Papo d'Anjo and Oscar de La Renta

Last Autumn, I received an email from the founder of Papo d'Anjo, Catherine Monteiro de Barros, saying that she was moving on and Papo d'Anjo would cease to exist. This was particularly sad to me because it was a wonderful very high-end, extremely good quality line of children's clothing made in Portugal (all throughout the 17 years that was in existence). Catherine is a British designer married to a Portuguese and she started Papo in England in the 1990's. It was sold exclusively at Harrod's - and eventually spread to the USA, selling at Bergdorf Goodman's and through exclusive trunk shows.

I knew of Papo long before I had my daughter, and then was lucky enough to attend a few of the trunk shows. Their blog is still up and there you can see some of their wonderful clothing. However, the news was not all bad. Catherine was moving on... to design a brand new line, also of children's clothing, for Oscar de La Renta (who I have been fortunate enough to have met a couple of times).

The even better news is that the break is seamless (pun intended?) - the clothing is still made in Portugal, of the wonderful quality that was expected with Papo d'Anjo - and the design still very clearly along the the same lines. And for those of us who used to love the trunk shows... they shall continue as well!

Atelier Mariazinha

As I browsed on Facebook all the boutiques that I follow through my page, I thought I would share with you my favourite children clothing and accessories labels, as a regular feature.

You will notice that most of them happen to be European, mostly Portuguese - this is not just a way of promoting Portuguese labels - which I would of course, being Portuguese myself ;-)  - but also because I believe in well-made products, especially if they are beautifully made!

Some time ago I  mentioned Mariadelina, a beautiful boutique in Lisbon, which carries their own brand (made right there in their workshop) and other brands, of clothing, accessories and even furniture. And before that I mentioned one of my all-time favourite boutiques, the Spanish Nanos. I visited their gorgeous shop in Notting Hill, London and could seriously have purchase the entire contents!

Today, I want to feature another boutique, Atelier Mariazinha. Also located in the heart of Lisbon, they sell the most wonderful children's clothing - and their website is absolutely adorable.

Make sure to visit their website and mostly, follow them on Facebook, where you can see more of their products and keep up with sales! ;-)

Thomas the Tank Engine

Our daughter loves trains (she gets that from daddy!) and for the longest time she loved everything Chuggington - we bought the books, the card games, the colouring books, and yes, the episodes (we watched the orginal British ones). And I wondered how long until she discovered Thomas the Tank Engine...

Well, the day came soon enough and we looked online for a few episodes, after we purchased and read one of the stories. Unfortunately, as most cartoons these days, the re-made versions are awful! Eentually we found (only) a handful of the late 80's British episodes on YouTube.

So imagine our delight when we found the DVD with the first ever Thomas episodes, for sale at Target (and they come with a little wooden Thomas)! :-) And in case you did not know - here's the added super-bonus to these episodes... they are narrated by Ring Starr!!

Mariadelina

During a quick visit to Lisbon, I discovered a wonderful baby boutique, Mariadelina.

The clothing is truly wonderful, with all special occasion dresses embroidered by hand. It is all manufactured right there in their Lisbon workshop.

And they carry a wonderful (Spanish made) line of furniture and decorative accents. I could not resist and asked to take a few photos of the things that caught my eye - it made me wish my toddler was still a baby!!

Edward Ardizzone RA

I am always on the look out for great prints to frame - I dream of all my walls completely filled with prints, floor to ceiling! Usually I prefer originals and the older the better (my oldest print is a XVIIIth century print of a ferret), but every now and then I cannot resist reproductions, even in the shape of a greeting card. 

While in London I visited the small but amazing shop owned by architect and designer Ben Pentreath. I love his work - he's a traditionalist - and I particularly love his English-ness (in case you had not noticed, I am an inveterate anglophile). His blog is my daily treat, feeding my love for English vintage and antique, art and architecture, books, country and city. You can read it here.

Among the many things I saw and wanted to carry home, I saw a couple of wonderful prints by Eward Ardizzone, perfect for a child's room. I guess I should have known about him, as he is an RA and I worked at the Royal Academy of Arts for quite a few years, but alas, I had not.

 

Ardizzone was an artist and a prolific children's books illustrator in the early to mid 1900's, worth reading about. There is a sweetness to his illustrations that I love. This time I went with the greeting card format and purchased a few to frame for my daughter's new bathroom - but I am already eying some of the vintage books on eBay!

The Queen's Knickers!

