here comes the bride... my favourite wedding blogs

I am currently working on this little blog of mine. To make it more interesting for you, dearest readers. There won’t be any major design changes. A) because I am not great at html. And B) because I like it simple. This gives the pictures more room to “pop”, don’t you think J

Anyway, I thought it is about time now that I show you my favourite blogs. The ones which I visit regularly if not daily. The once which brighten my day and fill me with inspiration.

Since my interests are so manifold, I will limit myself to my 5 favourite blogs in each category. And since it is wedding Wednesday today, here are my 5 favourite wedding blogs:

·         The Offbeat Bride: a site off the beaten wedding track, I love the stories, the photos, the ideas and the tone of this wedding site which is so different from the usual wedding business

·         A Practical Wedding: the motto of this site is: “weddings. minus the insanity. plus the marriage”, it offers wedding planning for ‘normal’ people,  and I tell you there are not too many normal people in the wedding planning business ;-)

·         Brooklyn Bride: pure eye candy, the most beautiful photos you can think of, many ideas are quite over-the-top, but that is what you need as inspiration

·         Jesse and Deanna: a blog about the wedding of Deanna and Jesse, the wedding is over, but the ideas and the heart-warming stories live on, start with their first post in 2007 and work your way towards their big day in 2008, you won’t regret it

·         Theresa heiratet: the story of a young woman who suddenly turns into a bride-to-be, she takes you dress-shopping, to her meeting with the priest, to her hens night and all the other parts of a wedding planning process, hilarious and soooo true, unfortunately in German only

I hope you enjoy a bit of wedding inspiration, nostalgia, kitsch, romanticism or porn, no matter whether you are newly-wed, a bride-to-be, married for ages or single.

Birthday in a Box

It’s my lovely brother-in-law’s birthday and since he is on the road today – without a proper birthday party – I gave him a birthday in a box to take with him.

It contains:

·         A self-made garland
·         Some balloons
·         A birthday candle
·         A chocolate “cake” – well actually it is one of these
·         Some birthday music
·         And of course: a birthday surprise

Well, it won’t replace a party with 50 of his closest friends, a real chocolate cake or a girl jumping out of the later one, but I am sure he will get this once he is back at home anyway.

So, have a happy, happy birthday, dear T.! I hope you have a wonderful day! And yes, the chocolate is all yours, you don’t have to share it with anyone today! Not even my lovely sister.

Baby-Proof your Home – part I

Every Monday I will post something related to babies: inspiration, craft projects, baby news, and discoveries I have made in this new and exciting world for me. I hope you come along on that rollercoaster ride with me.

* * *

If your little one is suddenly (or not so suddenly like mine ;-)) starting to crawl, it is time to have a close look at your home.

The best advice I got so far is: GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES

You really cannot tell what might be exciting (aka dangerous) as long as you don’t put yourself into baby’s perspective. Babies are extremely curious and I didn’t want to limit her movement to a radius of 1 m in a playpen. Therefore I carefully looked for:

Toxic things (washing powder, detergents, plants, cigarettes, alcohol, medicine,...)

Picture found here

Things that could fall onto her (anything leaned against the wall like pictures or mirrors, heavy or breakable items that could be pulled from tables, sideboards or shelves, table cloths of which she can pull all things at once,...)

Picture found here

Things she could fall down or onto (furniture with sharp edges or corners, stone window sills or glass tables, stairs...)

Picture found here

Hot or electric things (candles, oven, stove, electronic appliances, power outlets,...)

Picture found here

Sharp objects (forks, knifes, scissors,...)

Picture found here

Things you don’t want to be broken or stained

Picture found here

That is all for the moment, I think, but please let me know if you can think of anything else.

The next part of the baby-proof series is going to follow as soon as my little one has taken the next developmental step. Walking probably?

This is an Ad-free Space

picture found here

As you might have noticed this little blog of mine now has its own pet. A little owl. From now on she sits in the right top corner and just looks cute. Well, she does a little bit more than that. She wants to tell you that this blog is absolutely ad-free. I am not trying to sell you anything. I started this blog because I loved the idea of sharing ideas with other creative people all over the world. Because I think it is great how much inspiration and communication is provided by the internet for free. And following this definition I don’t have and never will have advertisement on my site.

