I am a big advocate of travelling the world and visiting all the wonderful places on our good Earth. This doesn't mean packing up and leaving a good job for months on end, I just mean being adventurous in choosing wherever to stamp your passport. I wanted to share with you a little online exercise I was doing through Pinterest. I created a board of some of the places I have been blessed to visit so far in my life. These included adding photos of the Philippines which I have visited intermittently since I was a child, and also photos of New York which I used to visit frequently too to visit family, and then later to enjoy as an adult. I added more photos, photos not taken by myself but of what others have taken, shots that I could not capture on my own camera but embodied the spirit of my experience of seeing these places. I added Pins of photos to represent trips to Paris, Edinburgh, Mexico City and Las Vegas...even pins to represent a coach tour I took through Italy when I was 8! What was so great about having this collection in visual form made me realize that I have seen some wonderful sites and breathed the air of many lands. I still think I am not that well traveled, and I hope that I can continue to work hard to gain the means to see more places, but as I usually think I am lacking, seeing this collection made me feel full and grateful. In my board TRAVEL I included nods to English cities and towns too, representing the beauty that can seen even out of your own immediate postcode. I urge you to make one, not only will it encourage you to remember all of the sites to have been but will make you think of all the next amazing places you want and could see! Here is a snippet of my pin board so far. This is my America section!
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Photo: From the film Funny Face Six months haven't even passed and I happened to find myself walking through the streets of Paris again. My Wifey Jo has been working at the offices of Chanel since September and I decided to pay her a visit. Not only did the weekend do her good to see a familiar face, but for me it was a nice time to just relax and enjoy having a real weekend off not filled with other jobs, organizing the wedding or wasting it away in front of Netflix. I had a ball of a time. I was walking alone for most of Friday as Jo had to work but the me time so was precious and serene. I like my own company which some people find difficult for themselves. I passed some serious iconic landmarks, kicking through the brown leaves and even took some time to visit a museum and sketch a little. When Jo was free the rest of the weekend consisted of more walking, eating plenty of cheese, drinking red wine and finding the Kenzo store to by my New Era cap. The cost to travel there from London was cheap as chips too as I decided to take the 8hr bus which is long but still pleasant especially when you can sleep for most of it. Travel once there is pretty good too as firstly you can actually walk to most places as Paris is quite small, but the cost of a bundle of 10 single tickets is not costly either! I have grouped some of the little things that may interest any of you guys reading this if planning on visiting there any time soon. It really is a must see place. Bisous Paris, til next time. 1. Musee de Quai Branly. I spent 3 hours looking through their Asian, Oceanic, African and Americas collections. They have impressive statues, fabrics, costumes and paintings from each region. It is full of multimedia too with videos and interviews played throughout. A stunning edit of pieces on show there. 2. Eurolines! I spend £50 quid return, thats cheaper then going up North! If planned correcly, you can fall asleep in Central London and wake up in the centre of Paris. 3. Cafe Lomi. A new coffee joint a found near to my friend's flat. I had a nice Rwandan filter and it was clean and crisp. It is located north of Gare du Nord. 4. Au P'Tit Grec. THE BEST CREPES EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5. Ten Belles, an old favourite Coffee spot with some pretty tasty baked goods located off Canal St Martin. 6. Hotel du Nord. Swanky Restaurant with a chic bar with some potent Cocktails on offer. Click the photos for more more info. Knowing full well of the cheesy family album aspect of all this we just couldn't help ourselves. Take four good friends, instagram lovers, a beautiful home and some spare time and what you get is a our Vanity Fair inspired at home photoshoot! It was so much fun and really makeshift with us all taking turns to hold our phone torches up for extra lighting and me running out of my seat numerous times to set the timer for our group shot. This all came about via the interesting mind of Andy Burton (Below), so Boy Burton this is for you!
