mr. postman look and see

handwritten mail makes me happy. especially if it is from my beloved niece rute marta.
i got a letter today, full with handmade treasures...

the envelope

the letter

and what is in these secret packages you can find out in my shop - here!

life books

news on my pinboard! a nice brown paper envelope with a couple of postcards and a hand-written note has just arrived from the south of france. they are  from mary gaudin, a wonderful photographer whom i learnt to know from her blog l'antipodeuse, and with whom i share the same passion for postcards, cinema, photography and interior.

life books is a special project of mary - you can give her the assignement to take photos of your appartment/house and you will get a book on it - a real interior photography book portraying YOUR living space!
mary says:

i liked the idea of photographing peoples home as a record and memory of their daily lives. people often only take photos of family and friends at important moments but rarely of the spaces and things in their lives.

isn't it a great idea?
next time mary happens to be in germany, i'll ask her to make a life book for me :)

things on my pinboard

pinboards /inspiration boards /mood boards... whatever they're called, i love them, as well as sketch books, notebooks etc. ...

in front of my PC working place there's a huge magnet board which - similar as shelves and cupboards - has its "own" life. postcards (made by me or the ones i get sent, or pick up somewhere), drafts, notes, clippings... nothing is arranged and organized*. the things develop their own "relationship" to each other. for example, at the moment there are 3 pictures with people in motion which landed next to each other. they create quite a dynamic atmosphere here :)

this card i picked up yesterday in a little shop called SAMOBIE and run by two friends - sam and obie. they create wonderful clothes and accessoires, and are welcome newcomers to the "blogland". check out their new blog, as well as their beautifully made website/webshop samobie.
and i really love the collages (as this card, above) made by sam!!


* laurent and deborah, this time you can't say it looks tidy and organized ;))

the original

indre alias mima had to come all the way from berlin to take a photo of the original piece of the quotation which cheered me up at the time of my winter blues ( i posted about it below) ;)
i quite like the heart that somebody added to the chalk writing:

fotos: indre zetzsche

don't push

feeling blue is something i can't really afford now.
i do not have time for doing nothing. there's so much work waiting for me to be done.
so i'm getting impatient and angry with myself.


the other day i saw a message on the street - white chalk on a blackboard. it said:

DON'T PUSH
THE RIVER
IT FLOWS

(i felt sorry i didn't have a camera with me)
today i wrote it on my wall.
so good - hints and directions can be found on the street.


credits: the author of the 2nd row of photos is anda bankovska; the strange colours are the result of the colour negative film being processed as a diapositive. the last pair of photos is D300.

7 things that i love

beautiful jane from the blog if jane tagged me some days ago and asking to write down 7 things that i love.
only seven?! how do i choose - from all those million things that i love? ....

ok, i won't speak about persons, my children, for example - it goes without saying.
i won't speak about my three BIG LOVES neither: photography, cinema and interior design.
i'd rather pick a random choice of small pleasures, just as they come to my mind:


1. the smell of snow in the air some hours before it actually starts to snow.
and freshly fallen snow.



2. to make small presents for somebody i like or somebody i love.



3. the smell of my darkroom (photo processing chemicals, films, paper....?).
and my inspiration board in my studio.


4. glass. and - to stroll along the seaside looking for flotsam glass.




5. signs and typography in the public space.




6. wood. wooden toys, used and with patina. and the smell of freshly chopped wood.



7. the look of sleeping children.


and soooo many other things, like - typewriter, stamps, old family albums, baby shoes and clothes, trains, newborns, magnolias....
.. oh, and polaroids, of course, but this is obvious ;)


and now i should tag 7 other "well deserving and creative bloggers".
here again, i know far more than 7 wonderful bloggers which i would like to tag, but ok...
i'll ask these (some of them my friends), let's see if they agree:

ann - ann wood
camilla - bloom (update 8.12: camillas answer)
catherine - hyggelig
elisabeth - fine little day (update 2.12: elisabeth said "i have to say no because i have too many things on the agenda")
indre - frau mima (update 8.12: indres answer)
julia -giant peach industries (update 17.12: julias answer)
jutta - hujour
rike - fränkisch

what inspires me

the newest catalogue of the danish fashion label selected is my current inspiration.
not so much the clothes though (sorry), but the idea ("fake" newspaper), the layout, the photographie...
(besides, this time i find the male model and the male fashion much better as the female one)

jonathans creations

papa's i-phone (with the image of the earth on its display)

jonathan is ill. it changes a lot in my working schedule, of course, but so is life with children...
so we're staying at home, and jonathan is drawing, and ...
... and we decided that it's time for jonathan's own blog!

et voilà: jonathans creations is online!

it's only a beginning, of course, but there's a never ending flow of "material" piling up every day and waiting to be posted ;)

... and hallo!

