Our gorgeous little books from Paumes have finally arrived!!

So now the whole collection is back in stock and on top of this, we have received their new book Finland Family Style and this one has even a family-friendly Helsinki guide for design lovers! So who wants one? :-)

Nos petits livres de Paumes sont enfin arrives!! Donc ca y est, maintenant toute la collection est en stock et en plus, nous avons aussi recu leur nouveau livre: Finland Family Style et celui-ci a meme un guide d'helsinki concu specialement pour les familles fans de design! Bon qui veut son petit Paumes? :-)

A very big thank you to Editions PAUMES for asking us to be part of their new book London Family Style and to Helena from Agence Violette, their press agent in France, who co-ordinated the photoshoots with all the families (must have been tricky to fit so many families in such a short time).
I have always been a big fan of their books so being in one of them was a dream comes true and it's really nice to see the homes of Bianca Hall and Nina Nagel (ByGraziela) and discover other creative families in London (Little Duckling, Made with Love by Mrs Booth, Bopeep Kids, Dandy Star, etc.
So here is our home....but ignore the kitchen! I dont' like the tiles on the floor and the units but we are planning in the next 6 months to have our lounge looking like Paul Massey's lounge and then if we have any money left or win the lottery, we will then do the kitchen but at least you can see the Yves Klein wall I painted in blue in the background after reading Living Etc last Summer. Then there is Mila's bedroom (more pics of her room here) which I'm very proud of :-)

All the photos from London Family Style by Editions PAUMES will be displayed at Ella Doran's store during the London Design Festival 2010 and if you can go there, there will be an opportunity to meet Fumie Shimoji (co-founder of Edition Paumes) at the event party on Saturday 26th from 2-6pm. The installation is held over one week from Saturday 18th September – Sunday 26th September.
Venue : Ella Doran, Ground Floor Shop, 46 Cheshire Street, London, E2 6EH. Thursday – Friday: 11am – 6pm; Saturday 12pm – 6pm; Sunday 12pm-6pm

If you wish to order London Family Style, click HERE, for the Paris Family Style, click HERE and Belgium Family Style, click HERE.

I miss Petits Bonheurs....c'est bete, but I miss Claude's beautiful photos of her three children, her impeccable taste and her talent.

I leave you drooling over her blog...I need to get ready because in about two hours, Photographer Hisashi Tokuyoshi is arriving to shoot our home and little family to be featured in the next book by Edition Paumes.
I'm so excited that I have hardly slept and I'm probably going to look like death. Have a wonderful weekend. Love xoxo
PS: The little houses the fabulous Advent Calendar by Noix de Coc' and are available from here

On Friday I took home two new books from Edition Paumes to read them: Stockholm Ateliers and London Gardens. Well, read is bit exaggerated since I don't speak a word of ようこそジュ and they are all written in Japanese but once again I was not disappointed and since you can not flip through it, here are why I love these little, cool Japanese books.....

Reason 1: I love how inspiring and creative they are. There is a bit of text but it's all in Japanese so your attention is really on the photos. It wouldn't be a bad thing sometimes to know what they're writing about but it's probably just a description of the photos so in the end, you pay a lot more attention to the details of each image and they always put a list of websites at the end or a mini guide or a list of flea markets, museums etc...it depends on the theme of the book.

Reason 2: Each time I discover the work of amazingly talented and creative people I never heard of. I know some of them because their work is commercial (like illustrators, fashion designers, product designers) but others simply work in creative environments like theatre, cinema, PR, publishing or they are photographers, boutique owners, artist agents, Chefs or food journalists....and I think it's this mix of creative backgrounds from different countries that give these books a different, arty feel.

My favourites are all the ones from Stockholm and Copenhagen for instance because Scandinavian people's approach to design, patterns, colours, light and family living is different to the ones I know from being born in France and having been in England for the past 15 years. Saying that, I can't stop drooling over London gardens now that we are starting to work on our little garden because when it comes to gardening, I think England have the best gardens...and rain! No seriously have you seen the weather this morning!! Shocking for a bank holidays weekend!

Reason 3: I love their 'slices of live' style. The homes featured are not styled and they are not perfect! They are real family homes with a bit of mess, colours and imperfections which we can all relate to. When we are into design and decoration, we often aspire to have gorgeous, tidy homes...well yes...that will happen when your kids move out of your home...

In the meantime, try to explain to her 5 years old that her two babies both dressed in pink or a red bike sitting in the middle of the lounge in front of your Paulistano or her Shrek and the Fantastic Mr Fox DVDs laying in in the floor out of their boxes, is not exactly the kind of look your were aiming for your lounge....yes exactly!

Reason 4: I love the design 'a la Japonaise'...From a design point of view, I love how the pages are laid-out and how the Japanese typography look and I love how their colourful spine stands out on my shelf....

