Tag: mirrored house sign

28 Inspiring Boulangeries Including Ladurée

I’ve spoken about wanting to include a mirrored door as part of my kitchen plans. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do it, but if I manage to recycle the old, arched mirrored door I want to give it a French bakery look. I found these images that inspired me…

..but amongst these were images of the Ladurée bakery. I thought I’d go into a little more detail about this inspiring brand.

Ladurée is a French luxury bakery and sweet house created in 1862; 15,000 of their double-decker macarons are sold every day. In fact it was this macaron which enabled Ladurée’s rise to fame. In 1930 the grandson of Ladurée, Pierre Desfontaines, had the original idea of the double-decker, sticking two macaron shells together with a creamy ganache as filling.

The first bakery was founded on the Rue Royale, Paris in 1862 by Louis-Ernest Ladurée a miller who, in typical French style, was also a prolific writer and produced works in almost every literary form including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets.

He was an outspoken supporter of social reform. Despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.

In fact, during the Paris Commune uprising of 1871, the bakery was burnt down. It was this time that the visuals of the brand formed. When the shop was rebuilt Jules Chéret incorporated in the interior decoration the chubby cherubs dressed as pastry cooks. They were painted by him on the ceiling, and are now part of the company’s emblem. The interior of the premises were painted in the same celadon colour as the façade.

Desfontaines also opened a tearoom at the pastry shop. Ladies were not admitted to cafés, which were the exclusive domain of men (again, how French) so this was enormously liberating for women as well as an inevitable commercial success.

You can see why the beautiful Belle Époque style decor would inspire me. Simply delightful!

Oh, and a little more inspiration…the interior of this unknown bakery…

How To House Sign Inspired by Golden Victorian Typography

How to house sign inspired by golden typography

After my Art NouFaux stained glass front door and update of the front of the house I’m adding additional details. I absolutely love these signs, as the post shows, and I thought of a way to get a similar look for our house. It’s normal in France to have your name near your door so, even though I already had the iron number on the door, I thought this would be a good solution. It’s sooooo simple. Honestly, one of the easiest crafts I’ve ever done. Here are the simple steps…

Spray paint a picture frame to make it weatherproof

We have a French glass porch, so I’m not expecting the weather to be able to get at this too much. However it always pays to weather proof. Mine started off grey, but I thought it would blend too much with the stone, so I chose black and gold throughout.

Spray front and back. I intend to attach mine and try and seal it to waterproof it from behind, but just to give it a bit of extra protection I think it’s advisable.

Spray paint the wooden backing and glass with mirror bronze paint

As my frame is round I spray painted the insert that goes behind the picture gold too. I didn’t know how see through the colour would be and didn’t want the mirror like shine to be diminished.

I originally thought of doing this with an actual mirror, but then realised there might be accidents outside my house with glare from the sun 🤭 😆. I wouldn’t have been popular in the village!

So this mirrored finish gives the same feel, but without the danger.

Create your design and print it on clear, waterslide decal paper

I used a frame from the graphics fairy and a monogram. There’s obviously no point in my doing a print out for this. Follow the instructions on your packaging, but you can see my how to here for this craft. This is a picture of the image before sealing and the decal clearly stands out from the backing. The mirror image looked super shiny too.

As I’d cut the decal out too small you could just about see the edging in the one above, so I redid it. But, like pinning your hair in a chignon, finding a couple of stray hairs and attempting to make it perfect, it wasn’t to be. I had the decal équivalant of a messy chignon, because it kept puckering. I don’t know why. I tried a couple of more times to no avail. Tant pis!

Seal the image with glossy, acrylic craft varnish

So, on my slightly less satisfactory, final attempt I used this really thick craft varnish to create a waterproof finish and seal the gaps between the glass and the picture edge. Make sure it’s glossy to keep the mirror shine.

On the second image i don’t know if you can see that the letter is slightly raised from the backing giving it a 3D affect. I haven’t put it up yet, but I’ll update you when I do.