During an extremely short visit to London, we met up with a very good friend whom I had not seen in a long time. She has an adorable little girl who is ten days older than our daughter.

We gave her one of our favourite books, Make Way For Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. Not only do we really love it, but we wanted her daughter to have a New England story!

As it turned out, she also had a wonderful gift for our girl - four small books from a great series, Red Fox Mini Treasures (a division of Random House UK). My daughter absolutely loved them - the stories, the illustrations and especially the fact that they fit perfectly in the new "pack-pack" we got for her in London!

But truly, her very favourite one (which we read and re-read several times, and even talked about when not reading it on the flights we took) was The Queen's Knickers, by Nicholas Allan... Seriously one of the best toddler books I have read! :-) Thank you Julia and Alice!

Le Petit Nicolas

While in Portugal, my daughter discovered a few great cartoons, all of them from a channel called Canal Panda! One of these cartoons was the dubbed version of a fantastic French original - Le Petit Nicolas.  

These episodes are based on a book series by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, written in the late 1950's and some were translated to English in the 60's. Amazon sells both versions.

There was also movie made in 2009, which we cannot wait to see!

Lastly, the cartoons were made in the past couple of years. They are so worth watching - and the music is catchy!! My daughter loves them so much that I am starting to wonder if watching all these French cartoons is really paying off and she is really understanding it all!

Nanos

I love well-made, well-designed chidlren's clothing. And the truth is that brands that fit these two categories are getting harder and harder to find. So imagine my delight when I finally walked into one of these few boutiques, one I knew by name and from their website but had never had the chance to see in person: the Spanish company Nanos.

They have a few shops in Europe, and just recently opened a space inside Harrods. They also have an online shop. I visited their Notting Hill, London, shop last week - and I was not disappointed! It was all I had expected, and better!

The boutique itself is BEAUTIFUL - the aesthetic is exactly what I love for children's rooms, and if I didn't do interior decorating myself, I'd hire their shop designer! :-) Understated, refined, chic, a treat to the eyes. The clothing, shoes and accessories as well are absolutely beautiful - and wonderfully made in Spain. The staff were lovely and I particularly enjoyed talking to the manager about the boutiques, and especially hearing they are doing well.

We left with a teddy bear for our daughter (who had stayed with her grandparents in Portugal) - unfortunately there was no room left in the suitcase for much more! A must visit, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood of a Nanos!

And if anyone can tell me the colours they used for their woodwork, I would be very grateful! ;-)

L'Ane Trotro

This is one of my favourite discoveries when it comes to cartoons: L'ane Trotro (Trotro the Donkey). It is based on the Trotro book series by Bénédicte Guettier, whose main audience is toddlers. We first found the German version on YouTube, and I thought it was a German cartoon. 

Our daughter didn't mind not understanding a word, and as my husband is semi-fluent in German, we just let her watch it. Then, looking for more episodes, I found the original French. The graphics are cute, the stories are simple and the theme song is oh so catchy!!!

Babo Botanicals

When I was growing up, my hair would get so tangled and I would cry so much when combing it that my mother decided to cut it short like a boy. I didn't have hair longer than my chin level until I was about 6 or 7.

My daughter has a mix of my wavy, many-layered hair and her father's straw-fine dark blonde hair. The combination is absolutely beautiful ... for the first 10 minutes after the bath. Most of the time she has a knot right in the center back of her head, especially in the morning, and we constantly fight about combing it.  So it was serendipitous when about a month ago, after a particularly difficult morning trying to convince my daughter to get the knot combed,  that I found the Babo Botanicals Hair Detangler while picking up something at my local pharmacy

It smells wonderful, it's organic and made at a farm in upstate New York - and it really works! It makes it easier to comb her hair and she loves to say "mama, I need the de-tan-gler"!

Snobs

We are die-hard fans of Downton Abbey (even though I am a serious anglophile, who isn't obsessed with DA?!). So, anticipating a "grown-up" (= just the husband and I) trip to London next month and, mostly, anticipating the withdrawal symptoms we will have after season 2 ends in a couple of weeks, I purchased Snobs, written by Downton Abbey's author Julian Fellowes.

Since I brought the book home, our daughter has been slightly obsessed with it... she constantly asks me to read it to her (!) and if I don't, she will spend about 5 minutes (which in toddler time is like, an hour!) flipping through the pages and then carrying it around. I'm thinking it's not so much what the story may be (and hopefully not the cover...) as much as it is that she knows it's a "grown-up" book and she likes to carry it around and pretend...

