Famille Summerbelle

Dutch Design Week 2017

The Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven ended last Sunday. I wanted to share with you some of my highlights.
Ophelia and I left early morning by train from Amsterdam to meet with my younger sister Charlotte in Eindhoven. Charlotte studied Product Design at the Design Academy, she knew the town very well and most ex-students exhibiting so we were very pleased to have her as our guide!

We started with a coffee and chocolat chaud at Usine to plan our day as there were so many events and things to see in one day. We knew we couldn't see everything. Imagine an entire city devoted to design, it's pretty overwhelming - in a good way! Btw I would recommend to have some sort of transportation to go from one event to the next as some venues are located on the outskirt of town. The DDW offers some taxi (free) rides but there's often a long queue.

Hot chocolate with chantilly anyone?!


Cute green little kids corner at Usine.

Our first stop was Hardcore exhibition by Core Studio. It took us a while to find the entrance, after realising that the event was on the lower ground floor of a car park.

Ophelia was intrigued by this foamed bookshelf by Onno Adriaanse.

Envisions:
This year Envisions collaborated with the Spanish wood manufacturer Finsa. The idea was not to show the final product but instead to show the process that is rarely shown to the public. Envisions believes that experimentation is key to good design and leads to new ideas and innovation.
That is the driving force of Envisions, a Dutch collective directed by Sanne Schuurman and Simone Post, presenting everything except the final product.

Envisions books are available to purchase here.

Recolored, A new way of recycling by Jessica den Hartog.

Self reflection in a Lex Pott and David Derksen oxidised mirror.

Lex Pott, detail of Fragments of Nature Log.

Stripe paper yarn by Dienke Dekker.

Huge balloons covered with Sunbrella fabric, by Charles Pétillon.

For the love of hand made plates

I have to thanks my mum for my love of hand made plates and dishes. Since I can remember my mother would always serves us beautifully cooked food on hand made plates. Mostly hand made by her or by one of my sisters. A couple of weeks ago she came to visit us in Amsterdam with a luggage full of plates she made for our new home. Everyday I think of her when serving dinner xx
I have made a little selection from my Pinterest board of some of my favourite hand made plates around...

Hand made by maman. You can find more about her work on Terre et Montagne.

A selection from Trineswardrobe:

Playful plates by Japanese artist Makoto Kagoshima:

Vibrant colours by Quiet Clementine:

A touch of gold by the talented Emily Reinhardt:

Love of plants

Wildernis in Amsterdam:

Stunning embroidery by Sarah Benning:

Delightful paintings by Elizabeth Barnett:

Les ateliers Cardew Bonniot

Nathalie Lété's showroom featured in Milk Deco, designed by Nathalie Lété and hand crafted by Les ateliers Cardew-Bonniot, a Parisien carpenter wokshop.

Oak stools designed by Nathalie Lété and hand made by Cardew-Bonniot:


Wooden plates. Designed and hand made by Cardew-Bonniot.


'Boites à rien' designed and hand crafted by Cardew-Bonniot


Their workshop is located on the outskirt of Paris and can be rented out to other carpenters.

Aiko Fukawa

I would love to receive a dove card like this one by Aiko Fukawa.

Colours of the day

Happy Friday everyone! I have recently discovered the work of the creative duo Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao so I wanted to share some images with you to bring a smile on your face. I hope their work will inspired you to grab some paints, paper or even some clay and start playing around and be creative. By looking at the bold colours and geometrical shapes you can really tell that these two have a really good time collaborating together.
Their design studio is called Eternity Stew.
The pair also operate a small art & design studio called Chiaozza.

Painting plants

I always had a penchant for painted plants in pots. These beautiful paintings by Australian artist Elizabeth Barnett are truly stunning.

paper flowers

Adeline Klam is a French designer who is passionate about Japan, origami paper and bright colours. She has the most beautiful shop in Paris in the 11th arrondissement where she sells a variety of colourful Japanese papers, fabrics, stationeries and books and also offers workshops to make beautiful paper flowers like these:

Make your own paper flowers kit.

Beautiful breakfast

Erika Harberts, the designer of Mikodesign is a super mummy who has the most wonderful imagination. She creates the most imaginative and delicious breakfasts for her daughters Sofia and Mila. The latest was inspired by Sofia's birthday party theme Frida Kahlo. How sweet is her portrait and the cactus!
Erika surprised Esther and I when we launched our Vrienden Boek by making a breakfast inspired by the illustrations of the book.
Last time I met Erika she was telling me how much she loves Paris. She had the wonderful idea to create a blog dedicated to all her favourite addresses called Carnet de Paris.
Discover Erika's breakfasts images on her Instagram and visit her blog and Etsy shop to discover her beautiful prints and dolls on Mikodesign.

Arnold Goron

Window display/installation for Isabel Marant by French artist and set designer Arnold Goron. The Happy Clouds and Felt Sculptures were exhibited at the Villa Noailles during the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie de Hyères in the South of France.

