Fantasie Suite
PANORAMURALS by Justyna, Poland
Allo friends, how are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to get to the blog and as always, remembered how much I love being here. So what’s new? As usual there’s a lot going on but I’m taking a break today to get familiar with the Etsy Affiliate program. It’s just like any other affiliate program where you recommend your favorite items and talented sellers and receive a small commission. As an added bonus, you don’t feel bad about spending time on guilty pleasures, like Etsy! The great thing about this program is that they give a 4% comission on purchases that come from the products that affiliates recommend. It’s a great way for anyone who loves to get lost in the world of the clever and creative artists and shop owners on the site, and affiliates have a bit of a side hustle at no cost to the Etsy sellers.
So without further ado, let’s go through some of the incredible talent on the site. I figured it would be best to stick with a theme and thought, where to start? What’s the easiest way to give a room a facelift? The fastest is paint, but why paint the entire room when you can use a mural or wallpaper to completely transform a room with just one wall? Etsy has so many peel & stick, DIY adhesives, murals, panels and panoramas it’s mind boggling! The only limit is our imagination…living in a magical fantasy world is right at our fingertips. Here are some of favorites from surfing today, but I’m letting you know now, it’s a deep rabbit hole!
My mom has wallpapered every room in our 150 year old house so as a kid watching it seemed like no big deal. When we talk about it now she says it was a ton of work with the paste and alignment, not to mention doing all on a with ladder with 9ft ceilings. Reading through some of these sellers’ comments it’s interesting to see how easy it’s become, especially with so many having the peel and stick or glue already on the back. Our first seller, Justyna from Poland is really intriguing as she’s got a few different shops on etsy, each with specific characteristics. The first is Panoramurals, panorama papers that cover corners instead of just a wall or panel. It’s a fun way to be fully immersed, like you’re living in a work of art! The top image is a vintage mural in done on about 3/4 of the wall in black and grey tones which gives a cool, edgy vibe. The one just above is muted but vibrant, vintage colors and runs from floor to ceiling with trees enveloping the room. What fun!
Justyna makes it really easy and works with her clients on every order. The paper comes in a variety of options and is either removable, traditional, canvas or textured.
And I love her sweet aesthetic. These clouds are ethereal and the effect is like an old master watercolor.
MarWALLous is Justyna’s other Etsy shop, a little different but full of wonderful options and I adore her staging! You can see this image above is a little like the first photo on at the top of the blog but the pattern and color is even more subtle and still goes around the corner in her panorama signature style.
Below, Royal Mural’s owner Ewa, also from Poland says to just “Measure your wall, select the size and enjoy beautiful wallpaper in your home”. It’s that easy!
She uses a beautiful blue and turned the image into a kind of a toile, so stunning and detailled, a great way to highlight a hall wall.
For lovers of the Italian Renaissance, who could resist living in a Boticcelli painting with the Birth of Venus alongside the bed? The paper is scaled to your particular size and the colors are true to the original masterpiece.
ArtDesign Wallpaper by Nevin in the US, offers this gorgeous, colorful Chinoiserie with flowers, trees and birds in vintage hues. He offers in traditional wallpaper as well as the peel and stick which can be removed in one piece. Custom sizes are available and Nevin is hands on in the process. The selection is varied so you can go in a completely other direction with something like this marble with gold accents below, giving a cool and elegant modern feel.
Below, Wallpapers for Beginners by Andrea Galiè in Italy is full of incredible, strong images like these magnificent flowers. He’s focused on traditional paper and his credo is ‘I wanted a truly 100% green, 100% recyclable and 100% vegan product.’
Michelle in the Netherlands runs AmsterdamElement and has a great selection like this irresistible antique tree botanical landscape made with either removable or non-woven or peel and stick.
She takes some of the complicated mystery out of it with the chart below
Her Pink Palm mural is so dreamy for those who love pink, it’s a great way to work it in with the earthy elements. I love how she did this vignette with the wood and coral.
