Once upon a time in the West...
...wild basketry
La fabrique de Camille is a 100% handmade basketry boutique.
Unique creations are lovingly concocted in a small corner of my home in Anjou (France). You'll find mainly home decoration items, as well as items that help maintain biodiversity (nest boxes and animal shelters in particular).
My suppliers are all local, and I take care to preserve the tree cycle. My creations are therefore made in small quantities according to what nature has to offer.
Who I am
I'm Camille. Curious, dreamy, sensitive. A traveler at heart, eager to discover new things.
My greatest adventures include a humanitarian trip to Egypt, a school exchange to Sweden and China, and globetrotting in Australia and New Zealand. These enriching experiences shaped my curiosity and open-mindedness.
Then one day I realized a dream. I wanted to become a made-to-measure travel consultant for Oceania. But reality soon made me turn away from my passion: the pressure of numbers, almost daily meetings to dissect rejected quotes... I couldn't find myself in a profession where profit had to take precedence over my sensibility.
Fascinated by the world of cartoons, both in terms of the characters' expressions and the way they were set in motion, I began to take an interest in video game design through the famous 3D game engine, Unity. Enthused by this experience, I decided to take a course in computer development, with a view to specializing in game design. And it turned out to be one of my worst experiences. Firstly, because all my efforts to understand this world, which was far too Cartesian for my taste, didn't help me to integrate the logic of how it worked, but also because I was once again a long way from the fantasy and creative world I had imagined for myself.
Following these setbacks, but brimming with optimism, I dared to believe in myself and build a made-to-measure professional life in which creativity would reign supreme.
My joyful entrepreneurial journey 😊
Ideas, ideas, ideas!
Following this decision, I felt a bit like Elsa, in the Snow Queen... 🎶 "libéréééé, délivréééééé!" 🎶 Which then gave me wings to pursue different projects at the same time, all responding to a frustration in the course of my little existence!
Wood, a warm, ribbed material whose scent intoxicates me
I grew up in the countryside surrounded by forests, and wood has always been a warm and reassuring material for me.
So, in 2019, I decided to take my first steps into the world of craftsmanship by working with wood, but not without a few twists and turns:
- Creating a space without a workshop, no problem!
Impossible to give up on becoming a craftsman because of little technical trivia... so I set up shop in a room in the house and welcomed the dust 🤪
- Asking for a little reinforcement cheers you up!
A few recommendations from my husband on how to handle the tools didn't go amiss. The solo workshop quickly turned into a team workshop... the "Camille & Jérémy" team. One of us wasn't exactly in tune with the "dusty" look of the room, but all things considered, love can sometimes work miracles, including following me into any project (even if I pursed my lips very hard! 😅)
- Pretending to be thieves, which of course we weren't!
Hearing the words "You see, my son, you've got to study if you don't want to become like those people" as we loaded pallets next to a garbage can in a small business park. Long live zero waste! Guaranteed giggles on the way home... 🤣
- Designing furniture out of pallets, you still have to be properly equipped, don't you?
That's an excellent idea... vegetable storage, Christmas trees, storage furniture... My enthusiasm came to a screeching halt when I burned out a machine designed for occasional use due to the large number of boards to be prepared.
- Try your hand at
cooking- who said the painter and the cook teamed up?!
Oh, a recipe for edible paint! It was a tremendous failure when I realized that my paint looked more like a rainbow that would eventually disappear over time...
- Indulge in children's creations!
Hm, lovely idea... but what kind of "little" cash flow does it take for the small local craftsman to get every one of these creations standardized in the lab? 🧐
- Creating a click 'n collect "boutique" - we're not even close!
"Honey!? Come on, let's build a pallet wood hut in front of the house to welcome my customers!" 😎 ... bewildered and skeptical looks guaranteed 🤣 but the fact remains that my other half assisted me without flinching through all the construction stages... ah, love ❤️
- Putting an end to the use of pallet wood: a new way of working together!
What if selecting heat-treated pallets rather than chemically treated pallets wasn't enough? What should we do with pallets that have been heat-treated but potentially transported harmful products? This thought led me to discover a local association that respects the forest and the life cycle of trees 🌳
- Working without dust or noise, when nature is king!