hey there! i'm back, but.. in fact i'm NOT (yet back in the blogland). i've sooooooo much to do (deadlines eating me up), so i won't be able to show new things here for a while, although i'd like to...

this is a lion, drawn by jonathan in a couple of minutes today morning, just before leaving for the kindergarten.
the creativity of children makes me envious sometimes ;)

bye-bye

i'm off 'til september.

thank you all for your comments and sorry to those whom i haven't managed to respond yet.

i have to pack for (at least) 3 of us, and .. my heart stood still for a moment yesterday as i realised that anabel doesn't have a passport!!! she never needed it, since it is her first travel abroad. so that had to be done too today. we managed (big sigh of relief!).

i don't think i can write and recieve emails, i guess. but possibly i'll be able to check my blog for new comments, so feel free to leave me a message (or two) ;)


tschüß!

scissors and glue

since i can remember myself as a child, no - since i could handle scissors - i've been cutting out pictures from newspapers and magazines, collecting them - for no special reason. just because i liked them. later i used to glue them in notebooks, starting to arrange them into little stories or collages..
my very best friend (my siamese twin) and i had a common notebook where we glued pictures and wrote quotations or messages for each other. the book "travelled" from one to another. we called it isabella.
collages like this:
todays adolescents "cut out" pictures from internet and "glue" them in their blogs...

to live in a palace

august naht. bald bin ich wieder in lettland, wie fast jedes jahr. die vorfreude darauf zeigt sich in... erinnerungen. ich bekomme lust, fotografien aus vergangenen sommern zu vergrößern, die noch in negativhüllen schlummern. zum beispiel -
schloss rundale.

eigentlich stehe ich nicht besonders auf rokoko. doch diese weiten säle, endlos erscheinende räume, die ineinander über gehen... das hat schon was inspirierendes.


paradoxerweise inspiriert mich hier ein rokoko-schloss zu minimalismus.
die zimmer leer fegen und weiträumigkeit genießen!

wie haben die menschen damals in diesen riesigen leeren räumen gewohnt? sicher habe ich auch ein paar schlafgemächer gesehen, aber sonst?...


spazierten sie einfach durch die türlosen gänge von einem raum in den anderen und genossen das lichtspiel in den fensternischen oder auf den vorhängen ?

(schöne) fenster faszinieren mich; ich merke, dass ich sie immer wieder fotografiere...
da wären wir wieder bei der bausubstanz.
ich sehe schon: ich werde mal meine wohnung verkaufen, wegen der plastikfenster!

von ideen und listen

hilfe!!!!!! ich brauche 48 stunden am tag, und 24 davon am besten für mich alleine!

ich zerreiße mich zwischen gefühlten 337 eigenprojekten und ideen, und selbstauferlegten deadlines; dazu kommen noch aufträge und deadlines von außen...
und ich vergesse sachen, und meine wohnung schaut aus, wie wenn hier eine bombe explodiert wäre (was allerdings bei solch' lebendigen und kreativen kindern wie meinen sehr häufig der fall ist), und und und...
dann habe ich mich hingesetzt und angefangen eine to-do liste zu schreiben. das blatt war allerdings zu kurz.

auch jonathan hat geschrieben (war ja klar!).
... und gestempelt.
... und geschnitten.

das wiederum führte zu einem kleinen photo-shooting.

was hat dieser eintrag eigentlich in diesem blog zu suchen?
na ja, vielleicht passt er dadurch zum konzept, dass die kreativität der kinder sehr inspirierend ist.
eine der ideen, die ich schon längst verwirklichen möchte, ist: textilien bedrucken.
mit kinderzeichnungen (oder -"schreibungen"), zum beispiel, wie diese:

messages 4

messages3

somewhere in london

inspirations

französische zeitschrift für kindermode. tolle aufmachung, tolle photos. teure klamotten. das letztere kann, natürlich, auch nerven - anziehsachen für kleine knirpse ab mindestens 50 euro. aber die sachen sind schööööön. und zum glück gibt es ja auch secondhands, flohmärkte und ebay - wo man dann die selben oder ähnliche dinge (nicht aus der aktuellen kollektion, versteht sich) für ein bruchteil des neupreises erwerben kann. man muss nur wissen, was man sucht ;)

http://www.milkmagazine.net
MilK, because we all feel something in common: nostalgic for our childhood. And here we are, new parents with a mission: to pass on a genuine education that also helps children to develop a taste for beautiful things. This transient moment, we want to live it together, like a hedonistic transition where each moment is an occasion to be an aesthete.

to pass on a genuine education that also helps children to develop a taste for beautiful things (oder im original: transmettre une éducation sincère qui enseigne aussi le goût des jolies choses) - das muss man sich auf der zunge zergehen lassen!

my pin-up wall

FOR ANDA

isabella: lii, 05.09.1993

altkleider