Reason 5: I think they are a real treat and make a wonderful little present. I read on some blogs that people thought they were expensive at £20/20 euros each. I tend to disagree. I buy a lot of decoration magazines and interior books and considering that a mag costs in average £3.70 in the UK, I think £20 is a good price for a book that you are going to look at over and over and cherish and I'm not saying this because we sell them on B&F because if you have been reading this blog for a while now, then you will know that it's more a case of ...I love them WHICH IS WHY they are on B&F.

However since I feel so strongly about it and I want more people to enjoy these books, this month, we will be offering one lucky winner the two books of her/his choice from the Edition Paumes series. Yep! You read it correctly, two books by Editions Paumes to one lucky winner. To participate, click here and if you haven't done so, don't forget to sign up to the BODIE and FOU Enewsletter to get 10% off the third Thursday of each month.

Two news made me happy this evening....the first one was that the Royal Mail strikes are over and there will be no further disruption until now and Christmas (yippee!). The second one was getting some gorgeous photos from Rie at Editions Paumes for all the new books we will be adding to the site next week and I can't wait to look at the edition on Copenhagen apartments and the San Francisco kitchens for instance when we receive them in about 2 weeks.

All the books I have from Paumes never fail to give me a huge amount of pleasure and satisfaction each time I go through them and inevitably, I have this massive urge to do something creative and making our home looking as gorgeous and inspiring than all these family homes from London, Paris, Copenhagen and since we are moving in our new family home at the beginning of December, 2010 is going to be MY YEAR so I'm warning you...Next year, you may see a lot more DIY postings on this blog!

But don't you think that it's actually a bit tricky to work out the final look of your home?
I have always been a big fan of Jacqueline Morabito's style and each time I see a magazine featuring her work or her homes, I either keep it preciously or take photos of the pages to keep in my mood board folder. However I have also noticed that the explosion of blogs and having access to different interior styles from San Francisco, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Amsterdam from anyone be they professional designer or simply creative people have widely opened up my tastes (more than interior magazines) and now I feel like this hyperactive, excited child who wants white to feel calm and relax but at the same would like to style her home with stimulating, inspirational mood moard, hand-drawing illustrations, vintage treasures and colours.
It's tricky isn't it?!

I look at my friends' house in Bristol or Linda Loenen's family house in Amsterdam or Paul Massey's house and here and I dream of white, light and airy spaces but then Helena Christensen's boho home in NYC leaves me speechless and I still very much love this very cool family house. I started testing the water with Steve regarding painting all the floorboards of our new house in white but he is yet to be convinced.... He is not against it but he thinks that once we've painted them in white, there is no going back....Well technically there is...you just get a sanding machine and start all over again but I see his point so we may try to whitewash the floorboards to start with. Anyway, its not like we are going to move in and start doing any work straight away....After exchanging, we will probably be broke and will be living on kumara (sweet potatoes from New-Zealand) for the next few months :-)

Back to Paumes....The new books we will be receiving are San Francisco Kitchens, Paris Miam-Miam, Ateliers de Paris, Appartements d'amoureux a Paris (lover nests in Paris), Apartements de filles a Paris, Souvenirs de Paris, Petits appartements a Paris, London Kitchens (featured the lovely Kathleen Hills on the front cover) and Copenhagen apartments and I will try - time permitting (things get really busy on this side and that side) - to take you through a few of them to give you a real feel of these wonderful Japanese books...

A big thank you to Modculture and Retro to Go for featuring us and our gorgeous books by Paumes.

Kayatine is a new label launched by the young (only 24) and obviously very talented French designer Julie Lepage-Chartier.
In France, 'un Doudou' is what we call the first soft toy, a baby will take a fancy to and this a toy that your child is likely to keep forever so choosing the perfect Doudou is no mean feat!
The first time we saw Julie's 'Doudous', we felt in love straight away...I mean look at this one called Poppy. Even if you haven't got a child, wouldn't you want something as cute and friendly in your home! I love it!

Doudou Poppy is one of eight brothers and sisters. Each one has little ears that are easy for tiny baby hands to grab (or suck as babies do!). Its bottom is embroidered with a cure little heart and the fabrics Julie has picked (for instance for Doudou Bobi) are just beautiful and cheerful.

Poppy is also available in violette here.

We will add more gorgeous designs from Kayatine in the forthcoming months as Julie has also designed uber cute babygros and bath set for babies and I can't wait for her to do her Doudou as cushions!
For more inspiration on how to create gorgeous children bedrooms, check out the amazing collection of Japanese books from Paumes.

We are currently working on the new look of our little chic online boutique which will be launched early September and I can't tell you how excited I am. Besides heaps of new, user-friendly functions to make online shopping a piece of cake, we've added a lots of really cool and creative designs and I can't wait to share them with you. I really hope you like them but also that you will LOVE our new look.
Today, we've been working on adding the collection from Paumes...If you don't know Paumes, it is a family-run business from Japan founded by Hisashi Tokuyoshi, a photographer & Art Director and Fumie Shimoji who represents French designers and illustrators like Tse Tse and maison Georgette in Japan. They also have a gorgeous boutique in Japan.