Festival de mode de Hyères 2015

For the second year in a row my sister Coralie has been selected to design a fashion collection for the Festival International de Mode de Hyères at the Villa Noailles. Last year she was nominated Prix du Public. You can read my post from last year and see images of her previous collection here. This year was the 30th anniversary of the Festival and Chanel was guest of honour.

A selection of Chanel dresses and stunning details...

Wooden sculptures by Merijn Hos

I discovered the wooden sculptures of Merijn Hos at the entrance of the Show Up exhibition in Amsterdam. I mentioned it on a blog post here. I wanted to show you more images of his Wooden sculptures as they really make me smile!
Merijn is a Dutch artist based in Utrecht where he works on commercials projects as an illustrator and on his own projects like this serie of wooden sculptures. So far he created 3 series of 360 unique sculptures

Jonas Wood

Beautiful plants studies and large scale paintings by American artist Jonas Wood. I wish we could see more buildings painted like this one on the David Kordansky Gallery in LA:

Shelf Still Life, next to the High Line at 18th Street and 10th Avenue, NYC 2014.

Show Up Amsterdam

Yesterday afternoon we took the children to visit the Dutch interior trade show Show Up on the outskirt of Amsterdam. In only a couple of years this show as doubled in size and is now showcasing lots of really nice European and international brands. It was nice to see familiar faces like Amber from Down to the Woods and Sabine from Engel.
Here are some images I took while at the show. Sorry I only had my phone to take photos so the quality is not great.
Pretty flowers at the entrance to remind you that you are in THE country of flowers.


A Love wall with lots of cute cards and posters about Love...for St Valentin


Lots of really nice stuffs at Down to the Woods: wire hangers and baskets and charming felt masks for kids.


Colourful party paper hats at Engel.


Birthday party cards from Meri Meri.


I just wanted the whole lot! Egg cup holders by Lucie Kaas.

Mizuki Goto

Adorable painted images by Japanese collage artist Mizuki Goto.

Dutch Design Week 2014

The Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven is one of the biggest event happening in October in the Netherlands and it is really worth going (18-26 Oct). The quality of work from Dutch designers is outstanding and so inspiring. The event is taking over the entire town of Eindhoven, offering numerous exhibitions, seminars, workshops, parties, food and drinks. Altogether there are more than 300 events at 80 different venues!
My sister Charlotte is graduating in December from the prestigious Design Academy. She invited my family over to spend the weekend in Eindhoven to show us the different events and to visit the graduation show at her school. We had such an amazing time, thanks also to the most beautiful weather. It felt like Spring time!

I will show you a selection of images of my favourite events and designers I discovered over the weekend:

We Make Carpets by Dutch trio Bob, Marcia and Stijn. Not the kind of carpet you would expect. You cannot walk on them. From a distance they may look like a carpet but come closer to discover a carpet made of pasta, colourful sponges, beer bottles, fire crackers, pegs, wooden sticks or some other everyday product.

Wooden model by Floris Hovers:

Graduation project at the Design Academy by Anne Ligtenberg:

Graduation project from the Design Academy by Debby Yu.

Lunch on the sunny terrasse in the Strijp Area. There is a huge skate park right next door. We also went for a coffee at Pastry Club located in a reconverted factory.

On Sunday after a long breakfast sitting outside in the sun, we all went to visit the Piet Hein Eek factory where he reconverted an old Philips building into his workshop, showroom, shop, restaurant and studios for up and coming Dutch designers. It is such a wonderful and inspiring place to visit.
Piet Hein Eek huge workshop:


Piet Hein Eek signature table made of small recycled wood blocks:


Wood patterns:




Ceramics rENs, exploring the colour red on different ceramic objects.

Furniture and textures by Dirk Van Der Kooij:

Ceiling lampshades by Lotty Lindeman and Wouter Scheublin.

Light Forest by Ontwerpduo:


Tallow candles by Ontwerpduo:

Assembli: DIY paper kit

Make your own paper animal trophy with these step by step DIY folding kits from Dutch studio Assembli. Aren't they beautiful? I'd love to get the Giraffe for my children's bedroom. It would be a nice project to do with Ophelia on a Wednesday afternoon after school.

Hand painted florals by Helen Dealtry

I am following Helen Dealtry on Instragram and I am always so inspired to see her stunning hand painted flowers. Helen runs a textile studio Woking Girls Designs based in Brooklyn, NY where she and her team specialises in hand painted and computer-generated designs for the textile industry.
If you live in NYC, Helen also runs hand painted florals classes. I wish I could go to one of them.

Helen's studio.

During the class showing different technics. Photo by Dana McClure.

Pastels

Slosh samples (flubber, pva glue, acrylic, oil paint, resin plastics, polymer balls, polymer clay, pigment, water, varnish) by Louise Zhang.
Seen on Present & Correct.

Images of the day

Reversed Volumes by Mischer'Traxler studio edited by PCM.

Have a nice evening! I'm going out for dinner at a Thaï restaurant in Amsterdam tonight.