1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS: the simple things

Flowers gathered by my nephew for: his mama, his grandma and his auntie. 

The simplest things are the most precious. 

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Joining in with Abi from Creating Paper Dreams for One photo & Twenty words. 

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // THE SEASONS

Fall has always been the warmest season to me. 

Something to do with colors, spices in my drinks and cozy chairs perfect for reading. 

But Winter is coming.

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Joining in with Abi from Creating Paper Dreams for One photo & Twenty words. Check it out!

BREATH IN THE COLD AIR

It's been a bit quiet here, this week was sort of weird. Some days you just feel like hiding under your blanket till it's time to sleep again. Or is it just me? 

I found out that what I struggle most with during the winter months is the lack of light and fresh air, as I don't go out quite as much and wake up too late (need to work on that.) 

So I went out a bit, wandering in Paris. Started a new crafty project (Christmas style). And I opened the windows. Took a deep (and cold) breath and was rewarded with that amazing view. 

Winter can be quite nice.

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // SILENCE

Waiting for the sun to rise.

Silence is a blessing

For those not afraid of the dark.

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Joining in with Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams for A photo & 20 words. Sort of a day late, but let's ignore that fact. Also, she's awesome.

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // AN ADVENTURE

"I'm going on an adventure", said Bilbo, dreaming of mountains and dragons. 

My adventure is quite different, yet as scary. 

Let's try and knit socks! 

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Joining in with Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams for A photo & 20 words. Sort of a day late, but let's ignore that fact. Also, her blog is awesome.

PHOTO APPS I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT

I love my iPhone, I love taking photos so it really is no big surprise that I love photo apps I guess. A LOT of the photos that I share here are taken with my phone, like Playing tourist in Paris, all 100 photos taken during my 100 Happy Days challenge or even most of the photos from 1 photo & 20 words. So I'd thought I'd take 5 minutes to talk about my all time favorite photo apps.

PIC TAP GO. is just the best photo app ever. It was developed by Totally Rad, the awesome company who is also behind RadLab, which is a Photoshop/Lightroom… plugin that I use to edit all of my DSLR photos. I talked about it before here and here. PicTapGo is basically RadLab but for iPhone. Which is really cool because it means i can give all of my photos the same look and feel. The filters I use the most are: Light On, Crispity, Shadows, Auto Contrast Mason and Skinny Jeans. The B&W filters are pretty cool too! 99% of my Instagram photos I first edit with the app, it's just the best. 

INSTAGRAM. Should I mention Instagram? I love it. I "met" so many cool people through it, I get inspired every day there and it's just awesome! I'm @alinor89 over there, feel free to share your profile name in case I'm not following you already :)

CAMERA +. I mostly use that app to take my photos because they have that cool feature that lets you set up your exposure and focus separately, which is, you know, really cool! 

ABM. From the cool ladies behind A Beautiful Mess. It's a fun, festive, colorful app awesome to either make collages or add doodles and text to your photos. I definitely don't use it every day, but it's still really cool!

VSCOcam. It used to be my main editing app before PicTapGo was launched. It's really clean and well designed and the VSCOcam community is awesome and inspiring. Also it's a free app (as opposed to PicTapGo) which is awesome considering its quality

PLAYING TOURIST IN PARIS

I spent the last week walking for what seems a thousand miles, in Paris, with a dear friend of mine from the US. It's funny how you can live in the most visited city of the world without really enjoying it that way on a daily basis. So for 6 days I did my best to be a tourist in my own city. We went to the museums (Orsay is my favorite of all time in the history of ever!), walked the stairs to Montmartre, had picnics by the Seine, then drinks by the Seine, stopped by the prettiest english library ever, said hi to the Iron Lady, wandered in le Marais and so much more. So it is true what they say. Paris is indeed very pretty. (even after 4 days of never ending rain.)

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // my mom's flowers

Water & Sunshine. 

Watching the flowers bloom and trying to keep them alive for the Summer. 

Wish me luck.

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Joining in with Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams for A photo & 20 words. check it out.

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // The woods

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately (...)  and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" 
Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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This is not exactly my story, but you know how it is with books, you start reading them and all of a sudden you get lost, start flying with the birds, studying witchcrafts at Hogwarts and living in the wild. it's magic.

Joining in with Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams for A photo & 20 words. check it out.

