Happy DIY Easter

Happy Easter to everybody! And many thanks to Petit-Bateau and to Steffie Brocoli for this cute DIY project with which to realise funny boxes with the shape of a bunny. Steffie is an illustrator who lives and works in Paris and who creates really cute stuffs (take a look on her etsy shop!). If you'd like to realise you too these amazing boxes, you can download the pattern here. On www.petit-bateau.fr, you can also find many other DIY projects signed by this illustrator that will made your Easter!! I am sure!!

   

A special creator for a special event!

Amongst my best preferred crafters and artists, it couldn't be lacking Grandmother Anna, who is the grandmother of my partner and a very special creator for me. Actually she is a true master of knitting and, since I met my partner some years ago, she started to made amazing wool cloths for me! Her ability not only in knitting, but also in conceiving projects, inventing styles and selecting materials have always surprised me! The unique scarves, capes, and sweaters made by her really helped me during last winters, keeping me warm even in the strong Parisian weather!

 

 

But, I am not alone in benefitting of her skills, and this is the reason why I took decision to introduce my dear Grandmother Anna in this post. Latterly, she doing amazing cloths and other wool creations for my forthcoming daughter! Blankets, sweaters, hoods, socks, bibs... everything that she will need! This is the very special event that I would like to share with you, the readers of my blog: I am waiting a baby and soon I will start to share my life with my little (and well-dressed!) one!! I am really, really looking forward! Thank you very much Grandmother Anna for all you're doing for us!!

The pleasure of tiny things. Emilia's creations

Sometime ago I discovered the wonderful world of the vintage wooden type drawers. They are a really cute embellishments, able to give a cozy and personal touch to my sweet home. And, since I discovered this, I cannot stop myself to buy this kind of drawers when I find them in Parisian flea markets... hopefully, it is not so easy to find them and, since my first one, I was able to find only other two! Indeed, I fear that the walls of my little attic already reached their maximum load capacity!!! Once hanged on the wall, the race starts to find out all kind of tiny things to fulfill all the cases. During my researches for cute miniatures, I discovered Emilia and I fell in love with her amazing creations!

In her wonderful shop on etsy, Emilia shows a lot of cute miniatures in polymer clay. She also proposes to make custom orders. And this is what I asked: it was sufficient to send some pictures of Fifi and after few days I received this tiny marvel! It is unbelievable the care that Emilia puts in details and the perfection of this very very little miniature. In order to understand the size of this miniature, it is sufficient to see the photos here around: I have taken some photos of this miniature with the littlest items I was able to find in my home. Isn't it the sweetest thing ever seen? 

 

 

 

 

And here's the miniature of Fifi installed in its place on my new type drawer: She's now found a special place amongst other little friends!!!

My favorite illustrators # 10 Beatrice Mallet

During my researches for writing my last post about Le Petit Bateau, I discovered the amazing work of Beatrice Mallet, to which I am glad here to write a personal tribute as my 10th issue of posts dedicate to my favorite illustrators.

Born as Beatrice Fox in 1896 in the Island of Long Eaton in England, she became Beatrice Mallet after having married in 1919 Hervé Mallet. Her family worked as lace-makers at Long Eaton: she met Hervé there, when he was sent by her parents that they were traders of laces in Paris. They both were passioned for the art of drawing, also Hervé was, indeed, an illustrator. They move together to Paris, where she started a quick career as illustrator for advertising ; one of her first work was for the Galleries Lafayette...

Yet one of her best work, for me, and the reason why I have the chance to met her, was to create in 1924 a new advertising for Le Petit Bateau: this firm was at that time changing its scopes from being a producer of hosiery for adults to be an enterprises focused on the children world. For instance, in 1918 the first underwear "without legs" for children was created and soon afterward the name "Petit Bateau" was trade marked. As soon as in 1924, during this industrial conversion, Petit Bateau met on its road Beatrice, whose childish style and dreamy irony became the perfect symbol for this change: Marinette, the mascot of Petit Bateau during this glorious period of its history, was born during 1920s from the genius of Beatrice Mallet!

Differently to the other old illustrators that I was glad to present previously (such for instance Hervé Morvan), Beatrice Mallet is nowadays not very known, in spite of her huge talent of illustrator and his former first class reputation in France where, more than being the "pencil" of Galleries Lafayette and of Le Petit Bateau, she was also the author of many spellings-books and of a lot of satiric illustrations. Many information about her work and her life have been hopefully gathered by this website, which suggest you to visit also for the great collection of Beatrice's draws exposed. I hope that this writing could help to not forget the talent of this great woman, and this hand carved rubber stamp is my personal tribute to her. I hope you like it!

