Famille Summerbelle News

During this trip to Tokyo I was also lucky enough to be invited by the Kids Concept Store Bonton for the opening of their new shop in Takashimaya department store in Shinbuya. I made an installation of about sixty paper cut illustrations on the theme of their collection Little Italy that were displayed in 3 areas of the shop. I...

I have just returned from an amazing week in Tokyo where we celebrated the 11th anniversary of Famille Summerbelle with a colorful exhibition of new paper cut works, original watercolors and our city maps. It was an honor to celebrate our 11 years in Tokyo at Galerie Doux Dimanche since it is also 11 years that we have been collaborating...

11 years already! I never thought 11 years ago that I will go to Japan to make an exhibition to celebrate Famille Summerbelle 11 years in business! Tokyo was our first destination while Family Summerbelle was only 6 months old. We met there with Hisashi and Fumie, the founders of Editions Paumes and Galerie Doux Dimanche, with whom we have...

We are so happy to have our paper cut City maps featured in the new Gestalten book A Map of the World - The World Seen by Illustrators and Storytellers A Map of the World is a compelling collection of work by a new generation of original and sought-after designers, illustrators, and mapmakers. This work showcases specific regions, characterizes local...

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...

So we haven't made a post for a while for which we apologise but I think we've a good excuse..... we've made our final big move for a while, shipping ourselves lock stock to France. We spent a few months traveling around the world hoping that we decide with certainty on somewhere to live, but you know it's a tough...

We fought our way around the world over luggage. I think we take too much, Julie defends every last item as essential. There is no regular winner. Here though, are a few things that we definitely agree on as essentials for taking a 2 year old around the world. 1. The travel rucksack by Deuter was a very good alternative...

Whilst in Japan we put together a package of bits and bobs to send home - trying to keep our suitcases as light as possible. Well that was two months ago, and after a long boat journey our big box arrived safe and sound in England last week. One of the great things about our trip is that coming home...

Happy New Year! This is an overdue post to round off our world trip, but since it's so late I thought I'd make it a short(!) round up of the year. We started Famille Summerbelle in February 2008. Whichever way we look at it, we've had a great start - we've learnt lots, we've made some great new friends (with...

Sorry for not posting anything since we left Fiji. It took us a couple of days to recover from our long journey to the States (more than 25h trip between Fiji-New-Zealand and San Francisco!). It was so cold and rainy when we got here, the sort of weather we would expect to get back in London! After few days trying...

Thank you so much to all our blogger friends for supporting us in 2008 and for your lovely comments on our site. Famille Summerbelle will be a year old early 2009 and so far it's been an amazing experience that we have been so pleased to share with you. We're flying back to the UK this weekend. This is the...

We've just spent 6 days on a beautiful small island in Fiji. We did have internet access, but not much happened so we decided to give the computer a well earned rest for the trip. Not much happened but it was wonderful. We sat on the beach, snorkeled in the sea, played with Ophelia by the pool and then relaxed...

I bought some origami paper in Japan which has the perfect thickness for cutting into. Here are some examples of paper cuts I created during our stay in New Zealand. Tomorrow is our last day here... we are sad to leave this amazing country. We had such a wonderful time traveling in the campervan and spending some quality time with...

Julie takes a lot of photos (she can take credit for almost all of the photos on this blog). Ophelia likes copying her maman (sizing herself in the mirror, dressing up, lipstick, make-up etc etc), and this is the best yet....we have ourselves an amateur photographer! For the last week or so, the main source of our daily entertainment is...

We departed the South Island on Wednesday, and said goodbye to our family (which is never much fun). For the campervan, the scenery, the wildlife, the family, the wine - thanks. Easily the most beautiful place we've every been. These letterboxes were one of the last things we saw just outside of Blenheim - a long row of beachfront houses....

Apologies to anyone that is in the throws of late Autumn grey, but if you could see our photo library from New Zealand you would see just how many amazing variations of blue (and green) you can see every day. Beautiful vibrant turquoise through to rich dark blues. If it helps, it's a little grey today.....

We love wine. Not just for the obvious reason...it's nice to drink something that has such a nuanced development. Everything about it's creation - from grape, soil and weather to treatment, ageing and barrel. It's real artisan stuff. Wine tours in Marlborough are pretty easy and great fun. New Zealand doesn't have a long viticultural past - but my god,...

A few days since our last post - for reasons I'll explain in a sec. We arrived in Kaikoura last Saturday for the final leg of our campervan trip. You'd have thought we might have scenery exhaustion - never! Kaikoura I think was my favourite, with stunning turquoise ocean surrounded by snow-topped mountains. Seals, dolphins and migrating whales are all...

Today was very exciting. We came back from few days in the Sounds (region in the top of the South Island that looks like fjords). I was invited to Abbie's (my 7 year old niece from NZ) school to talk about what I do as a job! I tried to explain to the whole class that I draw, cut paper...

...looking for pebbles on the beach on the East Coast.