To be honest, I have even removed some blogs from my reading list, because they changed from a lovely creative site to an ad-overflowing site without any heart and soul. I don’t want to say that every blog, who allows ads on its site is bad. I just decided that advertising has no room on my blog. Not that companies have bombarded me with ad-offers anyway. Well, there was this guy once, who offered to give me groomsmen ties for free. And another, who wanted to have me as Berlin ambassador for his video website. ;-)

I still might mention products or shops, designers or sellers, hotels or artists. But not because they give me a share of their profit, but because I like them. And if for some reason I don’t like them anymore or haven’t liked them in the first place, I will tell you as well. That is called independence. Neutrality. Or lack of ambition. Whatever you want to call it, I am happy to blog for pleasure and not for a living. And I hope you enjoy it ;-) That’s all! No strings attached. No economy. No hidden agenda. I love the idea of doing something just for fun. For free. Even if it might be a utopia for many.

So please enjoy this ad-free space. And my little pet owlet!

Micro-Makeover: The Balcony – Final touches

With this beautiful weather in Berlin at the moment, I am enjoying my little city beach (the big picture here and the details here) more than ever. I love it morning, midday, afternoon, evening and night. And although I try to relax and enjoy the sun and the view, I often find myself doing little things here and there. But these are my final touches, I promise.

Since I try to use my balcony more like an extra room and not just as a little attachment to the apartment, I also thought I needed some art for the walls of my little ‘sunroom’

First I bought picture frames in green and turquoise from IKEA (4 for EUR 5) to stay within my ‘colour scheme’. They come with a plastic cover for the picture instead of a glass cover, which is perfect because then they cannot break even if a gust of wind blows them off the wall.

Then I looked for pictures which would fit within the beach topic but weren’t too colourful. If you have colourful frames like that, I prefer to have pastel or monochrome pictures. Anyway, the minute I saw these X-ray pictures of different shells my decision was made. I enlarged them to exactly fit the frames, printed them on cardboard, then cut out and framed them.

And voila, my city beach balcony sunroom is also a gallery ;-). I am off to the vernissage with an ice coffee now.

Hope you all enjoy your Saturday!

First Birthday Party

I love parties! I love to go to parties! I love to throw them! I think there are many things to celebrate, not only birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and Easter. Therefore I now dedicated my Friday posts to parties: to creative party invitations, to easy-to-make party food, to party decorations that make all the difference... I hope you feel inspired by the festive atmosphere on Fridays and celebrate many small and big events.

It was my little one’s birthday on Tuesday and since I wasn’t allowed to post on the day, I now want to share some details of her first party.

What’s the deal with throwing parties for such little ones, you might ask? While I generally agree with you that the birthday girl (or boy) won’t fully understand what is going on, I still think he or she will feel that something special is happening and that he or she gets extra love and attention on the day.

My decorating scheme – if you can call it a scheme – all started with this wind mill which I found at a a 1-Euro-store. I loved the colours and I loved the nostalgic appeal and I loved the polka dots (especially since we used to call our little one dotty, when I was pregnant with her)

For an extra festive look and a splash of colour I whipped this garland up from paper scraps. The method is the same I used for the doyleys garland here. I just punched circles out of the scrap cardboard and then sew them together with my sewing machine. 10 minutes max for 10 meters of garland and it costs nothing.

The biggest hit for my little one were the balloon, however. I just scattered a few around the apartment and she pointed at them whenever she saw one. Played with them longer than with any of her new toys. Learnt that they explode when you bite into them. Or pinch them really hard. So much fun and so pretty!

And because everything was so dotty, her new baby doll Stella also put on her dotted dress. It is one of the lot I found in the amazing second-hand shop. Doesn’t she look like a mini party girl ;-)

I decided to keep the number of guests very small. Actually I just invited by best friend and her daughter, who is just 9 months older than my little one. The girls know each other very well – because their mamas love to hang out together ;-) – and my little one is always so impressed what the bigger girl can do, plus she loves to take care of my little one. They are just adorable together.

This is how the birthday table looked.

Of course there is the golden birthday plate (which - after much research- I found here)...

... there is the first birthday candle (of many more to come) in my old candle rings...

... and there are very yummy cherry muffins made after the recipe I found at one of my favourite food blogs Schöner Tag noch. They were delicious! Not too dense, not too fluffy. Not too fruity, not too cinnamon-y. Just perfect! And so easy to make – check it out!

I have been to a couple of first birthday parties lately and some of them were a bit over the top for my taste: too many kids, too many adults, too fancy cakes, too many presents, too much action for the birthday baby – because they are still babies even if they turned one. Therefore I am very happy with my little one’s first birthday party – good food and good friends plus lots of time for playing, dancing and cuddling. I hope my little one will agree with me someday and not complain that she hadn’t had a fancy cake ;-)

Happy Father’s Day

card found here

... dearest dad! And dearest dad of my little one.

You two are heroes! You are more important to your children than you ever think. You are doing a great job! I couldn’t do it without you! You rock!

Happy Father’s Day to all great dads in the world! To all the experienced ones. To all the new ones! To all the soon-to-become-dads!