Very excited and honoured....

to have been asked by Holly, the talented 'Blogging Queen' of Decor8 to write a piece on a few of my favourite things at home as a guest blogger....

I'm feeling the pressure a bit there given the massive and interior-savvy readership Holly has from around the world but hey.... I'm super excited too!!

I'm trying to take some decent pictures from things I like at home but the light is not great today anyway...more later






(C) pics from Decor8

Mon coup de coeur this weekend is

for the illustrations of Scott Balmer, who after graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone college of Art & Design in Scotland, started life as a freelance illustrator.
My favourite is the one below, called Poop in the Woods but they are all very playful and I love the fact that his characters don't give a damn about being size 0...
I think they look a lot more cuddlier with curves and big bellies, bicepts and they are all smiling!!

this is Lumberjack

If you are in the UK, you may have across his work in The Guardian but he has also done a bit of work for Inc. magazine and Business Week in the US.

This is The Amazing Hilda

This is The Hills

this is DNA

this is Sugar Frosted

You can see more of Scott's work on Flickr here

Breakfast @ photographer's Michael Paul

I mentioned earlier this week that a magazine from New-Zealand NZ Life & Leisure wanted to run a story on our house in France so tomorrow Steve and I are having breakfast with Michael Paul (see gorgeous shots of a house in Notting Hill Michael shot) and his wife Kumiko to meet up before they come and stay in our house at the end of August. I'm super excited!!!!
Michael is from New-Zealander like Steve and Kumiko is from Japan and she is a stylist...I don't know about you but when I think of Japanese creative people, all I can think of are these 'to die-for' Japanese books by Paumes. They are my bibles, I have heaps of them and I don't even speak a word of Japanese but that's not what they are about. They are pure beauty, bibles, treasures of inspiration and creativity....anyway....so I'm pretty sure that our breakfast with this creative couple (Michael takes beautiful photos!) is going to be really good.

For a small company like us, it's always a fantastic opportunity to be asked to feature in gorgeous, interiors and lifestyle magazine and so far (touch wood), we've been incredibly lucky. It is a lot of work...you wouldn't believe how much I clean the house before and re-arrange things, finish DIY jobs I have been putting off for ages....but it's fun...Mila and Lily are a bit blase now but Elodie and I love it because it gives us the chance to work with some very talented photographers.
The first time we had Alun Callender and poor him....he had just came back from shooting Normann Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) and Zoe Ball's luxury yatch and he must have wondered why on earth You magazine was sending him to France a whole weekend to shoot our house!
The second photoshoot was really great & fun...The whole family was there and we had our friends Alexia, Nicolas with their son Sacha but also Chris Tubbs, the photographer sent by Grand Designs magazine was fantastic...such a cool, laid-back guy....a very nice person.
Chris spent the night at our house so we had diner and breakfast together and we had plenty of time for us to talk about photography and stylism and he gave us some great tips.

As my mantra is if you dont ask you don't get, I asked Michael if he was giving photography classes...I would love to do a photography course but being taught by someone who does great interiors & lifestyle shots. He doesn't but he is going to teach me a few techie things about the light and we will try some shots together in France...how cool!
Anyway I didn't want to bore you, I'm just really excited by the whole thing and I wanted to share it...On his happy note, I wish you all a very good weekend!

Kristina's handmade jumper

Kristina is/was studying at Camberwell College of Arts. This handmade, hand-embroidered jumper was one of her degree projects. This one was about memory and nostalgia and she embroidered words taken from her diaries when I was 16. Isn't this gorgeous?

She is also trying to finish a children book to enter the Macmillan Prize and does wonderful illustrations which she sells on Etsy.

Gorgeous new bag from SEEVIVIER

Clare Vivier's latest bag is now available at contemporary art gallery Taylor De Cordoba in Culver City. I'm still in love with the bag I ordered last month but I love this one.

If you want, you can order it from the Gallery in LA or contact Clare directly at Seevivier.

My Charlotte (Gainsbourg)

When I saw Ode to Charlotte on Clare's facebook profile, I was doing several things at once, read it quickly and I thought she was talking about some kind of LA music band...plus it was midnight and my brain cells were melting.
Now that I'm trying to calm down from all the excitation of these past few days (new website coming along nicely...errr gorgeously!, new children mag discovered, being asked to be part of a feature for a glossy magazine, house in France to be shot again for a new-zealander magazine, beautiful new prints on the site, etc)..breathe woman...breathe....
I have realised - taking a little blog stroll through my favourite blogs - that Clare was talking about MY Charlotte and not some kind of obscure US rock band!

So MY Charlotte is in LA and Clare's husband will spend a couple of days with her filming her..Errmm..Hello!! Where would I wish to be right now, well soon...in Clare's husband pocket!

I'm not a big star struck person but since I was 14, there are two French girls I've always admired for their style and it is Charlotte Gainsbourg and Vanessa Paradis.
When it comes to French cool, you can't get more beautiful and cool than these two girls..

Clare is planning to sneak in during the shoot to give Charlotte one of her fabulous bags... If she has any left, I hope she will manage to give her La Tropezienne bag and then my only claim to fame will be that Charlotte and I have the same bag ...sigh....

Exciting news about Papier Mache magazine

Last night I spoke to Beck from Papier Mache who told me she is also a fan of BODIE and FOU (which is always nice to hear :-) and frankly talking about something as exciting as this wonderful children magazine is really not good for my sleeping pattern. It was midnight for me and probably about lunch time for Beck and I was jumping up and down with excitement.
I told Beck that Papier Mache reminded me of MILK magazine, a French magazine which is probably one of the most amazing and inspiring children magazines and she said that MILK was like gold in Australia. If you love MILK magazine and find it tricky to get a copy in your country, you can get a subscription to MILK from here or buy their special issues.

