Famille Summerbelle

Kawaii* embroidery

By Japanese embroidery and textile designer Kanae Entani.

*Kawaii means cute in Japanese!

drawings...

Over the past few weeks our basement has been buried under an enormous pile of my old belongings. Let me explain. My mum is moving from the house she has been living in for the last decade so she demanded I reclaim everything I had 'stored' since my student days. As I had no idea exactly what was there, I told her to bin the lot. But she refused..far too sentimental. Fair enough!

So here we go...boxes full of photos and letters, a wooden table I made when I was 10 at my Steiner school and a LOT of drawings from my different art schools. So throughout this ugly grey and cold weekend I've spend most of my time sorting out and binning most of it! Sad in a way but at the same time I can't go on keeping it all. We'd need a castle.

I kept the good drawings and some hand drawn architectural plans - they were too painful to throw away as I can still remember the hours spent on each project...Scissors, glue, scalpel and large amount of paper. Back in the days were there was no Photoshop around...

Pixellated

Cristian Zuzunaga is a Spanish born artist/designer living in London. Zuzunaga studied a BA in Typo/Graphic Design at the London College of Communication, followed by an MA at the Royal College of Art.
Originally a student of biology, he was fascinated by the microscope and the way in which it enabled one to magnify an object to break it down into its smallest parts.
Though the biological studies did not last, the practice of magnifying did and to this day, breaking down patterns and images into their infinitesimal components remains at the core of his work.
This is a selection of his work for different projects using the designer's trademark pattern.

Cushions Squaring of the Circle for Kvadrat.

100% silk scarf designed for Colour Chart Exhibition at Tate Liverpool.

Special edition Pixellated fabric upholstering Springfield two seater sofa designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso.

Bed for Swedish bed manufacturer Hästens.

Pinecone Lamp

The Crimean pinecone lamp consists of 56 plates of slightly transparent wood held by screws. Boards are held together without an internal skeleton, this means that light passes through the gaps, producing a soft, warm glow.
By Russian designer Pavel Eekra.

Famille Summerbelle gift ideas

We've put together a little selection of our products that we think will make lovely Christmas gifts...

Our adhesive decoration Ribbon tapes are suitable for so many purposes (party decoration, table decor...) and I think are great to package your Christmas presents.

Our new Tea towels will make the perfect gift for anyone who loves cooking...or washing up!

City bags (Paris, London and NYC), a robust and elegant 100% organic cotton canvas shopper is perfect to carry all your Christmas shopping...

Our City maps will make an ideal gift for anyone with a connection to any of the cities: London, New York, Paris and our new map of San Francisco.

We also have a World map for all of the serious adventure junkies!

Our original Family Tree prints remain one of our most popular products, and an ideal gift choice that can be personalised with your friends and family pictures.

We offer fixed price posting - no matter how much you order!
UK: £3
Europe €6
USA -and rest of the World: $10

wooden rugs

I'm a big admire of the textile work by Elisa Strozyk. I did a post about her wooden textile back in 2010 and I was so pleased to see one of her piece in a shop in Eindhoven 2 months ago. Elisa uses a combination of wood and textile to create multi contoured surfaces for her new coloured wooden rugs.

RGB wallpaper

RGB is a work about the exploration of the “surface’s deepness” by Carnovsky, a Milan based artist/designer duo comprised of Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla.

Exhibition at -JaguarShoes, East London.

RGB designs create surfaces that mutate and interact with different chromatic stimulus.
RGB’s technique consists in the overlapping of three different images, each one in a primary color.

The resulting images from this three level’s superimposition are unexpected and disorienting. The colors mix up, the lines and shapes entwine becoming oneiric and not completely clear.
Through a colored filter (a light or a transparent material) it is possible to see clearly the layers in which the image is composed. The filter’s colors are red, green and blue, each one of them serves to reveal one of the three layers.

They also have a stunning range of limited edition prints, cards and iPhone covers!

San Francisco map!

Aahhh the City by the Bay! It was just three years ago (almost to the day!) that we finished our three month voyage in this beautiful city. We really fell in love with the place and if we had to choose another place to live it would surely be here.

My brother and his family live just outside of the city and we receive photos regularly, documenting their wonderful balance of city, country and seaside living. With such a cosmopolitan community it feels so vibrant.

So we couldn't resist making a Famille Summerbelle map:

It's worth sharing that before I start drawing and cutting our maps I spend a lot of time gathering visuals and information about the place. This time around, I thought it'd be fun to ask our readers here to give me a hand!

The comments were all so helpful and made the project much more fun! You made me discover things and places I had no idea existed: for the example the buffalos and weekly Lindy Hop in Golden Gate Park!

I hope you like it. We're just in the process of finishing a short film which shows how the map was made. I'll post here as soon as it's ready!

We'll be back in San Francisco early next year, so thanks again to all of our contributors who have given me a wonderful long list of things to do whilst we're there!

Magical Kingdoms

How stunning are these colourful paintings by San Francisco artist Lisa Congdon. The layout with the bright fluorescent pink tape makes this composition even more vibrant.

Happy birthday Lucien!

Our little boy turned 2 today and learnt a new word "deux!". His vocabulary list doesn't exceed 10 words so we were pleased to add a new one to it!
He was so happy to receive so many cars (oh! he loves cars and wheels so much), a bike and a garage. We bought this vintage garage during the Braderie de Lille back in September. I customised it a little...
Ophelia his sister (who's 5) helped me to bake his train cake this morning while eating half of the Smarties box...tonight her tummy was aching "mummy my tummy hurts, I must have a baby in my tummy. I need to go to the hospital!". That was rather dramatic just before bedtime.

I love looking back at these portraits. It's so impressive how much he's changed in 2 years and has now such a strong character. I am really looking forward to the next year. 2 is such a great age...challenging but fun!

Terrible twos next...?!

Felt letters from MiChiMaLand.

Sneak peak: Famille Summerbelle at The Collection

Cointreau, cranberry juice and Prosecco was the drink of the night; the opening night of our month long residence at The Collection boutique in Le Marais, Paris.
This is the first time that we have had the opportunity to feature our entire collection in a single shop, and this is not just any shop!
The Collection is a reference in Paris for high quality wallpaper and interior products (think wallpaper designed by Aurelie Mathigot, Deborah Bowness, Studio Ditte and Custhom, furniture designed by Mint, lighting by Matthieu Challières and Petite Friture...).
The shop itself has so much character: beautiful wooden flooring, exposed beams and original stone walls.

The Collection will be selling products including the new City maps laser cuts, our screen printed cushions, wallpaper, tea towels and prints exclusively during the month of November.

Merci à Allison, Pia and Guyonne!

ps the Prosecco cocktail was divine - a recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson!

Opening night (vernissage) of Famille Summerbelle in Paris

The famous boutique The Collection in Le Marais is inviting us for the month of November to present our collection and our new wallpaper and laser cut City maps.
If you're in Paris come tonight from 6pm for the opening show - Vernissage - A drink will be waiting for you!
The Collection, 33 rue de Poitou, Paris 3ème.