homely and where we could stay forever, sipping a dulcino (café viennois with a sweet and thick sauce at the bottom of the cup) with extra caramel ;)

We're now two weeks away from the wedding guys! I'm going to be a bit quiet here but trust me, I'll have pleeeenty to share when we come back as I'll want to share photos from the wedding, but also from our short holiday week in Bretagne after it. Stay tuned!

Coup de Coeur - Four Inspiring Artists

Happy Friday guys! It's been a while I haven't done a Coup de Coeur post and when thinking about the artists that inspired me lately, there were way too many for me to only share one!

This is due to the fact that I opened a new account on Instagram (see previous post here) purely for my design work and I started to follow soooo many talented people that I discovered through other creatives that I was already following. I absolutely love scrolling through my feed and literally "double-tapping" everything I see.

Here's a round-up of my four favourite artists at the moment!

Lana Jay's illustrations
Instagram // Shop

I fell in love with her style and cute witches straight away. Lately I've been having to draw more characters for children's books and various projects so I've been searching for illustrators that do it very well to try and get some inspiration (I'm rubbish with proportions!). Her pins and magical illustrations are absolutely beautiful too and she's got such a unique style... Anyway, if you haven't got the message yet: follow her now!

Catherine Kay, aka Katnipp
Instagram // Website

Not only am I a big fan of her illustrations and cute little doodles, but I've also had a proper girl crush for this crazy lady that is behind all these. Her Insta stories are just hilarious sometimes and she seems to be a genuinely nice person with a great sense of humor and an effortless talent for illustrating. She also sells some pins and stationery goodies so if I were you, I would have a look at her website straight away ;)

Sibylline Meynet (She's French!)
Instagram // Shop

Okay, I know it's not that important that she's French, but when I find amazing artists that I feel are almost "locals" to me, it makes me very excited! I found her through Twitter but followed her straight away on Instagram. I actually bought a copy of her zine Eclipse that was printed in a limited number and I did not regret it. Her magical illustrations of floating girls are to die for. I especially love the amount of details she includes in them and how original they look!

Mona K, aka Ghost Puff
Instagram // Shop

This girl is SO GOOD at what she does that sometimes I'm just jealous of her and her talent. She draws the cutest little animals and characters and is now embroidering her creations to sell them on Etsy (although most of the time they're gone the moment they're listed!). I also love following her behind the scenes through her stories, and her portrait commissions are always so lovely :)


Have a nice weekend!

"It was beautiful magic, wondrous to behold..."

For those who know me well, it's not a secret that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Although I much prefer reading the books, I also love watching the movies regularly because the visual world of Harry Potter is amazing and I always found that it's represented really well in them (with a few exceptions of course).

Actually, my only request to Jason last Christmas was to get the box set of all the Harry Potter movies so that I could watch them properly and whenever I wanted (my family has all the DVDs but they stayed at my parents). He went on and offered me the set of blu-rays with all the bonuses you could dream of (heart eyes). So from time to time, I watch them again but in random orders as my two favourites are the third and sixth (Prisoner of Askaban and the Half-Blood Prince). I know it's not the right way to do it but honestly, I'm 29 now and I do what I want, never mind if it doesn't make much sense!

The other day I was watching (for the hundredth time I guess) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and during the scene when Slughorn talks to Harry about his pet fish which was a gift from Lily, I felt inspired to recreate the transformation of the lily petal into a fish. I'm by no means an animator and my experience with gifs is not amazing, but I thought I should try and give it a go. It was also mostly to see if I could translate the idea I had in my head and I was curious to see how it would turn out.

Last Friday afternoon, I went on and started the first illustration with the lily petal just sitting on the water. Then, and with a bit of help from Jason, I slowly created the 26 illustrations that actually make the gif. I know it's not much and not ground-breaking at all, but I'm very proud of it as I very rarely work on personal projects and I was super pleased to have managed to do something just for me that I'm proud of.

The day after, I was told that my grandmother on my dad's side had passed away. She'd been ill for a very long time and turned 91 in July this year, but it was still a shock and a very hard time for me and my family. On the day of her funeral, I thought about this animation that I created just before her passing and I felt that strangely, it was quite fitting with this sad time and decided to use it on social media to mention the heart-breaking news to everyone.

It made me think about how sometimes art, and overall just creating something, has different meanings and can be seen and felt differently depending on the mindset you're in and what is happening in your life at that moment.

On Friday, I saw it as a cool animation that represent the magic of a beautiful moment, and a couple days after, I saw it as this sad but poetic tribute to a wonderful piece of magic that vanished when Lily was killed by Voldemort.

Memories from Riantec

Last Saturday we thought we would explore one of the local coastal towns just to walk around, get some fresh air, and enjoy the sun. Riantec was really nice, but there was literally almost no one around due to the heat! I have to admit, I love some hot sunny weather, but it was such a humid heat that I thought I was going to melt at one point!

We parked in the town centre and headed towards île de Kenner, which was really beautiful. What you can see in the background is the Gâvres peninsula, another nice place to visit (see previous post here)!

We enjoyed every brief gust of wind that we got and carried on walking on the coast until it was time to have a break and get something to drink because you know, wouldn't want to go all dehydrated, and also because my tongue was like sand paper haha.

It was just nice and relaxing, exactly what we needed. Time outside the house to reflect on our everyday life, our plans and things happening very soon. We still can't believe we're getting married next month! It's all coming very fast and it's super exciting. We're trying to figure out what we're going to do and see for our week off after the wedding and I think we're really going to enjoy it! We'll be staying in Bretagne but will visit places that Jason hasn't seen yet.

Make sure to follow along on my Instagram!

Wallpaper Giveaway - You got this

Ok, we're well into August now and I've just realised that I haven't done a wallpaper giveaway since May (insert shocked emoji face)! I wanted to carry on with inspirational words that can give you the motivation you need with whatever is going on in your life and I thought about this quote that comes up quite regularly online: You got this.

In times when I feel overwhelmed and focus too much on negative thoughts, I always try to take a step back and look at it all in another way. I've mentioned it before in this blog, but it's been quite a few years now that I'm really working on focusing on the positive in my life. Sometimes I tell myself that everything will be alright in the end (see previous wallpaper giveaway here) but sometimes I feel that I just need my confidence back. No more doubts, no more "Am I ever going to manage?", just that determined feeling of being in control of what you're doing and undertaking.

So there you go, my way of seeing it all is to concentrate on the cool things around you and things that you love. A cat, some nice weather and cake are three of my favourite things so I had to include them in the artwork! Not to mention pastelly colours and cutesy little stars :)

I hope this one will inspire you too!

These wallpapers are free as usual but I would just like to remind people that they're only for personal use, thank you :)

Download:
WHOLE SET // PHONE 1 // PHONE 2