Famille Summerbelle

Colours of San Francisco

Photo of the Golden Gate I took when we were there 5 years ago! It's been such a long time...I am so longing to visit this beautiful place soon...
On the right photo from Antiquation Admiration on Flickr.

Hand screen printed Blue San Francisco map.

On the left: SF by Mario De Biasi.
On the right: Boat under the Golden Gate bridge. Seen on Pinterest and on Wish! on Tumblr but cannot find the name of author. If you know it please let me know!.

Hand screen printed Silver San Francisco map.

On the left: Pink house in the lower haight.
On the right: Salt evaporation pond in SF.The pink colour of the water is caused by halophilic micro-organisms. Seen on The Khooll.

Hand screen printed Pink San Francisco map.

All Famille Summerbelle print photography & styling by Aurélie Lecuyer.

Screen printing our World Map

Back in March I went to Bath for the day to document the printing process of our World map print. The design is hand screen printed in 2 colours using one silk screen per colour. Duncan, the printer mixes each colour by hand, referring to a Pantone reference. Screen printing is an incredibly skilled job and so inspiring to watch - although on that day it was so cold in the workshop that I had to go for a walk to warm up...I really don't know how those guys do it over winter in their unheated warehouse!

Turquoise colour mixed for the job. It is then stored on the shelf for use later.

The first colour run is printed and dried on the racks for a few hours before the second colour is applied.

Close up of the freshly printed map.

Ta da! The finished printed map!

Little Cute Mokkasin

I am delighted to share with you images of one of my favourite blog & online shop Mokkasin owned by Sofia, a Swedish mum of 4 beautiful children. She is also an amazing photographer and stylist. I love her blog where she shares snapshots of her creative girls making things around the large dining table, their family trip to Paris or simply showing views of her sublime cosy home...

The Princess and the Pea with paper pompom styled by Sofia!

Her children pulling faces in Bonton Photo Booth... check out our Paris canvas bag to carry all of the family belongings!

Mokkasin is a stockist in Sweden of Famille Summerbelle products and it is such a pleasure to have our prints, mugs and trays so beautifully styled by Sofia!

NYC screen print map.

World map.

Elle Deco Buy of the Month: Ludo Le Lapin screenprint

We are so happy to have Ludo Le Lapin screenprint featured in the latest Elle Deco UK Shopping page 'Buy of the Month'. The colourful rabbit print can be a fun feature to add to your Easter decoration!




Just a note to apologies for being so inconsistent posting on the blog at the moment! I have been traveling back an forth to the UK recently and I am also working on a large scale map featuring the South of Paris to be permanently displayed on the floor of a builing. It's a very exciting project but I cannot say more at the moment. As soon as I can i'll post some images!

Un Dimanche à Paris

Our new collection Un Dimanche à Paris including fine bone China mug, birch wood tray, cotton tea towel and wallpaper is now available on our website!

Maison et Objet - after show review. Part 1

Hi! Bonjour! We are back to our cosy studio after 5 days exhibiting our collection at Maison et Objet in the north of Paris. For a lot of people it has been rather difficult to get to the show as the airport closed down for a few hours, flights and trains were delayed due to the heavy snowfall. But despite the bad weather, we had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new people.

This time we had a corner stand (they are highly sought after!) and we were surrounded by fantastic companies such as Engel , Oeuf be Good, Laurette and Anne-Claire Petit.
These are a few snapshots from our stand that I took with my phone so I apologise for the poor quality of the photos!

I made a little display of our beautiful photos styled by Aurelie Lecuyer.


We presented our new mug and tray from the collection Un Dimanche à Paris. The new products will be available on our website next week. Also on display are our new tray and mug from Morning in Manhattan collection and the book from Edition Paumes Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle. Our tea towels and cushions are nicely packed in this new brown card and white triangles packaging.


I made 2 wooden swings with bright neon pink strings to hold our promotional cards. Behind are hanging the colourful paper honeycombs by our Dutch neighbour Engel.

