Famille Summerbelle

Famille Summerbelle 1st birthday!

Famille Summerbelle is celebrating its First Birthday! It all started a year ago, in London. It was all very new to us: trading, website, selling online, trade shows...but it soon made sense.

We remember our first online sale, we were so overwhelmed! A year later, we're still very excited to see that you like our designs, our products. THANK YOU for all your support, your messages that keep us smiling.
We love what we do, and it's so nice to get a positive response from you all.

Thank you for following us during our World Tour. We hope you enjoyed our discoveries as much as we did and we hope it will encourage you to do the same thing with your children!

Famille Summerbelle is now happily settled in France. We have some new products to show you and to celebrate our 1st Birthday we're offering FREE postage on everything, to everywhere in the World!

Thanks as always to the amazingly talented Emma Cassi who continues to style our range. The new work includes a delicate paper banner to add colour and warmth to any room or special occasion, and our fun adhesive ribbon tapes suitable for many purposes: packaging, decoration, bordering etc.

Enjoy!x

The World of Martine Camillieri

I discovered the work of Martine Camilieri via Design Sponge and I fell in love with her colourful and playful installations. She recycles ordinary objects into ephemeral artworks. She lives and work in Paris.

Event calendar for birds for Bonton shop in Paris.

My Top 5 places in Le Marais

Some of my favorite places to visit if you come to Paris. One on the good thing about Le Marais is that it's the only place where you can found shops open on Sundays. So when it's a lovely day like last Sunday, we love coming there.

1. Best place for tea is Mariage Frere, the oldest tea house in Paris. You can buy loose tea from all over the World. The packaging is exquisite as well as the tea pots. My favourite is Earl Grey French Blue.

2. Next to Mariage Frere is a lovely retro shop called Cuisinophilie where you can buy vintage kitchen accessories.

3. Further along on the same road (Rue du Bourg Tibourg) is A.G Spalding & Bros, purveyors of elegant gentlemen's office equipment, high class leather goods, and men's watches, this is the place to visit.

4. Just for the eyes, go and see Hervé Gambs flower shop. The flower display is amazing as well as the vases and pots.

5. For lunch or afternoon tea, head to the Centre Culturel Suedois (this is not exactly in Le Marais, but just at the limit of it). They have a lovely Café in a courtyard where you can sit in the sun (if you're lucky) and enjoy Swedish sandwiches.

Merci

Merci is the latest 1500 square meter 'luxury charity shop' to open in Paris where you will be able to spend as little as 1 Euro for a Duralex glass or 1000 Euro on a designer handbag.
Set at number 111 Boulevard Beaumarchais in the 3rd Arrondissement, this massive space combine decoration, fashion (Yves Saint Laurent, Paul Smith, Stella McCartney sold at 40% of their retail price), literary coffee shop and a high end florist shop (like Christian Tortu).
The people behind this magnificent idea are Marie-France and Bernard Cohen, creators 30 years ago of the famous French children's brand Bonpoint (see my previous post on Bonpoint here).
The most innovative thing about Merci is that 100% of the profit will be sent directly to the Merci Foundation to help women and children from Madagascar. This will finance real projects: build schools, provide employment for women etc.
Marie-France became attached to this country when she was at Bonpoint. The beautiful textiles and embroideries of the latest label were the work of talented Malagasy women.
The shop is open 6 days a week from 10am until 8pm.

Matthieu Challieres

I first came accross Matthieu Challieres birdy lampshades in Designers Guild in London. I love the simplicity of the wired structure and the fragility of the little birds.
I also like the one with the apples, could be very nice in a kitchen, and the little plaster mouse would be lovely in a baby's room.

Drawings

Back at my desk trying to make some order in my pile of drawings...

Kup Kup

This is delicious..Kup Kup felt petite patisserie, buttons, brooches, pincushions...check her Etsy shop here.

I also love the felt and black and white photo collages:

Rabbit outfit

One day i'll make one like that for Ophelia. At the moment she's into princess outfits...


Click here to get the pattern for making the rabbit hat paw mittens. As seen on purlbee.com

White interiors

I love white interiors. It's peaceful, light, and I like to have a blank canvas and add touches of colours with accessories, fabrics, pictures and furniture. Swedish homes are often like that, very fresh and simple. Images 1,2,3,4 are from Swedish photographer Mari Ericksson. It really reflect her work and love of white interiors (you can see more inspiring images on her website). These photos are part of the top 10 favourite house tours from Cookie mag. Images 5,6,7 are from Bloesem 'Open House'. Designer Virginia Johnson is the creator of the beautiful brand 'Roddy & Ginger'.She lives in a 60's town house in London.

Volksfaden

I spotted the colourful fabric design by Alexander Henry (top design on the left) thanks to Irene post on Bloesem, I loved it so much that I bought a meter to make a cushion for our new home, I also got the 'Painter's Palette' from their 'Lush' collection. Volksfaden is a German based company. I absolutely love the fabric and old photographs they use for their visuals.

Fluo

I'm really into these bright colours at the moment.The birds pictures were taken over the weekend in the pets shop along the Seine near the Samaritaine.
Ophelia's bright pink t-shirt 'Smile' is from Dandy Star and the crayons-ruler are from a shop in Paris (sorry can't remember the name). The vintage bracelet is from Emma Cassi 'Baby & Girls' collection.

Inspiration

Nearly all our belongings are out of the removal boxes now. I've started hanging cards and bits and pieces on my mood board in my studio.

Lots of souvenirs from Japan: Origami papers, stickers, paper balls, on the top right a calendar by Rob Ryan from his shop in Columbia Road (worth a detour), and top left an Eames chair collage by Alan Fletcher.