Famille Summerbelle

Enjoy the holidays!

Wherever you are, whoever you are with, we wish you a very happy holiday!

Ringo, cardboard fold up crafts

Ringo is a young design studio based in Warsaw in Poland. They make the most beautiful cardboard toys that I know of. I love the colours and the graphics for each category that have designed: Paper Town 1, 2 and 3 and how cute is the new The Animals set!
I also love the fact that it requires some imagination and patience to fold and create each piece and it can be folded after playing to store or take away in a bag to a friend's house.
Paper Town 1:


Paper Town 3:


The Animals:

My beautiful broken brain

This is not my usual post but I really wanted to share with you this incredible story that my cousine Sophie Robinson, a producer and film director has been passionately documenting: My Beautiful Broken Brain.
It's a film about 34 year old Lotje Sodderland, who in November 2011 experienced a massive life-threatening brain haemorrhage – regaining consciousness in a world where words were incomprehensible, sound and vision distorted and where her peripheral vision was filled with frightening hallucinations. Still unable to speak or even think properly Lotje started using her iPhone to record every changing moment.
Sophie and Lotje wanted to make My Beautiful Broken Brain independently - staying true to the way Lotje sees the world using graphics and picture enhancement.
For Sophie it was imperative to keep filming as soon as she met Lotje: 'I have learnt so much about the human brain and the power of the human mind by sharing Lotje's story with her, which is why I believe this film must be finished and shared.'
You can watch the trailer here and help them make this documentary by pledging on Kickstarter.

Atelier de décoration de sapin de Noël

This morning I went to my son's class room to organise a little atelier of christmas tree decoration. I had some cardboard boxes left from our removal so it came in handy to make very simple cut out shapes of Christmas trees for the children to paint and cover with glitter. It was a fun project to do and the children were very proud of their creations!

Marimekko Weather Diary collection

Aino-Maija Metsola is the designer who created the beautiful Sääpäiväkirja collection of tableware and fabric for Marimekko. The starting point of this collection was a fascination for rain, fog, wind, light and water and how we perceive the weather surrounding us.
Aino-Maija Metsola spent several months creating sketches and patterns and colour palettes using different type of media such as aquarelle and ink.
Here are some images of her research:

The Jussaro pattern:

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

On saturday morning Ophelia and I went to the Stedelijk Museum to see the Kazimir Malevich and the Russian avant-garde exhibition.
It was an excuse to have some (quiet) time together to do some drawings.
Ophelia is such an easy going and curious child. She would just sit in front of a painting a draw it carefully without missing to write down the name of the artist and the title of the artwork. She really encouraged me to be less shy to draw in public!
We both love drawing but it is a rare moment as when her little brother is around he hasn't got the patience to sit and look at paintings. Fair enough, he is only 4 and he couldn't care less about an abstract art exhibition! He was very excited to go instead cycling sitting at the back of his daddy's bike.

Ivan Klyun. Suprematist study of color and form. 1917.