Over the next few days I will pull together photos to show you my favourite brands and products I spotted at the show.

Maison & Objet 2013

This week we are setting up our stand at Maison et Objet trade show in the north of Paris. We are very excited to go back as exhibitors for the second time around (our first show there was back in September). We have a bigger, corner stand (hurray!) so if you visit the show, come say hello!

Apologies for not posting much while the show is on. I'll be back very soon...

Our new collection, Morning in Manhattan.

"He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion….no, make that: he - he romanticised it all out of proportion. Yes. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin"
Woody Allen, Manhattan 1979

I seem to always drift back to Woody Allen when I'm thinking about New York City and the start of the movie Manhattan is just about the best tribute to this beautiful city!

Today we launch our new collection Morning in Manhattan, a very own homage to brownstone buildings, wrought iron fire escapes, rooftop water towers, bustling streets and an unforgettable skyline.

Let us know what you think!

Morning in Manhattan, Yellow Taxi Cab & Silver.

Morning in Manhattan, Sky Blue & Hudson River.

Morning in Manhattan, 100% cotton Tea Towel.

Morning in Manhattan, Tray made from Scandinavian birch wood.

Morning in Manhattan, Mug. Fine bone China made in the UK.

Styling and photography by Aurélie Lecuyer.

Let's play!

We are so happy to show you our latest photos from our new collection The Performers. We have teamed up with the hugely talented stylist/photographer Aurélie Lecuyer from Le dans La. She had carte blanche to shoot our collection. We were blown away by all her images. Merci Aurélie!

Ludo le Lapin and Maximilien le Magicien, hand screen prints.

Maximilien and Ludo cushion cover.

Flower tray made from scandinavian birch wood.

Boom le clown and Flower tea towels (sold as a pack).

Boom le clown fine bone china mug.

Ludo le Lapin and Maximilien le Magicien fine bone china mug.

Famille Summerbelle exhibition in Tokyo

The exhibition (and the book launch) of Famille Summerbelle and Terre et Montagne opened yesterday at Doux Dimanche (Aoyama area). We had a wonderful evening organized by the girls at the gallery. It was such a pleasure to meet many lovely people who knew about my work. My mum was also delighted to show her work for the first time in Tokyo. The exhibition will continue for another couple of weeks.

We only have a day left in Tokyo before we fly back to Paris on Friday. Our week here has gone so fast but it feels like we've been away for a long time as we've done so much. We had such an amazing time. I am also happy to go home to see the children and hug them (ah! I've been missing the cuddles).

Screen printing the Performers

Sorry for not being very active on the blog at the moment. The beginning of the month has been pretty busy with the rentrée des classes (back to school) for the children and the trade show at Maison et Objet last week. We had a great time showing all our products and our new collection. A big thank you to all of you who stopped by.
Next week I am flying to Japan to launch the book Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle with Edition Paumes. For the occasion we will do an exhibition of Famille Summerbelle work at Galerie Doux Dimanche in Tokyo, Aoyama. I am very excited to meet the lovely people I have been working with over the past few months and also to (re)discover Tokyo and Kyoto. I am traveling with my mum who will also exhibit her ceramic work at the Galerie Doux Dimanche. More on this very soon.

For now I wanted to share with you the process of hand screen printing our latest prints Ludo Le Lapin and Maximilien Le Magicien.
This is what I really love about my work. The designing bit and then follow closely the making of our products. So here we go...


Each colour is separated and printed in black on an acetate film. The film is placed over a mesh silkscreen and exposed for few minutes over the lightbulb. The image will be burned in reverse into the silkscreen. The screen is then washed out under a high powered shower head and dried.








Each screen is carefully checked to make sure no holes appear around the design. Here is the head of our magician with all the tiny holes that have been blocked off.




Now the fun bit, choosing and mixing the colours! I love this shelf with all the pots of emulsion lined up.




