As I love pinterest and as I call myself the google queen (because I find whatever it is you are searching for), I have recently come across many dolls and lovely art pieces, I just adore. I am a huge fan of "Frida Kahlo" and love her art and now I came across this wonderful artist "Cara Carmina", a mexican artist from Canada, who makes all these lovely dolls representing "Frida Kahlo" by hand. So each one is an individual art piece and one-of-a-kind. She sews the hair streaks and face with a sewing machine. She also prints these wonderful leggings for kids and grown-ups and makes dresses as well and her illustrations are just so cute as well. Her dolls sell out after a couple of hours only, so you have to be quick to catch one. She will be making new ones just in time for Christmas. Make sure you check out her homepage, follow her on her Facebook page and etsy shop.

 Additionaly I also already started looking for presents for Christmas for the kids and came across these wonderful dolls by "Mizy,Me", which are also handmade. They are so adorable, but the kids will have to wait for them until Easter.

Moreover one of my worst habits is buying books for my kids. I could open my own book shop with the books we already own. Some of Zoë´s favorite books are (sorry for the German titles, but the translation of the title is right underneath the pictures with a description of the book):

"The Happy Lion" by Louise Fatio & Roger Duvoisin
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Everyone loves the lion at the zoo, the people from the town come by everyday and greet and feed him. One day the door of his cage is left open, so he decides to go visit everyone in the town and return the favor. But this does not turn out as expected. The whole town is in fear of the lion and runs away from him. Except for one special person. This book is about friendship and it warms our hearts every time we read it.

"Sam Who Went To Sea" by Phyllis Root and Axel Scheffler
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​Sam is a little rat, who has the dream of going to the sea. He does everything to pursue his dream, although his neighbors try to convince him, that there are more important things in life than going to the sea. But Sam is persistent until he follows his heart and his dream becomes reality. The book is written very lyrically and has been illustrated by Axel Scheffler, who also illustrated "The Gruffalo", which we can also deeply recommend.

"Sam and Dave Dig a Hole" by Mac Barnett

Yes, another Sam. Sam and Dave dig a hole in order to find something special. They dig deeper and deeper and further and further in order to find this one spectacular thing. They make decisions on where to dig next, not realizing that they almost found a treasure. The illustrations show the reader that they are always so close of finding their treasure, but miss out, due to the fact that they are heading in another direction. Funny wise the dog gets to find the treasure and all of them suddenly fall down, further and further until they land in a place that looks like home, but is it home? Zoë and I started discussing where they could be now, if it is really their home and we make up great stories of how this story could end.

We have many other books, that I would have loved to show you, but apparently they have not yet been translated in english. Just write me a message, in case you want some more German tips. I would also like to recommend you my friend´s blog about lovely illustrated and just special German books:" Miss Mimzy"

And last but not least, our door has to be remodeled, so we got an awful looking white door and would have to look at it for months, so I decided to change it into something cute for Zoë´s birthday but forgot to post about it. Please meet Aaron the Dragon from Helsinki. The shop is called "Made of Sundays" and they have so many lovely wall and door decals, If we had plain doors for the kid´s rooms, I would definitely get some more! Alba is also super nice and when she sends out the box with your decal, she writes really cute messages on them too.

So, please enjoy reading, One more thing, please watch this great choreography!

Life is on fast forward right now, time flies by and I cannot believe our boy is already 6 months old and our big girl just turned 3!

We gave a ballerina-themed party for Zoë and had a wonderful time in the garden, with home made lemonade, cupcakes, cake pops, chocolate coated marshmallows that look like tutus, spinach puff pastry and salads. 

Here are some impressions of the food:

Besides that I also made the giveaways myself, that each kid could take home. I just used simple brown bags, stamps and sewed them together with little ballerina costumes for the girls and little ties for the boys.

For the girls I included a special beads bracelet, a bracelet that had each child´s name written in morse code.

I just wanted to make something special and to me it was easier to find something for the girls, so I took the effort and made them myself. Also I thought it would be nice for the kids to have their names on a bracelet, but in a secret message, so it would not be obvious to strangers. 

Moreover I included a little book and some sweets into the goodie bags.

We had a couple of games for the kids, water games like water bombs, soap bubbles and duck fishing, a table were they could design and paint their own kaleidoscope or a crown, a can knock down game and a „design-your-own cupcake“ station.

Our daughter and her friends had a lot of fun and far too much sugar. It was so nice to see all those happy faces and it made me proud, that we had been the reason for it. 

For the kindergarten I made a special cake for Zoë´s birthday also. It is called a „piñata cake“ and I gave it an pink ombre look. The special thing about a piñata cake is the hidden secret. I put pink Smarties in the middle of the cake and when it gets cut, the Smarties fall out of the cake. The kids were really surprised and loved the fact, that there were even more sweets for them to eat.

Creative work keeps my mind free, it is my personal meditation. 

Due to my job as a manager and concert promoter, I have been reduced to the business side of my character so many times, that I sometimes tend to forget about my creative side. Having children helped me to become creative again. Even more than before.

And so many times I have already said to myself, I should open an online shop, like on etsy or dawanda, where people sell their self-made stuff. This idea is growing on me and one of the things I will start with are probably party supplies, the bracelets and some children´s clothing. But I will get to that some other time.

Talking of business, after the last post, I ordered my new business cards and they turned out to be really nice! I love the feel and look of both of them. I ordered at "Moo" and got both the square card, as well as the mini card. I can really recommend them and I also love their blog as they are posting about other start-ups or interesting companies. So, if you need new business cards, make sure to check them out. It would be greatly appreciated if you could use my recommendation code.