Famille Summerbelle

New Book! Schooljarenboek

I’m so proud to present the SCHOOLJARENBOEK that I illustrated and made together with my beautiful friend Esther van de Paal along with our fantastic Dutch publisher Snor and talented Studio Fabienne for the book layout!

You will love this book as finally you will be able to keep in one place your child annual school photos and memories from nursery until their final school year!



Each year together with your child, write down key events of their school year, answer the fun questions adapted to each class level and stick their class photos, portraits and drawings.


Colourful stickers are provided to stick their class photos, portraits and drawings.

You can purchase the Schooljarenboek here (In Dutch language for now!)

Esther van de Paal, concept and author and I! This is the second book we collaborated on. It is always so much fun to work together with our Dutch publisher Snor on project like these.
Our previous book Vriedenboek (Friends book) is still a best seller in the Netherlands!

The Friends Book is here!

I am very happy to finally announce the launch the Friends Book, Vrienden Boek in Dutch.
It’s been such a pleasure to collaborate on this book with my friend Esther from Babyccino Kids and the wonderful Snor publisher. We started to work on this project back in September so I can tell you it is really nice to finally hold a copy in my hand and show you some images.
I was very excited when Esther ask me to work with her to design all the illustrations of the book, I mean how fantastic is to work with a friend on such a lovely project.

This is a book for your children to share with their friends. It’s about who they are today, about their family and friends and what they would like to become one day. They are really sweet and fun questions such as ‘what is the best thing you and I have done together’ and there are spaces to draw ‘your dream house’ or even ‘I made this for you’.
There is a double page for the owner of the book and for each friend to fill in and lots of funky stickers to spice up the pages.

As you can see the book is written in Dutch, so this is for you my Dutch friends readers! We’re hoping to launch an English version of the book soon for the non Dutch readers like me!

If you are in Amsterdam this Sunday 19th April, come over in De Pijp to the new kids concept store De Kleine Parade for the launch party of the Vrienden Boek.
An old VW van will be parked outside the shop with a photo booth inside so the children can have their passport photo taken to stick in the book!
From 14.30 until 17h. 142/144 Gerard Doustraat, Amsterdam

I hope to meet you there on Sunday!

You can also buy a copy of the book here.

The Bee Who Spoke, the book.

I cannot tell you how happy Ophelia was when she received the new book written by our friend Al MacCuish The Bee Who Spoke. It is her sitting in the middle reading the story to her friends.
When we lived in Paris, Al came to visit us with his family and mentioned to us later that Ophelia inspired him to write a new story for a children's book. He even dedicated the book to her. Ophelia was SO happy.
The book tells the story of Belle, a little parisian girl who goes on holiday to the countryside and is eager to explore on her new bicycle. After falling off her bike she meets a talking bee who rescue Belle and they go on an adventure together. It a beautiful story that educates children about nature, plants and the environment. You will be charmed by the painted illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon!

Al's first children book was the playful Operation Alphabet with the retro illustrations by Luciano Lozano.
The Bee Who Spoke and Operation Alphabet are available to purchase on Amazon.

Flow magazine featuring Edition Paumes books

Yesterday I received a copy of the Dutch magazine Flow on my desk. It was such a nice surprise. Do you know Flow? I only discovered it since we moved to Amsterdam. It's a creative magazine with beautiful illustrations, articles about designers and other creative people. It is also full of little paper products to tear and to keep such as a pretty notebook on this issue. I love it, I just wish I could read in Dutch to fully appreciate it!

I was interviewed a few months ago by Flow journalist Caroline Buijs about my collaboration with Japanese Edition Paumes when we worked together on the book Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle.

Edition Paumes was created by husband and wife Hisashi Tokuyoshi and Fumie Shimoji (read here for their interview on Hanna Saren's blog).
We have collaborated many times with Hisashi and Fumie since we met them in Tokyo while we were visiting Japan with our daughter in 2008.
Fumie since became my agent in Japan and I truly enjoy working on different illustration projects with her for the Japanese market.

It was such a pleasure to work with Hisashi and the editor Coco Tashima when they came to shoot our home for the book Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle.
Hisashi would take a lot of photos of every room, just as they are. He would very rarely style a room as he likes the reality of a home as it is.
He has a very good sense of presenting things. He can find beauty in very small details and show it in a very nice way in his books.
He would group random objets (but they were not random to him!) and turn them into a very well composed image.

Be creative with Famille Summerbelle

Paumes books available on Famille Summerbelle website:
Be creative with Famille Summerbelle
Paris Deco Ideas
Patisseries à Paris
Paris Family Style
London Family Style

A wider choice of book is available to order on Edition Paumes website - more than 60 books!

The Little Bookroom Guide to NYC with Children

I received yesterday a copy of the book The Little Bookroom Guide to New York City with Children with our Morning in Manhattan design illustrating the cover. Isn't it sweet?! This book follows the successful Little Bookroom Guide to Paris and is packed with cool addresses of restaurants, shops and activities to do with children -and adults- in the big apple.

The author Angela Hederman (also editor at the Little Bookroom) knows about entertaining children in NYC, she has 5 children and has been living in Greenwich for the past 30 years!

The Little Bookroom Guide to Paris with Children featuring Un Dimanche à Paris illustration on the cover.

Anna Kövecses

Ábécés könyv is the latest book I got for myself (and I'm sure it will end up on the children bookshelf). It is a delightful book self published and designed by the very talented Hungarian graphic designer Anna Kövecses.
Anna lives in Cyprus in a small village with her boyfreinds and daughter Rebeka. She designed Ábécés könyv for her daughter to teach her the 44 letters of the Hungarian alphabet.
All photos credit This Is Paper.