Here it is! My Blogshop Stockholm write up. As mentioned before on previous posts I am a huge fan of the website DesignLoveFest a blog by Graphic Designer Bri Emery housing her inspirations, graphic design skills and personal style content. Through her site I was introduced to the photographer Angela Kohler, an LA based commercial photographer and video director; and together their class they put on called Blogshop. The main basis of the class and the content taught is photoshop tricks and blog managing advice. I had taught myself photoshop for the past few years and though nailed the basics there were aspects I knew I could be doing better. When I discovered that they were teaching in Stockholm this year I knew I had to go. I am so happy I attended this class instead of visiting their previous classes in London as it made me discover such a gorgeous city, and of course became the location of my recent engagement! I have some photos of the weekend here, let me take you though them! The classes were held in the fancy Summit meeting rooms in Hornstull, Stockholm. The venue was two stops away from my flat, or a 15 minute walk along a cool main street with fantastic shops. The room we had our class was all white with a mirrored back wall, though the hallways and other rooms in the building were designed equally cool but with different styles. The classes themselves were fantastic. We learned so many cool shortcuts on Photoshop and style ideas of how to design a good post. We also covered more specific photo related topics like retouching, composition and my absolute favourite; making Gifs!! (Check out the title image.)
We were also feed really well on this course. 11am Mimosas, roast chicken lunches, cinnamon roll snacks and the best smoothie I have ever had as an afternoon pick me up. It was so yum, and considering food in Sweden is really expensive I really appreciated it. With what I have learned I intend to use towards totally streamlining my often mish mash clunky style of posting, may even change the provider of my blog so I can have more freedom to personalize most things and even branch out to branding everything so I can produce some affiliate materials like business cards and flyers, the world is my oyster. Watch this space. If you are reading this and this class looks fun to you why not check out the dates of their future classes. They are mostly in the USA but they do branch out quite a lot and I could not recommend it highly enough!! Stockholm, Sweden. Man I love you. Seriously this city and this whole trip has been a dream. An expensive dream but a dream non the less. The architecture of the Old Town, Gamla Stan with it's narrow orangey and yellow buildings has such a historic charm, the hipcat island of Sodermalm which our flat was located had cute boutiques, coffee cafes and yummy bakeries and there were so many other corners of the City which had it's own thing going on like forests and boat docks! Sweden rightfully is crown the home of impeccable design. The eateries to the stationary were so beautiful, I bought bowls, paperclips and string as souvenirs. Also, the people were so beautiful, seriously so hot. Groomed and so stylish, but mostly they did it all so effortlessly. Fashion wise there were plenty of beanie hats, black leggings and new balance trainers for the ladies and tight cropped side hair cuts, leather bomber jackets and smart boots for the men. It was a sight. My course that I attended was amazing too but I will cover that later in another in depth post, as well as another post around something else epic that happened on this trip. :) If anyone reading this post hasn't had the opportunity to visit this city I could not recommend it more. if there are a bunch of you and wanted to find a flat to stay why not check this one out, which is the one I stayed in via Air BnB. It was perfect! I will end this post with some photos from the trip, because it is a photo set after all. (they really love their dogs here)
Hola! It has been a while since I posted something, and this is actually my first post as a (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) 27 year old!! As my last Photoset showed, I had a blast with my friends just hanging out in my back garden. It was a simple affair with lots of laughs, and lots of food. Recently I have been thinking a lot about my blog. I think I mentioned previously that after attending the Company Magazine Blog awards that a revamp or some investment needed to be made to push it forward in the right direction. That being said I have been reading a fantastic book that my boyfriend got me for my birthday called Blog Inc written by Joy Cho of the amazing and successful Oh Joy! blog. This little book is such a great tool for inspiring the blogging world, really hitting home that blogs can be about anything that you want. Obviously there are keys to making them engaging and visually appealing which the book touches on too and with that I decided to...wait for it...book myself on to this awesomely fun blog and photoshop course called Blogshop. The teachers of this course are part of one of my favourite blogs Design Lovefest and Angela&Ithyle, bringing together graphics design and photography. The courses are mostly held in America but they have visited London a few times which is awesome...HOWEVER...I am not attending their next course here at home but going to...................................... ....yup! After returning from Paris I was itching to book somewhere else to go. I was heavily leaning toward Barcelona (and that may still be on the cards at some point before the year is out) but when I saw that the Blogshop course was running in Stockie and was the only place in Europe that was on the listing I thought "Why the dickins not!" So within no time I paid for my admission, found some decent places to stay, scoped the flights AND managed to get 3 others to come with me to make it a full city break. So the end of September I will be enjoying the Scandinavian sites and learning some good know how of the Blog world. I am really excited!
