Adèle & Joséphine's precious postcards.

In a cupboard here lies hidden and protected what certainly was once Adèle and Joséphine's greatest treasure...










A very old album filled to the brim with the sweetest antique postcards...








Antiques have a strange power on our romantic minds and are able to bring us in a long forgotten world, a fantasy world...

but this is only true today and for some, at a age of technology and permanent connexion...




Adèle and Joséphine didn't had any television or computer, and they were even not "on Facebook"...



Lives and life were different at the "Belle Epoque" at around 1900...




November 2014, dark cold evening, I'm looking at that old odd album containing postcards each adressed to both Joséphine and Adèle, and most signed by "Tante Maria"...




Who was she? Who were them? I wonder...












And I imagine a cold evening in a dark drawing room only lit by candlelight... Two little girls working together on their album, on their precious postcard collection...





What were they going to get from Tante Maria for Christmas? I wonder...

The wind is cold and Adèle and Joséphine and Tante Maria are all long gone with it...

What was it like then? I wonder...

boxoholic?!?

I love boxes... 

I can't stop buying boxes! 








I love them to be vintage and covered with floral fabric if not with antique wallpaper.

Do you love boxes?













This week-end,I found (amongst others) that one brilliantly colored, hand made and Art-Deco... Yes, I found it nice... but when I saw the inside, I had to buy it!



It is covered with antique and faded fabric with pattern of cherubs, roses and birds...
What would you hide and treasure in that kind of box?






And then, another one very special to me...
Covered with paper showing a galant scene...
But inside, there is an hidden note... how sweet is this!




So you just discovered a few of my favorite boxes...

Madame Alfred Carrière...

Do you know Madame Alfred Carrière? 

She is the jewel in my garden... 

It is an old rose discovered in 1879. A Victorian plant, yes it is... and great for vases too!



Some grow it as a climber but it is a huge and vigourous plant that I believe at its best used as a big opulent shrub... 







It has long arched stems that are now covered with fragrant blooms, off-white color on a light green folliage. 






My favourite, for sure, and it repeat flowering all summer.






As romantic inside as outside...









Madame Alfred Carrière, do you want to be forever in my garden?

Be sure to grow it in yours... Did I mention that it is an almost thorn-less rose? And it is also a good rose for shady area...

I did it again...

Ben de Papignies this morning at the brocante, 7.00 a.m.:

"I would like to buy the tablecloth... Yes, the tablecloth there, under all your beautiful antique items! Yes, that one, please. No, I'm not interested by the other and I would like to buy it for a ridiculously low price please!"

I did it again and it worked. The seller first had to move all his precious knickknacks and trinkets and then he was able to handle me the precious fabric. 

Well, I should be used to this as this was not the first time but It always leave me speechless when it works... and as far as I can remember, no seller did ever refused and I love my new antique tablecloth... Here are some pics, with some today's discoveries.

Cheers.

Sunday petite Brocante...

Last Sunday, we were selling at a local flea market... It was a great day with good sales, funny peoples, friendly customers and great organisers. Many thanks to all of you.






Here are some pics taken by my Dear friend Mélanie, who was selling there too. We are planning to be back there on the 7th of September...

Ancestors for sale...

As far as I remember, I always loved these big pictures of ancestors. Ofcourse, they are photographs, and not oil paintings... And we might easily agree that they have nothing in common with a De Laszlo signed portrait; They could clearly not imagine to stand next to a picture taken by Cecil Beaton...





Nevertheless, I think that they deserve better than to be forgotten in the attic or worse, simply chucked out by deserving heirs.






Of course, I understand that people would not accept to hang "portraits of foreigners" on their fabulous plasterboard walls... but for the others, for the one that are trying to give a bit of soul and ambience to their home, I think that antique portraits are perfects. 





They instantly make you feel like in a old "family house"... and this is were these are coming from, a big house surrounded by a park with high trees and box edges. It was a house lived in by four generations of members from the same family. It is going to be ripped off to make place for a road enlargment

and so, these ancestors are now in desperate search for a new place... 









Do you have any ancestors portraits to show to your descendant? Gabrielle used to tell me that in her mother's house, there was a long hallway from which the walls were covered with that kind of ancestors. It all burned to the ground in 1918...

Gifts from Madeleine...

A few weeks ago, I received a pair of prints from my Dearest Madeleine. As I was speechless looking at these romantic interior scenes she said " C'est romantique, n'est ce pas? Nous sommes de grands romantiques, nous!". 

So, is this what I look like? A romantic? I don't know...what I know for sure is that we are always having fun together and I love to go to the brocante with Madeleine. She speaks loud, she talks to everyone, she always haggles prices from the dealers in the most shamelessly way (2 euros, nothing more!) and can be very bad tempered (she often said that she is going to hit that one or kick that other...) and she even sometimes uses rude words making her grand-daughter very hangry at her... 

So is this being romantic? I don't know, but what I know for sure is that it is all Madeleine's fault if I love lace tableclothes...