Famille Summerbelle

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...

Paris map - new colour!

We're very excited to show you the new Sky Blue colour. The map size is 50x70cm and is available on Famille Summerbelle website.

A sneak preview - San Francisco

So the last couple of weeks have been a mix of holiday and working. We've tried to keep the morning time for work (for which we take turns) and then some good ol' family time in the afternoon.

Most of my work is really not worth sharing (although some of my time has been working on a new website for Famille Summerbelle which you'll see very soon!), but for Julie work time usually means something new and exciting.

She has definitely not disappointed on this trip...! We thought you might like a little sneak preview.

If you follow the blog regularly you'll have seen the shout out for contributions (landmarks, favourite places etc) to our map of San Francisco. Well, here are a few images. It's far from finished, but you can see just how great it is going to be....

We've had so much fun, remembering our favourite places, researching new and interesting places and then learning everybody else's top tips. A total joy.

Thanks to all for the shared comments/tips on the blog. You have definitely made the map more interesting! If you're interested in being amongst the first to have one, then just visit our website and join the friends @ Famille Summerbelle!

New London map Turquoise

First I want to thank all of you who left comments on the San Francisco post (see below). It is so helpful for my research while I'm drawing the map. I have already included a lot of your recommendation on the map. I'm half way through the drawing process - hoping to start cutting it the next week or so.

For now I'm very excited to show you the new colour (Turquoise) and size (50x70cm) of the London map. We've made the map size larger to make it easy to frame it as it now fits the standard frame size from Ikea, Habitat and other high street framers.

The London Red print is currently out of stock, but will be back for dispatch on 1st August!

Paper cut guarlands

I'm making several paper garlands to decorate our stand at Pulse show in London next weekend. Come over to see our new products if you're around (sorry it's only for trade and press).

I'll give one away after the show so check the blog!

Paris bag seen in London

It was a good surprise to see someone walking in the street of London carrying the Paris bag!

Love Bugs for Valentines!

The new Love Bugs prints are now available on Famille Summerbelle website. The prints come in 2 colours (Red heart/dusty pink background & Blue heart/ warm stone background) and are based on my original paper cut.
This idea of a love heart with bugs and butterflies hiding in leaves came to me after my daughter Ophelia went on a school trip in the forest and came home with a variety of leaves in a box with a hairy caterpillar and a tiny spider...

Let me know what you think!

Paris bag on Design Sponge

Yeah! it made my day. The Paris bag is part of the 2010 Gift Guides: for the francophile. Thanks Anne & Grace!

Wet and windy weekend

Can't wait to see the sun to brighten the days a little bit more! We've only manage to get out of the house for an hour today to go for a walk in the forest with the children. But I have to say it is quite nice to stay at home this weekend. It feels very cosy to be warm inside when the rain is beating against the windows...

The original paper cut map of London is hanging above the mantelpiece in our kitchen. Some of the glass candle holders are from Graham and Green. The black cast iron candlesticks are a wedding present from Robert Welch. They are so heavy and look really good I think.

My perfume L'ombre dans l'eau' from Dyptique. The candle is also from there. Vintage lace lamp design by Terre & Montagne (actually made by my mum!). Felt cloud from Le Ptit Papillon.
I hope you all had a nice weekend.

City bags out now!

These elegant and robust canvas shopping bags are the latest addition to our range. We've produced three different designs, using our popular 'paper cut' maps of London, Paris and NYC.
The bags are hand screen printed and made by Re-wrap in India.
Re-wrap is a social enterprise of female workers in the South of India who use entirely sustainable methods following fair trade standards.
The bags are designed for everyday use (I personally use them for carrying the children's toys, food and anything I need during the day when we're out and about and Simon uses them to go food shopping!). The strong shoulder straps are very comfortable and the reinforced padded base is perfect for heavy loads.

You can also store your valuables in the internal pocket.

The City bags retail at £19 / €22 / $30 (plus postage).

Let me know what you think!

New colours for Paris map

We've selected Cerulean Blue and Coral Pink as the new colours for our Paris maps which are available now from the Famille Summerbelle site.

We hope you like the colours...it always takes me absolutely ages to make a final choice on colours, trying to mix complimentary colours and retain an overall palette for Famille Summerbelle.

Let me know what you think!

Trend Bible

We're very pleased to have our London map and Tree cushion featured in the Kid’s Lifestyle Trends for the Home, AW 2011/12. Thank you Tanya! I would highly recommend to visit the Trend Bible blog and website if you're looking for home inspiration and colour trends.

World map print now on sale

My most challenging design is now all cut and printed! I tried to capture quirky characteristic in this big big world! There are lots of details so i'm sure you can spend hours in front of it looking for little people doing silly things!
The World Map is available to purchase on Famille Summerbelle website as a two-colour print in Night Sky and Azure Blue (size 50x70cm).

Work in progress while I was cutting the map on a single sheet of paper:

Thanks to all of you who came to see us at Pulse trade show at the beginning of the week. It was so nice to get such a positive response to our new prints and collection!

Cutting the World

My latest map is now cut. It feels good to hold it up and see the finished product. It was my toughest challenge yet, to fit the entire world onto one sheet of paper - trying to keep a sense of scale, yet represent all that I love about each of the continents. I hope I got somewhere close..

There are lots of details and things to discover...The continents, seas (a challenge to paper-cut!), little quirky characters and animals are all linked together. I'm very happy with the result. This paper cut will become a 2 colour print, a little larger than our normal prints. I'll post an image of the final print next week, and if you're interested it'll be available to buy within a week or two.