25 April 2011

Postcards from :: a lazy way of blogging during Easter break.

Dear all, 

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE !

Today is our last day of lazy days...
Tomorrow at that time, I will be rushing to school 
to pick up our girls. 
Tomorrow we will have to wake up at 6:45 am.
We had a great time. Simple, fun and mostly relaxing.
But for the moment we had a great lunch on our back patio.
It feels like summer in the middle of ... April... 
Totally abnormal. 
Totally enjoyable [I have to admit].

So here is my last postcard from our Easter break

XoXo

Lila,














{and everyone was making fun of me when we moved from California,
I insisted upon taking our outdoor shower to Paris...
Oh, really...?}
;)

21 April 2011

Postcards from :: a lazy way of blogging during Easter break.

Dear all, 

We are soaking sunshine as much as we can. 
Our personal "solar energy" is very much depleted 
with the past long winter we had (as many of you did too). 
So a trip to the beach while visiting my dad 
on the French Riviera was the 
very first thing we did!

Xoxo
         Lila






19 April 2011

Postcards from :: a lazy way of blogging during Easter break.



Dear all, 

We went to see this amazingly breathtaking 
documentary as a Family outing the other day. 
It was about the true story of a woman called 
Claudine Andre and her love & commitment 
to care and save the Bonobos.

"In 1993, a baby bonobo changed Claudine’s life forever. 
Mikeno arrived at the Kinshasa zoo wher
Claudine was a volunteer, without much hope of surviving. 
Claudine was determined to save him. 
And was thrown into an adventure which 
has never stopped." 


If it comes to Canada and the US, 
I do recommend you go see it at the movie theater.


Xoxo


              Lila,


Our little bonobos

17 April 2011

Postcards from :: a lazy way of blogging during Easter break.

:: home ::

Dear all, 

The sun is here. 
It feels "almost" warm in the evening.
Even tough we are nearby Paris, we have created 
our Californian outdoor patio and 
we first enjoyed it last night.

Big Californian Salad
Bread & cheese
Wine and pastis
Gateau au chocolat.

Xoxo
          Lila




14 April 2011

Un lieu Sur Terre featured in French magazine Viva Deco

I almost forgot to share with you that many of my handmade pillows and some of my paintings were showcased in a french home decor magazine called Viva Deco last month.
Sorry for the really poor quality of the pictures. I am expecting better ones from the journalist and will upload them as soon as she can think about sending them my way...


But in the meantime, here is the article ::


This pillow and this one
Two of my paintings (not for sale) and this pillow
One of my school chair (not for sale) and this pillow and that one.

This cushion in the top left corner

08 April 2011

Web work ahead : baby steps

{found on Google image. Originally created by GlennMcDowell}

Couple weeks ago my website got reviewed by the Mogul Mum team. 
Reese did a very thorough job. 
And I got some nice helpful feedbacks from other professionals. The big advice was to swich from iWeb to Word Press. But I also got some really good guidelines and tips.


First of all, as many of us , I am far from being a webmaster. It is a REAL job with REAL skills. There are a lot of easy platforms to built one website's or blog out there. And honestly since I am an "Apple/Mac" girl, I love the idea of having iWeb helping me create my "vision". So this is what I first did :: I simply used the tools I have :: iWeb. 

I also know some tech people can do some really cool stuffs with iWeb. Like changing the menu  bar, linking the menu to an outside page, etc... There are some really good tutorials out there. It is fairly time consuming but probably worth it. I don't think i will go and try to figure those out  since in the BIG picture :: I need to switch to Word Press.


Here is my plan over the next 3-4 months::

  • phase "one" :: following the given advices, make some positive change on iWeb
  • Phase two :: switch form iWeb to Word Press
  • Phase 3 :: consolidate blog and website into one platform
  • Phase 4 :: once I have a clearer picture of where I want my branding to go :: get help with professionals (photograph and webmaster) 



That said, I started implementing some changes on iWeb, following the advices given on Mogul mum comments. 
Yes, my cute little house disappeared (boo hoo hoo...). I gave SEO names to my tabs (I don't like it aesthetic wise... They are too long...). 
I change my CONTACT tab ( and by doing so I got 4 new people signing up for my newsletter ! 
Nice  ;)
And I tried to simplify my e-shop tab. Now, that said I would love that by clicking on the tab it re-directs to Etsy. Same with the blog tab. I tried by following this advice but in vain..
I could go direcly from phase one to phase four directly. But I like learning things on the way... And tweaking pictures and playing with the "tools" is part of the fun too. 


I would really appreciate if you can have a look and 
give me some constructive feed backs and 
what is your experience
 with your website .

PS :: KAREN , thank you for your advice  ; D  :: I need to look into WP Thesis.