We are mixing the pink for the ears of the rabbit and the face of the magician. The ink is spread evenly with the squeegee to the silkscreen. We are just making a small sample to test the colour. Once we are happy with it we start printing on a larger scale.






The ears and nose of the rabbit are drying before we can apply the next colour.




Et voila! Ludo Le Lapin. Same process for the other colours. It's such a fun exercise and seeing the design appear after each layer of colour is very satisfying!












Maximilien Le Magicien.

Here come..... The Performers!

The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd....finally after a good six months drawing, cutting, designing, sampling and starting all over again (!)....we very proudly introduce our new collection. The Performers.

Colourful, resplendent and ever so slightly mysterious we introduce you to Maximilien le magicien, Ludo le lapin and Boom le clown. A motley crew of traveling performers.

We're so excited about this range, as not only do we have a new design but also quite a few brand new products.

This post really just introduces the final product. Over a couple of subsequent blog posts I'd like to share some of the journey that we've been on. Learning about new products, finding the highest quality local producers and getting really involved in the process.

We really hope you like this new work. Over the next few days we'll be at Maison et Objet in Paris exhibiting the range (plus our other products).

Also, if any of you are in Paris on Saturday night we're having a drink or two to launch our new book (Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle) @ The Collection, rue de Poitou in the 3rd Arrondissement (from 7.30pm). Do feel free to come and join us to say hello!

Famille Summerbelle - The Book!

We are so pleased to announce the launch of the book "Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle", a collaboration with the fabulous Japanese publisher édition Paumes.

The book is a peak inside our home and family life. It includes tips and inspiration for handmade ideas and inspiring home decor. It, of course, includes plenty of paper cutting and fun activities to do with your children.

We've been huge fans of édition Paumes for quite sometime, amassing a rather large collection of their wonderful books on European interior style, family homes and culture.
They came to live with us over a couple of weeks and we had a ball creating all number of decorative ideas. They have a wonderful style and interest in the smallest of details which we hope comes across well in the book.

The book is available for pre-sale NOW on our site. Just click here.

The book is mostly written in Japanese but all of the titles are in English and there is plenty of translation throughout. To be honest all of édition Paumes' books are incredibly visual, so you can rely on the images to give you all the detail that you need!

Famille Summerbelle sale

We're doing our first sale. So if yo spend over £60 | €70 | $90 you get 20% off the total of your order. This applies to the entire collection. It will only last for a couple of weeks, so get cracking!

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

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!

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!

Un Dimanche à Paris Wallpaper

I'm very excited to show you images of our new wallpaper Un Dimanche à Paris.
The illustrations were hand paper cut to create a little Parisian scene. I was inspired by our weekly Sunday visit to Paris with the children. We like to go to the Jardin du Luxembourg (the Luco as the Parisian would call it!) in the 6th Arrondissement. There is the beloved carousel with wooden horses, little boats you push with a stick on the pond, the busy lady with her shopping bags, the old man walking his dog and other little scenes that makes this place very charming.

The wallpaper is printed in the UK. It comes in 2 colours: Blue/Red and a shinny Silver/yellow. Roll size 10 meter x 52cm (£45 per roll). You'll find all the details on our website.

We have a new website!

This is what we've been working on for the past 6 weeks: re-designing our website
I hope you like will it...

Famille Summerbelle at Tent London

I'm off to London tomorrow to set up our stand at Tent design show at the Truman Brewery in East London.

Tent London is one of the largest design trade shows taking place during the London Design Festival each September.
Tent London presents over 200 international exhibitors, showing the very latest in contemporary interior products - furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, materials and accessories

The show is open to trade, press, public and students so if you are in the area come to say hello. We'd love to meet you! We will be in Hall 1, stand F20.

Here are some images of our new products presented at Tent: Un Dimanche à Paris wallpaper, tea towels, tapes, new colours for the City maps and laser cuts of Paris, London and NYC!

The show starts on Thursday 23rd, ends on Sunday 25th September.

If you can't make it to the show we will be launching our new products soon on our website...