More regular posts to follow! Pere lachaise cemetary, on a sunny morning is strangely pleasant and beautiful. We went to walk around there as soon as it opened and were impressed by the beautiful tombs and crypts. It is known for holding the graves of many famous Frenchman and other well known people too like Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. After that we walked around the trendy Canal St Martin area where we had a nice Flat white from Cafe Ten Belles, sat along the canal and then shuffled through the wonderful books at design book shop Artazart. I bought a fantastic book about Brand identities for small businesses and it has given me so many ideas, I carry it around with me everywhere recently! After grabbing a drink at one of the many outdoor cafe bars along the streets of Paris we went to the largest flea Market the city had to offer, St-Ouen Flea Market. It has some beautiful stalls that make you wish you had 100 rooms of your own to decorate. The Market though is located right next to another market that sells cheap clothes and electronics which was a little manic when we were there. To end the day which was our last we had a lovely steak and frites dinner at RELAIS DE L’ENTRECOTE, accompanied with a lovely reserve. After dinner, we ran to get our bags and rushed to the Bus Station for our 11pm trip back to London. And, that was that...for now anyway. Paris Je t'aime.
Two days in Paris is not enough especially if the last time you were there you were fourteen and travelling with mum and dad. Saying that though, two days is all we had and we made the most of it. Taking the coach meant cheap travel but it left me feeling quite sleepy when we arrived in at 5.30am, and then waiting until 6am for the Metro to open didn't help. Once we finally got on the Metro the excitement started as I started to hear French words flitting through the air, party goers on their way home and the quaint tiled signs showing each station. We alighted near the Notre Dam and saw the sites in the early morning choosing against mingling with the tourist groups that would of visited later in the day. Sauntering along the River we made our way past all the major landmarks including Mr Eiffel Tower and ended at the Modern Art Museum. It was reaching half one, and we were allowed to check in at 2pm so after 7hrs of morning site seeing we went to sleep ready for the evening. The evening was all about Montmarte (the home of Amelie!) where we climbed up the steps to the Sacre Coeur, ate a lovely dinner just off the main cobbled streets; enjoyed the beautiful sunset over Paris and grabbed a few drinks. I made everyone walk to the Moulin Rouge because I am cheesy tourist. We did do a whole bunch of walking this trip but to me that is the best way to explore all the nooks and crannies. Part two to come...
Photos By Sebastian Kim Mexico. Teen Vogue. Fashion. I love all of these things and was happy to see this lovely shoot in the youth Magazine's latest edition. Exotic beauty Dalianah Akerion looks equally local and other worldly as she poses among the beautiful scenes of Mexican rural life. Shot by Sebastian Kim this editorial is definitely an unintentional travel advert to visit this amazing place and it's people.
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MAMA BAMBOOLondon Girl.
Mama to Maya. Daughter of Filipinos. Wife of a Mexican'ish. Urban heart + Island soul. Right brained. Left brained. Likes to see & likes to do. Food. Travel. Photography. Fashion. ..... Arsenal supporter. THIS BLOG WILL SHOW ALL OF THE ABOVE IN SOME SHAPE AND FORM Categories
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