Anyway the next issue of Papier Mache will be on 14th November 2009 and maybe in the future they will produce more issues, a printed version etc...it all depends how it goes but I'm pretty sure it will go very nicely for them... I can't wait for Issue no 2 and if I could at least print the online version to read it bed that would make me really happy....
But here is the EXCITING NEWS!... For Issue no 2, they have decided to add a supplement magazine with great kids rooms and are looking for submissions.
Yes you've read this properly.... If if you think your kids room look fabulous and you want it to be featured in Papier Mache, send your photos to hello@papier-mache.com.au

Deadline for submissions is late October so you've got a bit of time but if you want your child's bedroom to be featured in a cool, aussie magazine...here is your chance!

Papier Mache...a new children mag made in Australia

A couple of nights ago, I came across Papier Mache, a gorgeous, uber cool new children magazine made in Australia and I couldn't stop beaming. I'm loving it, I'm loving it, I'm loving it ...everything the layout, the typo, the photos, the products they featured...massive thumb up!
Papier Mache is only available online and it will come out twice a year. It is created by The Convenience Store, a creative of talented people doing stuff..well design, art, photography, fashion, etc. Below are a few pages of the first issue, but click here to read the whole magazine and see what I mean....and you can subscribe to get the next issue.
The only thing I think is missing is hyperlinks from the magazine to click on the gorgeous things they feature but that may be something they do in the next issue....

Thank you so much to Deborah from kickcan & Conkers for this fabulous link

The new BODIE and FOU gift card....

This is our new gift card...Off to the printer this week...
The new BODIE and FOU website (coming soon) will offer gift-wrapping so we will send all your presents with a lovely handwritten note on the back of this stylish cards to all the people you love.

Hope you like it!

Neals Yard Remedies Head Office

A couple of years ago, I mentioned Urban Outfitters' Hip office space in Philadelphia and if you remember it was a fantastic inspiring spaces. The place was bursting with colours, mood boards and I was aching with envy just looking at the photos...
Today it is a complete different design but as beautiful and of course in tunes with the brand it embodies...here are Neals Yard Remedies Head Office designed by Feilden Clegg in Dorset (Feilden Clegg also designed Greenpeace HQ, The Woodland Trust offices). The building is stunning, there is no question about it. I love how Feilden Clegg made use of wood and blend the company within the beautiful landscape of Dorset but what caught my attention was the work of Pinch which were asked by Neals Yard Remedies to design the interior and furniture for their new head office and manufacturing facility.
Pinch is an Award-winning company set up by husband and wife team Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon in 2004. Before Pinch, Russell had co-founded The Nest, a multi-disciplinary brand design agency with clients including British Airways, MFI, WHSmith, Rip Curl and Selfridges while Oona worked first at The Nest then at branding agency Bloom.
They now design furniture for some of the best UK furniture brands such as Conran, SCP and Benchmark Furniture (another company established by Sir Terence Conran).
As you will see from the pictures below, the interior combines bespoke Pinch furniture with customised basics to create a positive working environment that works to refect both the NYR brand and the exterior architecture and I think a lot of their gorgeous ideas could also be applied to your home.

Reception desk & display...really really loving the twig bench

Blackboard storage (clever & stylish idea for the home)

Reception signage

Office and coat hook


the restaurant and its gorgeous lighting

(C) Credits photos Pinch and Feilden Clegg

The small but gorgeous flat of Agathe Perroy

I tell you why I thought this wonderful little flat (42 m2) was worth mentioning...It's because when Interior Designer Agate Perroy saw it for the first time, it was in fact 2 small flats with one based on the ground floor and the other on the top floor of the small nineteenth century house.
Now, given that we are all avid readers of interior magazines, I suspect most of us can actually see the potential of a place even if it has small, dark rooms, wallpapers from the 70s, green tiled bathroom and people with two-heads living in it.
You know that you can just break down a few partition walls, paint the walls in white and change a few dark rooms into a welcoming, spacious space but Agate's mind saw well beyond this and worked out a way to link these two small flats together...so how did she achieve this gorgeous place?

First, to open up the space she knocked down a few partition walls, then removed the false ceiling to gain more height and discovered perfectly preserved oak beams (look how gorgeous they look!). With the agreement of the owners from the other flat on the ground floor, she took over the communal stairs and integrated them into her new space. The stairs now provide a visual separation for the two rooms (bedroom & kitchen/living) she created at the top of the flat.
In the bedroom (pictured above), the bath sourced from a scrap heap, is now facing her bed. On the right, between the windows, she uses vintage metal racks from a milk company to display her toiletries.

When it came to decorating her home, Agathe made good use of the treasures she's discovered in family attics (the quilts were found at a her grandmother's house), junk shops or on construction sites. In her bedroom, Agate stores seasonal clothes in boxes once used to ship bananas (you can find a similar fabric wardrobe at Habitat and Banana boxes in Brick Lane). Banana boxes wouldn't look great everywhere but because this room is spacious, airy and tidy, it works nicely and add a touch of colour and exotism.

In the dining area, the oak table also serves as the office, and is lit by an industrial suspension light. Agate hang bags of spices brought back from India on the wall and uses a galvanized metal hanging garden planter to display her favourite photos and objects. She also found the plastic dining chair in the street (one can still found cute things in the street).

In the the kitchen, Agathe had the work area made to measure from exotic wood — the oven is tucked away on the side and the hot plate is also used as a cutting board. A butcher's hook is used to suspend pots while on the wall are two vintage Jieldé lamps (brand new ones are available from Caravan in the UK). She just added a splash of colour with an African oiled rug on the concrete floor. So I don't know what you think but I love it...I think it's full of charm and full of light.
(c) photos: Marie-Claire Maison