la vie est belle

for the longest time, there are 2 names i remember in scrapbooking: elodie touzet  as iggydodie and ali edwards.  we all know the later for her superior story telling style and memoir.  she records her family daily events for her generations to come.

if ali tells her story with words; elodie tells her story in black and white pictures with subtle beauty and romanticism.  her scrapbooking is about her traveling the world with her husband, and her beautiful little family: she, her husband and their adorable little yorkshire.

i respect both mostly of their timeless consistency and how they keep true to their vision regardless the trend today. to me, elodie and ali are the memory keepers; they scrap their stories and pictures to keep for years and years to come.  when they look back, it's always the story and the pictures...the rest, details et al, are just extra peripherals.

my first mini album many moons ago :)

a few years ago, i made my first mini album mimicking one of elodie's.  i wrote her in my poorly translated french asking her how she altered the album.  sweetness...she responded immediately in her broken translated english, telling me to use an old children storybook, gesso, acrylic and sponge.  my artist friend who was visiting from oslo introduced me to the technique.

it's a story of max' first bath at home if not one of his earliest.  :)

so, when i first got back in scrapping earlier this year, the first thing i did was to check iggydodie.  it turned out that she now has a boutique selling class kits, instructions and other "elodie's stuff".  right there and then i bought some of her kit, embellishments, cds and all.  months after, doing it bit by bit, reading from the pictures mostly, i finally finished the kit.

please excuse the harsh afternoon sun and dark shade on my balcony today.

and thanking my dear cousin tattie for some of the beautiful pictures...

from a recent cousin's wedding...

elodie always make her own embellishment from left over papers, use mix media distressing and add subtle romanticism to her scrapbook.

wish some lady cousins in town: marlene, ladi, monica, dewi and uncle christian from montreal... 

my favorite aunt josette and my mom nicole...dewi and her husband marcel and adorable daughter brinette... 

dewi is like my mom's youngest.  she used to stay over every weekend and on school holidays...

before the show biz and her marriage. they still do drop by a lot. :)

the happy bride and groom...

my lovely cousin gisele, now a grown up...like me!  haha...she's all over my childhood.

aunt celine from...er...  ok aunt celine was born in france, took a long journey with my grandparents and other siblings and grew up in jakarta.  got married and lived in california for a while and moved to genève, bermuda, few places, nyc, bangkok, back to jakarta for a while.  we counted she had moved 44 times, cities and countries.  ok now she's back to aunt celine from california.

sun and shade...bad boys!

i'm fascinated by elodie's touch of detailing and how over the years she manages to keep the same style but with different comprehensive self indulging techniques.  although it might not look like it, but there's lots of work and lots of techniques involve in the creation of this ensemble.  everything is there not to beautify the piece, but to blend and signify the design into the treasured stories she's immortalizing.  all these, like most of elodie's pieces are created merely by a few piece of papers, tags and a few simple embellishments, but always with flowers.  just lovely!

i had to take the last page out.  :(  due to some measurement mishap, i couldn't fit this in the album.  me don't read instructions very well, especially in french, worst with lots of long breaks in between.  alas, it's the page where i have my cousin george—whose talented wife tattie had taken some of the pictures in this album—and their children, handsome gabe and pretty kayla, also my mom's goddaughter.

wish i could fit all individuals from my mom's remarkable family including my own, but the album has a limited space and elodie hardly put up more people than the 3 of them: hubby, wifey and puppy. aha!  that's an idea.  i will do a vintage project of my mom's family i love so much.  her best friend for more than 55 years recently did something like that in dvd for her birthday present.  (that's partly why i was mia for a while.)

hmmm...that's it!  i hope i do elodie justice in recreating her  la vie est belle.

i promised lia that i would practice to sleep earlier tonight so i can be up and running on saturday for the hip hip hooray class; and earlier is almost passed now since it's 1:26am desktop time and i haven't even bathe yet.  oh...and do my egret therapy.  i better go!