(This is a copy of my original german post inviting everyone to our little etsy craft picnic /party thingy in Cologne. Looking forward to see you there!)

Nach einigem fußballbedingten Location-Hinundher haben wir (Nicki, Kathrin, Britta & ich) nun endlich einen offiziellen Plan für den Selber-Machen-Tag am Freitag (18.06.2010) in Köln:

Ab 18 Uhr treffen wir uns auf der Wiese im Stadtgarten – ihr erkennt uns an Fähnchengirlanden & Lampions. Wer Lust hat, kann Stempel basteln – wir bringen alles mit was man dazu braucht (und freuen uns über einen kleinen Unkostenbeitrag und freuen uns sehr, dass Etsy die Stempel-Aktion sponsort!). Ihr könnt aber auch gerne zum Stricken, Häkeln oder einfach nur zum Quatschen & Kennenlernen vorbei kommen!

Und wenn jeder noch eine Kleinigkeit zum Essen & Trinken mitbringt, steht einem perfekten DIY-Picknik eigentlich nichts mehr im Wege.
Wir freuen uns!

Wow. So I’m back from Berlin. And after a week has passed now, everything is slowly getting back to normal. The most amazing thing about Berlin was meeting all these wonderful people. Mostly people I’ve only "known" virtually before, from reading their blogs or tweets, communicating through blog comments, mails or virtual labs – and sometimes not even that.

But also one very special old friend from school who I hadn’t seen for almost 10 years – and her sweet little newborn daughter. There we sat on swinging chairs in the sun, talking, eating and drinking. Catching up.
Has it really been that long?

We take the tube and just half an hour later I sit in Etsy’s new Berlin office – chatting with Benedikta, Matt and Marie. Thinking that it’s been about 4 years since I registered my first account on etsy and discovered this whole new craft world from there – sometimes visiting the virtual labs – but never really expecting to meet anyone in person. And now they’re in Berlin, putting together a handmade office, getting to know the german community – and I sooo can’t wait for etsy.com to finally "speak" german.

Wednesday the re:publica starts. We oversleep. We meet friends from Cologne and have yummie red wine for lunch on crocheted pillow in a cozy italian restaurant.

On thursday we watch Bre talking and later demonstrating the MakerBot. Wow, would someone buy me one? And maybe a laser cutter too?

Later at the beautiful Café Fleury I enjoy a lovely "Kaffeekränzchen" with Nadja a.k.a. Smil, who makes really cool screenprinted t-shirts and bags (Ahoikatze rocks! Oh and don’t miss her screenprinting-workshop at the Etsy Lab) and Sabrina of Small Caps, who designs and prints the most beautiful letterpress cards and journals. I wish I had had more time…

Friday I’m very very happy that Tatiana a.k.a. Fräulein Herz is back in town and between two intersting re:publica talks we sit in her lovely new shop talking and eating yummie cookies surrounded by wonderful bags, pillows and ribbons.

Somewhere in between I visit Frau Tulpe, discover some other lovely things and places (I might tell you about later), take tons of photos, we move from one hostel to another and suddenly we’re on a train back home…

Overwhelmed with impressions. And a bit sorry about some people I didn’t meet – and about being too shy to say Hi to some others…

I’m in the middle of packing and off to Berlin tomorrow – looking forward to meet some old friends, listen to some interesting talks and meet some people at the re:publica conference, take tons of photos and eat lots of yummie food.

I finally ordered some cards to take with me to Berlin but looks like they won’t arrive until monday, so I made some myself last night – well, at least they’re handmade now.

Unfortuanetly I missed the great Etsy Party by just a few days, but who knows, maybe I’ll be able to stop by and at least say Hi. I’m also hoping to be able to visit Fräulein Herz when she gets back to her shop on the 16th – doesn’t it look lovely? And there are some more wonderful things on my list: like visiting Paul Knopf and Frau Tulpe, having a coffee at Café Fleury and a piece of cake at Barcomis. And maybe some Berlin paper-shopping at RSVP, Leporello and Schwesterherz.

And maybe you have some more tipps for me? Any wonderful Papeterie I shouldn’t miss? Or a fleamarket? I’d love to hear from you.

Some supercute girls dresses at Blutsgeschwister, which reminds me that I’ll definetly have to sew myself another skirt or even a dress this summer.

I always love browsing stores that sort the clothes by colour. And I wasn’t the only one, as Magasin Populaire was completely crowded when we got there.

I also found the perfect sneakers there called “Hui Li Warriors” except the smallest size didn’t fit me :-( They are traditional chinese sneakers who gained popularity again through The Book of Warriors students project by Shumeng Ye.

And we found tons of cute stuff at Boutique Frau Kayser, like these fabric covered buttons.

Too bad that it was so rainy, I really hope there’ll be a second time with better weather.