100 Happy Days

Remember 100 days ago? Well on July 1st I completed my #100HappyDays challenge! I already shared the things that made me happy on my Halfway Through post, and you can see many more pictured here, so this time i figured i'd share my thoughts on the challenge itself:

One hundred days: that sounds like a lot right? Well honestly i feel like it was only yesterday I started the challenge. Time flies people, like seriously way too quickly! I can't remember where (i think it was in a podcast) but I heard someone say that it wasn't the amount of money we had that made us rich but Time and what we did with it. SO TRUE. I'm really trying to get better at this. I sleep too much, and I watch a lot of TV shows. And more than often, suddenly it's 6pm and i don't feel like i did much in the day? Which might explain why I am most productive between 7pm and 11pm, it's the guilt! My new challenge for the summer will be to TAKE CONTROL OF MY TIME. Can you tell I love challenges?

Time is the only true currency you have. Stop spending it on things you don’t need.

Everyday little joys: they're not that hard to find! There are many statistics on Happiness all over the world. According to some, only 23% of the french population considered themselves to be "very happy" (38% in the UK). I think mostly we try a lot harder to remember and complain about the bad days than the good one. And this is what this challenge was a lot about to me: discovering than being happy is not that hard. What about you? Do you think you're very happy? or could be?

Capture. Record. And remember: Taking all these photos was so much fun. And looking at all of them now? Even better! There are so many ways to record the days and the little details: taking photos, writing in a diary. You can even buy "Happiness Journal" on Amazon and co. And at the end of the day, having those memories make everything so much more real, especially on the not so good days. I have already printed some of these photos and included them in my 52 weeks of art journaling album, but i think i might do another smaller one with just those photos. You can never have too many mini albums right?

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // A SUMMER IN PARIS

SUMMERTIME

They say the French are lazy.

I say, please take a seat.  Paris is so pretty in the sun.

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One Photo and Twenty Words is hosted by Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams. Click that link, her blog is lovely and you'll get to see and read plenty other stories. 

100 HAPPY DAYS: HALFWAY THROUGH

Remember when i told you about the #100HappyDays challenge? Well it's already been more than 50 days and i'm still loving it. For those of you who never heard of it, it's super simple. It's basically about one thing and one thing only: do you think you can be happy for 100 happy days in a row? Most people would think, boy i don't have time for that. And i would reply: take it. It's not always easy. Some days are so busy by the time you finish that last batch of clothes it's 11pm and all you want is go to sleep. Some other days are a bit sad, or maybe you're sick with the flu. Well that's when it gets fun. During the second week, i got sick with some kind of food poisoning. I wasn't happy. Except, do you know the best medicine for that is also one of my favorite drinks (yes, i'm talking Coca Cola). So here you go, one reason to be happy after all. Easy right? So what are you waiting for? 

Be happy, and tell the world!

A few things that made be happy those last 50 days: a good magazine, going out with dear friends, making art with my two hands, my nephew, gratitude and pretty photos, knitting, an inspiring book, movie tickets, my favorite dish, pink flowers, candles, white wine, spring cleaning, shopping, going for a walk, my cat, iced coffee at Starbucks, running again, yoga nights, a yellow top.

I am in charge of how I feel, and today I choose happiness

ON MY WALK - parc de la poudrerie

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” 

                        Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

1 PHOTO & 20 WORDS // KEEP DREAMING

Looking out the window. 

Thinking there is hope in the trees, love in the sky. 

And beauty, everywhere. Keep dreaming.

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One Photo and Twenty Words is hosted by Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams. Click that link, her blog is lovely and you'll get to see and read plenty of other stories. 

LIVING ON A BOAT

Once upon a time there was a girl who dreamed of another life. By the water. And the flowers. With no cars and grey buildings. Then she went for a long summer walk on the Regent's Canal. And she fell in love. With all of this:

All photos edited with Radlab

WILD & FREE

I knew i wouldn't really "leave" Paris this Summer, at least not for long. Most of my friends did, dreams of sunshine and water and sand in their head. Me, i decided to go to London for a few days. Even though i could see their puzzled looks: "London? that's not very Summer-like... is it?" Well, the thing is, to me, London is so much more than this cool big city with musicals and Big Ben and stuff like that. It's always wild, green, mysterious and beautiful. First there are the big parks in the city, St James' and its wild flowers, Hyde Park with its music festival. A little farther, Hampstead Heath and its ponds, its forest, its hills. And there's also my very favorite, Regent's Canal. But that's another story. For now, a few pictures of the London i see, and love.

all photos edited with Radlab

And remember, "all good things are wild & free".

LONDON CALLING

All photos were taken with my Canon EOS 60D or my iphone 4S. Edited with Radlab

Back from London, sadly. I had the most magical time over there, as i do everytime. Lots of walking around without purpose, lots of shopping, lots of food and lots of fun. A few of my favorite adventures:

Swinsuit time at the pond of Hampstead Heath

Walking in St James' Park

Shopping breaks in Urban Outfitters

Billy Elliot

The Camden Market

The Regent's Canal

The Breakfast Club

The people

The sunshine

Boy i want to go back. Like right now!