Or maybe she is a nerd-in-training, like her mamma. I do remember loving books like this (you know, old, worn, read paperbacks), flipping through the pages, pretending I could read... ah, a mamma can dream... :-)

Spork Little

We have gone through a few sets of cutlery since our daughter has learnt to use spoons and forks (not there yet on the knives). I usually send a set to school but sometimes they don't come back (lost, thrown out by accident, etc). So, being the anal person that I am, I was starting to despair every time I opened the drawer and saw incomplete sets - get over it, I know. BUT... I found something that is PERFECT!

These are called Spork Little, made by a company called Light My Fire, they are safe, BPA free and made in Sweden! We purchased this set of 3 at an outdoors shop for $6.50! And even better...spoon and fork are always together! Ha!

Charles Dickens

This morning, through a friend on facebook, I saw this little cartoon introduction to Charles Dickens (whose 200th birthday anniversary is today) produced by the BBC. I thought it was so cute that I showed it to our daughter.

She loved it so much that when we got home this evening, she asked me to show her "the one in London, you know, with the peoples". It took me a few minutes to understand she wanted to watch the Charles Dickens story! After watching about six times, she asked if she could see a different one... anyone know if there are any other BBC cartoons on writers, artists, etc? Such a brilliant idea and so well made!

Some Babies Are Wild (and oh so cute)

We love animals and this is something we have tried to pass on to our daughter. As a consequence, most of her toys and books are animals or about animals. And better than animals... baby animals! So imagine the awwws, oohh, ahhhs when we saw this book, Some Babies Are Wild, in the book section of one of our favourite outdoors shop.

Our daughter loves it so much that she spends most of the time "hugging" and "kissing" the babies!! And can you blame her?!

Slinky Malinki and Hairy MacLary

Our good friends in England sent the funniest books for our daughter's birthday, Slinky Malinki and Hairy MacLary, by Lynley Dodd! She absolutely loves them and has somehow memorised them almost all the way through and I can hear her say it out loud as she is playing! Thank you girls, the books are a hit!

Babar!

Our most recent discovery in cartoons has been Babar! My daughter absolutely loves it - ok, we all do!

We have been watching the original Canadian version, not the more recent one. As you may have noticed, usually we prefer the older versions of books and cartoons - the reason being that the more recent ones are usually too bright coloured and the dialogue/voices have been dumbed down.

Just beware of certain episodes - in retrospect, letting my daughter watch the episode where Babar's mother was killed by a poacher might not have been a good idea - I did not know what was coming and we had never watched that episode...

I think it would be ok to let her watch if she was a tad older, but we're going through the phase where the entire world (including inanimate objects) has mummies and daddies and they should always at all times be together. She did not seem to understand the killing part but was distressed by Babar's calls for his mum and the fact that he "left his mummy behind". So... note to self... make sure you watch everything before you let her watch it...

Martine and the ferret...

My husband had ferrets for almost 15 years, the last 8 of those since we got together. We love the little fuzzies and we are waiting until we are finally settled again to have more. Our daughter met the last three we had but she probably does not remember them anymore (she must have been about a year and a half old when the last ferret died).

This love of ferrets is present in many facets of our lives (including a collection of antique prints of ferrets, some as old as the XVIIth century, a stuffed toy for our daughter, etc) - so we could not believe it when we found this book from our beloved Martine series!

Mustela Hydra-Stick

Winters are really dry up here in New England. I am constantly applying creams and I don't even have a particularly dry skin (ok, maybe, as my husband says, it's "a woman thing). My daughter, on the other hand, has inherited her father's "northern European" sensitive skin, which causes her cheeks and chin to dry to a "sanding-paper" point. I have tried some fat creams like Hydroceryn but they leave a trace of white cream, which is fine at night but not really before leaving the house.

But yesterday, while at my local pharmacy, I found the perfect cream: Mustela's Hydra-Stick Cold Cream. It is not inexpensive but will last a long time, it works really really well, and it smells (and tastes) yummy!

Blue Kangaroo

Last year I purchased the first book in the Blue Kangaroo series, by Emma Chichester Clark. It was so read that the board book fell apart.

This year, for Christmas, our daughter received from Santa the paperback version of it (we have moved on from board books) and a few more. The story is absolutely lovely and the art work is very cute too. We love Emma C. Clark, and especially Blue Kangaroo!

Tea Party

Our daughter has a favourite new toy, that she calls "Tea Party"... it's the Tea Set from Green Toys. She spends hours making us tea and hot chocolate! :-)