My favorite illustrators # 9 Afrocat

Perhaps, many of you already know this illustrator, which I'm glad to introduce here in this new issue of this series of post dedicated to my favorite illustrators... based in South Korea, Afrocat is one of my favorite designer of stationery: card, notebooks, stickers and many other amazing items!

The style of this designer is unique: being very inspired to the dreamy world of children draws, I've fallen in love with this style as soon as I have seen it! And I started to collect a certain amount of Afrocat's stuffs and to pill them on my shelves... 

  

Above all, I love the amazing stamp sets that she made. Each stamp fits very well with daily life and the timing of journal is marked by the funny faces and mascots made by Afrocat. Check it out Afrocat's website here, I'm sure you are going to love this cuteness!

My favorite illustrators # 8 Hervé Morvan

In my last post, I wrote about Alsace and amazing tastes coming from this region. And Alsace is giving me the opportunity to pass to a new issue of my favorite illustrators series: indeed I actually stumble upon a very cute illustration of 1962 made by Hervé Morvan for L'Alsacienne, a historical brand of cookies - which alas does no more exist nowadays. This firm, founded in 1904, was one of most famous French producers of cookies, and its "heroine", called friendly la Petite Sophie (the little Sophie), was its logo since its incorporation. When Morvan was called to redefine the public visage of this brand, la Petite Sophie became so cute that, even if supermarkets do not sell this cookies yet, she's able to delight everybody at the first sight!!

Morvan was, along with Raymond Sevignac, Bernad Villemot, and Jean Colin, one of most famous French illustrators for commercial advertising of 1950s and 1960s. This period was the core of the economic boom in many European regions, and society was swiftly getting through a transformation of taste and habits... the mass society was coming in France as well and a period of economic welfare was opening the door to new needs and new way of consummations. In this context, advertising had a key role for firms, which started to wrestle for having the best image to find their way into people's hearts. Illustrators reshaped by this way the visual idea of brands also for future generations... Once Raymond Sevignac argued that successful advertisement had to be "visual scandals"; Morvan made maybe even better, he produced immortal cuties. 

Yet, not everybody knows that Morvan started his artistic activity in relation to cinema. While during 1930s carried out an initial activity as drawer of cinemas' frontages - I think during this period was common that cinemas changed their fronts to adapt them to movies they were projecting - in 1940 he started a new career. He was (luckily) rejected from army for an illness and during the war he became one of most famous illustrator for movie posters... almost all big success since than were signed by Hervé Morvan. It was nice for me to discover that one of my favorite films, De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves), here in France was promoted with a Morvan's advertisement, which you can admire here above. 

Morvan influenced commercial communications for longtime and still today some of his draws are more than simply "ads"; some illustrations can be considered real master pieces, such as this Gitanes' cigarettes poster. Art and business in a certain way came together and mass society was not yet so trivial in its attempt to convince people to consume. And that is more true since nearby the Louvre was opened Les Arts Décoratifs, a museum dedicated to design (industrial and not), advertising and mass society.  If you had the change to get in Paris, I suggest you to pop in and see the special collections about "Advertising museum" that are organized in it.

And, inspired by the cute Petite Sophie, I reproduced this Morvan's draw used for an Alsacienne's advertising... I hope you like it, it was so funny to be carved!!!

My favorite illustrators # 7 Misako Mimoko

by Misako Mimoko

In this continuous discovery of utmost creative entities on the web, to which I'm dedicating a special issue of this blog, it was impossible for me to not assign a special place to Eva, aka Misako Mimoko. Eva is an illustrator, a crafter, a dreamer based in wonderful Barcelona, in Spain. Her creations are simply extraordinary: take a look to her website or to her etsy shop for having an idea of her unique style!

Amongst her creations, Eva has made a wide range of unique characters, thus materialized in the shape of funny dolls! These dolls are entirely hand made with soft and warm fabrics, and they are able to evoke in me the same uniqueness that belongs to "d'antan" dolls, because of the care and of the meticulousness that Eva put in these creations. Since I discovered her on etsy some time ago, I was really fascinated by these imaginative dolls, which she called dolis (the little ladies) and dolos (the baby boyz). For instance, doli winter tree & dolo monsieur tranchette (here above), and doli little house & doli red apple (below).

Yet my favorite doli is this cute candy, which I saw some times ago on her etsy. I love it to such extent that I made an hand carved rubber doli-stamp directly inspired to her sweetness!!