She says: ‘Our Peel and Stick Wallpaper won’t tear, rip or wrinkle and can be repositioned without damaging the walls and leaves no residue. Perfect for renters but also for permanent use!
The same goes for out Nonwoven Wallpaper, easy to hang and easy to take off. All of our prints are designed to brighten up your walls!
Deco Murals is a world unto itself. Agnes in Poland is creating incredible fantasy options for your walls. She’s so creative and I love the images she chooses to reproduce. They’re all so rich and full of life. This is the Rural mural watercolor landscape. Removable or regular vinyl.
Don’t say i didn’t warn you!
Finally, DavidQuianArt, bespoke wallpaper, murals and wall art from Nottingham, United Kingdom. David is a purist and began by hand painting wallpapers and silks in the Chinoiserie style. I think this is pure bliss. Fully customizable. Below is the Garden of Cultivation handmade scenic wallpaper printed on non woven paper.
Anyway I could go on an on but then we’d never have Part 2’s right? I’d love to hear which style is resonates with you and whether you’ve used any of these or others we need should know about!
Well, that’s all for today, I’m going to try to get here more often and am really happy YOU stopped by! xoc
Les Bouquets
Allo mes amis! Comment ca va? I hope all is well with you, it’s been a long time! Last time I checked in it was to talk about a book I’m working on that’s taking quite a bit of research. While that’s underway I needed a diversion and came across this image (below). It’s a sketch from the year 1735, a beautiful flower arrangement that had just begun to fill in with color yet was never finished. It struck me that each of the masterpieces we see today started with the simple act of putting pencil to paper. I had the urge to continue coloring it, remembering the fun it was as a child!
In fact, I was so charmed by it that I started to look for old images in the public domain that were similar, black and white sketches that would be fun to color; arrangements, single flowers and bouquets from a time when floral design and observation of botanicals was both a science and a high art. the idea came to create a coloring book for adults that was sophisticated and would be easy to use. It was a big task since most of the images needed adjusting, color correction and restoration. they often had seams in the center like the one below,
or were crooked and yellow, scanned at high resolution but not the best quality.
There was no shortage of out of print books and images to be had, and so, with the help of a talented assistant, we worked on each image to take out the flaws and retain as much of the detail as possible.
The results led to clear, highly detailled illustrations that are pretty to look at and, when even the slightest color goes on with colored pencils or pastels, they spring to life like mini masterpieces.
As I was putting it all together in the last stages, I was visiting my mom and she was very encouraging as i stayed up late learning about the process; creating the cover, the ins and outs of self publishing on amazon and all the little details that went into it. One night we printed out the entire book to see it in hand. She happened to have loads of colored pencils so for the next few nights after dinner, we sat down with tea to talk and without planning, gravitated toward filling in the images, surprised at how easy it was and the satisfaction we had with seeing the results.
Those evenings spent talking and laughing, as well as in silence and in contemplation are some that I’ll treasure forever. Coloring became a little respite for us, a way to create without having to be particularlly creative, a way to do something together yet totally independent. Everything stopped for awhile, there was no stress, just the pleasure of play, bringing back those fond childhood feelings of contentment.
We’re no rembrants but we stopped and admired and ooh’d and ahh’d at each other’s work
and giggled at who could have created this vase!
When we finished a few, i shot what we’d done to make a collage, then searched for flatlay images and put the photo of the colored pages in the space between the pencils (below).
The image of the book cover went on the flatlay shown in the first photo of the post.
After countless revisions, adjustments and tweaks, voila! it was uploaded to amazon and the book is live now!
Each copy is printed on demand right here in the USA.
I’ve learned so much from this process, not the least of which is to continue learning. everything’s daunting until we do it once, non? If you’re interested in hearing more about it let me know and I’ll go step by step.
There are so many resources online to help with every aspect and I recommend sites like the Internet Archive, Fivver and Rawpixel to make the tasks easier.
With that, I promised to give atttibution to the images used to create the flatlays, so thank you to the creative artists on Rawpixel and Freepik and the incredible resources that are available to us all!
