Ne Pas

Gad, what is up with the French? With the vast amount of French stuff floating around yesterday (happy not Bastille day?) I'm coming to realization that my resistance is futile.

Unlike most girls who had their dreamy phase earlier on in their lives, I never took French and never had inkling to do so other than to pronounce cheese I enjoy. I have been there once in 8^th grade and hated Paris. It was a pivotal trip looking back as I can define that trip as the start of my love of architecture and design, as all my photos did not include people. Images from the week-long trip in France were dominated by textures of clouds meeting the seas of Northern France, close-ups of medieval architecture and plants that grew in shapes foreign to what I was used to in Virginia. BFD, right? Back in the states, a couple of my friends and I didn't care to learn French but were fascinated by this one phrase we kept seeing on the tags of stuffed animals. "Ne Pas." We figured it must mean something like "Don't" since the English parts of the tags were a list of don't shove down your gullet and choke on this toy, don't eat this wad of plastic, don't take to bathtub with you while plugged into the wall outlet, don't smother yourself with this and forget to breathe, etc. Yeah, we responded to everything with "Ne Pas." The catchphrase of that year temporarily replaced "Your mom."

I had figured everything I needed to learn I have already learned from (in chronological order)

• The Chef from The Little Mermaid, heeheeheehawhawhaw
  
• The Candle thing from Beauty and the Beast, sacrebleu
  
• Brett and Jermaine from FoTC, Camembert.
  

I don't know if it's a sign of maturity but ever since I picked up and started flipping through a French General book on my stylin friend's coffee table I have been hooked on the provincial style since.

I am totally eating these up lately.

Home Sewn - new book by Kaari Meng of French General.

P.S. a litte bird told me this book will be available at a certain accentric quilt shop in Ohio with the new line of French General fabrics.

Downloadable vintage lables from here.

downloadable French inspired patterns from here.

downloadable red-bordered lables from here.

awesome "japanese masking tape" from here.

and the beautiful renovation of la maisonnette at stephmodo here.

le swoon.