Famille Summerbelle News

We just spent a fantastic weekend in Lille, celebrating our wedding anniversary and visiting the Braderie de Lille. For those that don't know, the Braderie is an enormous flea market festival dating back to the 12th Century that takes over the entire city. It's the largest in Europe. It is a fabulous mix of antique furniture, objet d'art, bric a...

I spent a part of the summer holidays, in our family home in the South West of France, discovering old boxes full of precious family collections. While rifling through an old wooden box I found a stunning collection of old Paris Match magazines dating between 1950 and 1970! I found this wonderful illustration from the 1960s which gently mocks the...

We're enjoying a lovely time with the family in the South West of France. The cousins are happy playing together and I'm delighted to switch off from my computer! I'll be back soon with lots of exciting new product images: wallpaper, tea towels and the new map of 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...

It's been a ritual in Paris over the past 20 years or so, thousands of people all dressed in their best white outfit arrive at the same time to have a posh picnic in a prestigious Parisian location. You only get invited by friends and the location remains a secret until the last minute (you get told once you are...

We'll go for lunch with friends on Saturday and a long bike ride on Sunday. What are you up to? Not really a safe way to carry a little baby but I'm sure he's loving it! Photo by Dominique Poiret. Seen on Liberation.

Vanessa Boz, her husband and their 2 young children decided to leave behind their comfortable life in London to travel the World for 5 months. They started in Brazil at the end of last year, followed by South East Asia (Singapore, Burma, North Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam). Now they are enjoying the sun and beach life in Australia before heading...

Ophelia has been talking from an early age and she loves it! It's non stop from the moment she wakes up until she goes to bed. When we went travelling Ophelia was 2 years old. I didn't have anything to record her voice so I decided to sketch what was coming out of her mouth... This was a pretend telephone...

Over the next few days I will post about things I liked at Maison & Objet. I went last Friday for few hours so I didn't manage to see it all (the show is massive!). Funny glass collection from Fabrica (the communication research centre finance by Benetton) for Secondome (a design gallery in the heart of Rome).

We're just back from a wonderful wedding in New York. Only one small hiccup of a missing suitcase (which is still somewhere between New York and Paris), but I can think of many worse places to be without clothes.. So we're already off and running into the New Year, but maybe you could indulge me just a moment to look...

I've wanted to make a mobile for a long time, but beating me to it, Ophelia decided that she wanted to create her first mobile for her little brother - to hang above his cot. So here's how we did it.. 1. First we painted the flat colours (of Ophelia's choice!) onto sheets of 270gms paper 2. Then we glued...

Installations by Confetti System. Perfect for the end of year festivity.

Beautiful. I love it. You can view it here and order a printed copy here but be quick as it's a limited edition. Still snowing very hard here in Paris. Haven't been out of the house for 3 days, the children have both got a big cold. Lucien doesn't sleep during the night. We haven't done the Christmas shopping yet...aaaahh...

and enjoy the snow. We'll be decorating the Christmas tree this weekend. I bought it last night, it's lovely and big and it will be standing in the alcove between our kitchen and the living room. I love this photo seen on Milk blog. It's from the house of Imps & Elfs owner Fons Cohen. I really like the massive...

I had so much fun doing this monthly and now yearly photo shoot with Lucien, but I have to say the latest one has been the most challenging...Lucien being a 1 year old active boy, he wouldn't sit still, he just wanted to eat the felt letters and throw them everywhere! I look forward to the years to come with...

We have enjoyed a relaxing week with the children for the half term holiday-Vacances de la Toussaint- In summary, everyday: Breakfast with croissants and pains au chocolat, work on the laptop in the morning while Ophelia paints and Lucien crawls everywhere. Lunch in the sun along the sea front and in the afternoon a long cycle ride... I hope you're...

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...

The beautiful Papier Maché online mag has released a new issue. As always it's a pleasure to read and look at. I wanted to say a big MERCI to Emma Cassi for including our new coral pink Paris map in her photoshoot 'I fell asleep amongst the flowers.. for a couple of hours...' (love the title). This little blond curly...

Sadly it's the end of the holidays. We had a brilliant time in the South of France with all the family (about 25 of us!). It was very hot (over 35 degrees some days). Every year it's the same, we spend long hours around the table eating lovely food and drinking good wine from the area. The cousins are so...