While ordering her book I discovered the site Blurb. Have you heard about it? You can create and publish your own book but also make photo albums with the quality of a hardcover book (you can also publish an online book or photo album).
I am so behind with my photo albums, but this has motivated to start - as soon as I get some free time -really?!

Marimekko

Japanese publishing house Edition Paumes is releasing a new book on the iconic Finnish brand Marimekko this month. They visited Marimekko factory, stores and the homes and studios of the designers behind the brand. Is is a compilation of colourful prints, pattern, fabrics and home products. This book is on my wish list!

Decorative wood sticks

This month French magazine Bubble Mag has invited Famille Summerbelle to illustrate how to decorate wooden sticks! It's a fun activity to do after school or during the weekend (or soon the holidays!) with your children.
We live near a forest and we often go there with the children for a walk. Lucien and Ophelia's favourite game is to find as much wooden sticks as they can and bring them back home. We decided to make them look pretty and got the paint and brushes out to give them some colours. Here's the how to paint wooden sticks:

You will need:
-Acrylic paint, medium size paint brushes, a pot of water, a plate for the paint, some kitchen roll and a lot of wooden sticks!

Ophelia proudly shows her tree branch!

The family on a day out to the local park.

This is part of many more activities to do with your children, featured in our book
Be creative with Famille Summerbelle, published by Edition Paumes.

The Guide to Paris with Children

I am very excited to share with you the new book by New York based travel editor The Little Bookroom. I am pleased to have the illustration from our collection Un Dimanche à Paris featured on the cover.

The Little Bookroom Guide to Paris with Children by Kim Horton Levesque is a very well documented guide for sophisticated parents who wants to have fun with their children in Paris.
I love the size of the book as it is small enough to put in your handbag and carry everywhere.
It is organised around places to Play, Eat, shop and Stay.
You will find museums, the best parks and activities to do with your children. Child friendly restaurants,cafés and features all the best boutiques for French children's toys and clothing and even yoga classes with your child in the Jardin du Luxembourg!
The author also recommends trustworthy childcare, english-speaking playgroups, seasonal events for families and rainy days ideas!

Tip Tap book

I bought this interactive book for Ophelia as she's learning to read at the moment at school. Tip Tap is a French book with a CD included. It's from Anouck Boisrobert the same designer who did a Popville. It's very easy and fun to play with to learn new words and make animated sceneries. I have to say I also loved the book straight away for the beautiful illustrations.

Seasons

Or Saisons in French is a beautiful hardback book by French illustrator Blexbolex. I love the bold screen printed illustrations and the limited choice of colours as it makes the images very powerful.

The book is available here in English, and here in French. Published by Albin Michel.
Merci Chloé pour ce beau cadeau!

Cosy bookstore

If only we had a bookstore like this one in Paris. House of Foundation is located in Moss in Norway. I love everything about the space, the loft style white wooden floor, retro furniture (I quite like the yellow cupboard at the back), large bookshelves, gallery, coffee shop and it also offers artist studios on the second floor. I can see myself moving in straight away.

Seen in Le Voyage Créatif.

Flora inspiration

I highly recommend Flora by photographer Nick Knight. The photos and colours are stunning. They are pressed flowers selected from the herbarium of the Museum of Natural History in London by Knight (he spent 3 and a half years choosing from among the six million specimens contained in the herbarium). Impressive!

Sorry for the quality of the photos that I took, not the best i'm afraid...

Papier Maché 1st print issue

At last something interesting in the post. The first printed magazine issue by Papier Maché arrived this morning, Yeah! The cover says it all 'beautiful on the inside'...and bonus, the Paris canvas bag is featured. Congratulation Beck & all your talented team. I am so impressed.

Cover Papier Maché.
Photos of the beautiful world of Mor Mor Rita.

Chocolats à Paris

We had the pleasure to be invited yesterday evening to the bookstore La Cocotte (Paris 11th arrondissement) for the launch of Chocolats à Paris by Edition Paume. Fumie Shimoji and Aya Ito were there from Japan with their team who worked on the book. There was a large table full of delicious chocolate delicacies. Lucien and Ophelia had a great time as you can imagine! I love La Cocotte bookstore, they specialize in very creative cookery books and they have also a good selection of design books. We left the party with 3 books: The Genius of French Poster Art by Hervé Morvan, London Kitchens and London Family Style books by Paumes (to add to my growing collection!).

Sukie notebooks

My favourite notebook from Sukie looks like a vintage novel:

Papier Maché Issue 3

The beautiful Australian Papier Maché online mag is now out...

Popville book

I can wait to receive my copy of PopVille (by Corraini editions) from Present & Correct. As you can see it's a pop-up book in which each page corresponds to a moment of the city development. It was designed by 2 French illustrators Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud. I think it will end up in my bookshelf in my office rather than in the children's bedroom!

Once-A-Year book

Thanks to Vanessa from Bozaround for posting about Laikonik 'Once-A-Year' book. This nicely illustrated book allows you to create a precious record of photographs and stories of your child first 18 years. The concertina pages unfold the story of your child growing over the years. The book comes in a protective hand stitched felt bag. I need to start 2 books straight away for Lucien and Ophelia...


I also love the screenprinted wrapping paper with the Polish folk art designs.

Paris Family Style

A very big THANK YOU/MERCI to Edition Paumes for asking us to be part of their new book Paris Family Style. I have previously mentioned their Children's room London, Stockholm and Paris on the blog. It is a real pleasure discover the homes of creative Parisian families (Petit Pan, Olivesle, The Collection, April Showers just to mention a few)

Diaries

Cute little diary seen on a Korean website Babosarang. I bought similar diaries when we were in Japan last year. I just love the little characters,the colours and all the little details: stickers, note tags...






Seen in Print Pattern blog