Famille Summerbelle News

Huge apologies for not posting for a while…moving house to a new country has been a rather busy and time consuming experience. We are now so happy and enjoying every minute of our our new life in the Netherlands! To give you a bit of background on our move…..a couple of months ago, just at the end of Summer, Simon...

I'm typing this post sitting on the floor of our empty house, with only 10% of battery left on my laptop I have to be brief. We are moving...to Amsterdam! Big news and so little time to think about it as we had to make the quick decision at the beginning of September to start a new life over there....

It has been a month since we came back from our long Summer break and I am already thinking of the holidays and where we could go next with the children. When we go abroad for a family weekend break or longer holidays we always try to rent an apartment instead of staying in hotels as we like to have...

Our most colourful and fun collection The Performers has reached it's first birthday and we thought it'd be nice to celebrate with a special offer for the friends of Famille Summerbelle. So for the next few weeks, we'd like to offer our friends a 10% discount on all products from The Performers collection! To receive this offer, just enter the...

I am so excited to share with you some images of the project I have been working on since last January. I had a fantastic opportunity to work with Outsign architects in Paris to design a unique art piece for the newly refurbish Italie Deux shopping centre in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The commissioned work was to design a...

We are very honoured to be featured for the first time in a Taiwanese magazine, and even better in the beautiful DPI design magazine. The article is about our paper cut map series and the world of Famille Summerbelle. It is such a pleasure to be featured alongside talented map lover illustrators like Vesa Sammalisto, Mads Berg and Aleksandra and...

We will be visiting Maison & Objet on saturday to be inspired and see friends in the evening. Hopefully the weather will be as beautiful. What are you up to? This is a photo I took on my phone last weekend at the village fête while on holidays in the South West of France. I wish I was still there!

We thought while the sun is shining, that it'd be a good time to share our collection of birch wood trays. We wanted to make our trays from a natural sustainable material and so we looked to Sweden where they have been producing birch wood trays (from renewable forests) for over 60 years. A few wonderful facts about our trays:...

We're back home from a truly amazing break in l'Ile de Ré. It was heaven. We are also all happy to be back home. The children were longing to play with their respective toys and I have a lot of things in my head I would like to do so it's good to be back in my studio. The only...

on holiday...

We are back on the beautiful island of Ré on the French atlantic coast. I have been waiting for this break for so long! The last months have been so grey, cold and wet that it feels like a dream to wake up every morning with the sun shining...Enjoy the holidays wherever you are! Yesterday on the beach in La...

As our mind turns to holidays and as the 100th edition of Le Tour kicks off, what better way to celebrate than the launch of our brand new Map of France! The Alpes, The Pyrenees, a Mediterranean coast, an Atlantic coast. Volcanoes, gorges, the calanques of Cassis, the Mont St Michel. Castles, cathedrals, thousands of wines, hundreds of cheeses. Ancient...

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 replace...

Photo of the Golden Gate I took when we were there 5 years ago! It's been such a long time...I am so longing to visit this beautiful place soon... On the right photo from Antiquation Admiration on Flickr. Hand screen printed Blue San Francisco map. On the left: SF by Mario De Biasi. On the right: Boat under the Golden...

Back in March I went to Bath for the day to document the printing process of our World map print. The design is hand screen printed in 2 colours using one silk screen per colour. Duncan, the printer mixes each colour by hand, referring to a Pantone reference. Screen printing is an incredibly skilled job and so inspiring to watch...

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...

This weekend we visited the annual antique fair on the island of Chatou (West of Paris) called La Foire à la Brocante et aux Jambons. It is one of the largest antique fair in France with more than 800 stalls. I try to go every year as I love the atmosphere there. (see here for last year post). The fair...

We are so happy to have Ludo Le Lapin screenprint featured in the latest Elle Deco UK Shopping page 'Buy of the Month'. The colourful rabbit print can be a fun feature to add to your Easter decoration! Just a note to apologies for being so inconsistent posting on the blog at the moment! I have been traveling back an...