For all my love of wood, I've never really enjoyed being harnessed with all the noise, hearing, visual and respiratory protection paraphernalia... especially in the middle of summer! So the idea began to germinate of reorienting myself towards knife and gouge carving.
- Reorienting your business to craft basketry!
Because the idea of working nomadically in the heart of nature, with only the sound of birdsong to listen to, excited me, I considered putting woodworking on hold and reorienting myself towards handcrafted basketry, while keeping the idea of woodcarving... goodbye protective paraphernalia! 🙃
- Buying local and artisanal, minimalism is good too!
Aren't you fed up with this society of over-consumption? Me, I've decided to work with wood only when it's available 🤷🏼♀️ And for the rest, I glean branches of dead wood by going out into nature to recharge my batteries 🌱
Click here to follow me on instagram!
Drawing, or how to reconnect to my bubble of serenity as a child
When I was a child, I could spend hours drawing. And today, I feel a deep sense of calm when I recall that bubble of serenity in which I took refuge.
As the years go by, those precious moments of letting go become rarer and rarer as we grow older.
I had always been self-taught in woodworking, but I invested in solid training to retrain as an illustrator. My technical shortcomings always gave way to frustration, and I wanted to overcome this to finally let my creativity express itself 🎨
One of my plans is to combine my passion for travel with drawing by becoming a notebook and watercolor artist 🌏 🖌️
Click here to follow me on instagram!
In short, a whole career path to review... and what about education?
I couldn't remain indifferent to the professional challenges I faced just two years after graduating. My daily work of introspection enabled me to unravel the thread and unravel both my limiting beliefs and my sources of frustration since childhood.
When, one day, an art therapist suggested that I was multipotential and a high emotional potential, everything became clearer in my mind, as if it were the last piece of the puzzle. It was then that I decided to accompany children on their educational journey, by creating a blog on caring education, inspired by the best educational systems in the world.
Here's a brief outline of what I'd like to contribute, based on my own experience:
- Offer content that's educational, fun and illustrated, because I've always been deeply bored at school, even though I loved learning. But also because I've always believed in the power of playfulness, and it's a way for me to keep my childlike spirit, whatever my age.
- Encourage people to live their emotions and cultivate their optimism by promoting active listening and benevolent communication.
- Encourage you to open up to the world, to apprehend the unknown, to be enriched by encounters, to develop your curiosity and open-mindedness, as I had the opportunity to travel abroad as a child, thus building an "education through travel". My humanitarian trip to Egypt, sharing the daily life of a school in a Cairo shantytown, had a profound effect on me at the age of 15.
- I felt terribly alone and misunderstood, developing a deep sense of unease, until it was suggested that I surround myself with gifted people. It was only then that I finally felt I belonged, and fully assumed my personality.
From this experience came the desire to observe successful educational methods around the world, and it was on Finnish pedagogy that I decided to specialize, in order to promote learning through play, which I am convinced is a fundamental key to success.
That's how Alba & Tino were born, two curious characters eager to travel the world; the credo being to learn in a different way, and above all, by having fun. My first children's story is currently being written, and will of course be illustrated by myself 🙂
Click here to follow me on instagram!
Or discover my blog dedicated to Finnish-style caring parenting 😍
https://alba-et-tino.fr
When you're on the home page, you can select the button at bottom right to translate the page into English 🙂
A wonderful family experience with Signé Lulle
A charming boutique selling fresh and dried flowers and interior decorations on the Normandy coast in Honfleur... you're about to enter the world of my little sister Julia ❤️
The family duo is joined by our spouses, and between the 4 of us, it seems to me that we make a great team ❤️ Julia for her boundless creativity, Silvere for her sharp sense of commerce, Jérémy for his technical and logistical assistance (I've recommended that he keep up his workout routine, which comes in handy when rearranging the store!) and me as an artist and craftsman ❤️
And here is a pretty wreath braided by me and decorated with dried flowers by Julia ❤️
Click here to follow Julia on instagram!
The e-shop
My e-shop offers worldwide shipping 🙂
If you have any difficulty in understanding the purchasing process, or if you would like further details about the product description, please do not hesitate to contact me directly by e-mail at artisanat@lafabriquedecamille.fr
Thank you for your attention!
Camille