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.

Walking through Amsterdam we discovered this lovely shop called the Otherist, carrying many things from popular etsy-sellers like Ashley G.’s bearded guys but also lots wonderful (handmade) things I’ve never heard or seen before.

the Otherist
Leliegracht 6
1015 DE Amsterdam
Netherlands
On the Map

www.otherist.com/

Slowly it’s time to wake up the blog from its winter sleep. I spent the whole friday evening and most of saturday going through piles of photos from 2009. I uploaded almost 400 of them to flickr and even though there’s still quite a pile left, it feels very good to be finally catching up.

We started the new year in the Netherlands with a group of friends, which was absolutely wonderful. We also spent an afternoon in Amsterdam and since I don’t have any new craft projcts to share yet, I thought I could just show you some of the lovely patterns I found there.

What are your new year resolutions for 2010? One of mine is to try and take less photos.

Wishing you all a happy new year and a lovely week!

While the city outside was covered in snow & freezing cold today, I spent the day on the sofa, drinking tea, watching all the little birds that discovered the nut-feast that I hung outside the door and crocheting on my little snake after a little drawing from my colleague.

And now the lovely boyfriend just came over with lots of grocery bags and the idea to make us some yummie Cinnamon Roasted Almonds from this instructables recipe while I do some more crocheting…

How are you spending the weekend?

I love these rare occassions when you actually get to meet some crafters in real life, and talk and laugh – instead of mailing and commenting on each others blogs and photos. So it’s been wonderful to visit the little Nachtbazar at the old factory (”Alte Fabrik”) in Siegburg last night where Sandra (herzensart) and bogi bell have their studio.

Sandra also gave us a little tour through their studio and it was nice to see how they have rearranged it since I saw it at the open studio days last spring and all the beautiful new things they made. And she insisted on giving me one her supercute viking stamps – thank you sooo much Sandra! We’ve already had lots of fun with it today.

I also got to meet Anne Meyer who makes the sweetest Lino Cut prints of houses she discovered in the Netherlands on her last visit there. I forgot to take a photo – but i took one today showing her printed business card – and you can see a lot more on her blog

Hope you’re having a lovely weekend!