If you or someone you love might enjoy this book to de-stress, meditate or just plain old play, head on over to Amazon and get a copy of Les Bouquets. For every book sold, food will be donated to our local shelter where so many animals are in need of nourishment and comfort.
Well, I hope you enjoyed catching up, I sure have missed my blog friends. So for now mes amis, have a beautful, colorful day!
PS if you leave a comment you’ll be in the drawing to win a free copy! Winner announced next friday :)
Conversation Starters
Bonjour mes amis, ca va?
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve typed those simple little words, close to a year by the looks of it. I miss those carefree days of checking in, coming here just to rendezvous together for a bit with you. But life sped ahead, and somehow the blog got pushed to the bottom of the list, patiently waiting for the day a keystroke would bring it back to the forefront, remaining still as each day passed. And of course so much has happened with all of us, it’s hard to recap. So we won’t, let’s just take it from here.
So what’s going on? Well, I’m back to the blog and biz and thought it might be fun to tell you about a project that’s been brewing for years and is finally underway. Not to give too much of a spoiler but of course it’s Paris related (an obsession of infinite inspiration), but it starts an entire century before the Versailles era we’ve come to equate with the old Paris we’re so familiar with. That glorious time had a predecessor, and it was filled with the darkest of the dark and brightest of the bright in terms of everything from society to science.
The project is a book series on the Salon Hostesses of Paris; the women who, starting with Madame Rambouillet in the 1600s, used their homes for intimate gatherings with locals of all status from the famous to the infamous, to discuss how they would change a decadent, debaucherous and dangerous city into one that celebrated gallantry, manners, preservation of the language, art, litterature, dance, theater and philosophy. And change it they did. Madame Rambouillet was the first salon hostess, an innocently self-created position brought on by her revulsion to the happenings at the Louvre which included immoralilty, backstabbing and general chaos by which she was disgusted and retreated completely into her own world and was determined to have, do and be something different, something beautiful and civilized and precious. She decided to renovate a house close to the palace and named it Hôtel de Rambouillet. She designed it to be grand and open so the light would pour in and her guests could circulate. She used the doors and windows to merge indoor and outdoor living, and created what was to become a place of legend, the Chambre Bleu, where she hosted many evenings from her alcove bed. Through her gracious spirit and ability to inspire, she was a muse and encouraged and extruded conversation from her brilliant writers and thinking guests and who ushered in the Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment. Conversations were key; they were the foundation of the salon. Discussion, wit, observation, encouragement, appreciation, speculation were all the rage and were often recorded by the guests once they got home.
Of course the story of her life and those surrounding her was outrageously monumental and her legacy is staggering but we’ll leave that to the book! What’s fascinating is how much there is to discover, the records that were kept, the private notes of the guests. Even more remarkable is how one woman was able to influence an entire culture so many centuries ago by simply facilitating conversation and celebrating it as an art.
I love digging up old images and records of the property as it was developing. It’s absolutely fascinating that someone would make an engraving like this one above to commemorate the venue.
Or this drawing of the beginning ideas for the Hotel de Rambouillet – By today’s terms, a model sketch or blueprints, even graph paper!
This little drawing of the plot may be my favorite and I’d love to find the entire map. The record keeping and documents are just incredible. This was at a time that Paris was exploding. In 1600, Paris was the largest city in europe and growing by the day. We rarely think of those whose hands built the city brick by brick, they’re long forgotten. But they do live on in so many ways, don’t they? The 1600s on one hand was a modern era with many minds being open to building techniques, style nature, mathematics, astronomy and countless inventions including the microscope, the telescope and thermometer. Just to put things into perspective though, Notre Dame was started in the 1100s! C’est fou, non?
But that’s another story.
Anyway I better get back to work but am glad to reconnect. If you’re interested in learing more or want to get on the list for pre-order, let me know. Till then, have a wonderful weekend, hopefully filled with meaningful convos!
the paris apartment 