favorite shop friday: kinchi

I have decided to go out and get my self a daughter because I must have someone in my life wearing this....



A kitty skirt!! In fact, I insist that all parents of darling little girls in the world stop what they are doing and go to this wonderful shop, kinchi, and get a kitty skirt for their little darling because I firmly believe that we will acheive world peace if we could all see sweet little girls skipping around in adorable kitty skirts! How can anything bad happen in a world filled with kitty skirts?



kinchi is the creative outlet of Mirjam who creates children's wares with a hip European design. She uses recycled materials in her very fresh designs thus also help solving the world's environmental concerns. But Mirjam's mind, as she bicycles around her Dutch town of Rotterdam, thinks up more lovelies than just kitty skirts...

like warm hands pants...



tablecloth apron tops...



teatowl dresses...



and the zoological oddity, the Dragondino Snailgoose...



Her designs are so fun and she is obviously passionate about her work and I am so glad kinchi is in the world. Especially since, not only finding a solution to world peace by dressing every little girl in a kitty skirt, she also seems to have found a solution to perpetual happiness and brotherhood with this...



Puppy pants!

You'll find kinchi at http://kinchi.etsy.com and, thankfully, mama-sized designs at her other shop, kinchimama.

barack and me

Even though we're in Europe, my husband and I have been enjoying this year's US Presidential Election. But, although I'm really interested in this year's election (and I'm still trying to figure out how to do the whole absentee ballot thing), I'm thinking maybe I should lay off the CNN for a little while. Because I dreamed last night that I was Barack Obama's girlfriend.

Yes, I was Barack Obama's girlfriend! How cool would that be? Except that it wasn't so cool. He made for kind of a dull boyfriend. His wife had left him and he wasn't sure why and he kept moaning about how he didn't understand why his wife left him. And he really wasn't so interested in his Presidential campaign anymore. But he was really interested in his digital camera and he kept taking photos of really boring landscapes and seascapes and sunsets and all he wanted to do was show me his photos on his camera and hand me big envelopes filled with his prints of dull photos.

Yes, that really was my dream. And I was very glad to wake up and find that Michelle had not left Barack (she's so much better for him than me) but I did find out that Barack does have quite a lot of digital photos out there to go through (which you'll find here)...and they are thankfully more interesting than sunsets and seascapes.

signs 5

I spotted these signs in France. I don't know French, unfortunately...would anyone care to translate? Not this sign really needs any translating. Obviously, motorists are asked to be aware of children and children are asked to run away from any evil-eyed smirking cars on the road.

german music: wir sind helden

About a month ago a German band appeared on Conan O'Brien. Karl and I of course don't get to watch American late night television but once in a while he will download an episode or two and he just happened to download the episode where this German band appeared. The band was Tokio Hotel...and for any of my American friends, family and acquaintances who happened to see them perform on Conan...please allow me to offer my apologies.

Tokio Hotel is very popular here with 12-year-old girls. Even though the band members look like 12-year-old girls themselves, they are really 15-year-old boys pretending that they're a cool rock band. And the last thing I want any of you to think is that Tokio Hotel is a good representation of German pop music.

So I feel the need to counter Tokio Hotel's attempt to seduce American 12-year-old girls by sharing with you some truly good German pop music! I had originally thought I would share you all my favorite German bands in one post but I've since decided that these talents are worth their own individual posts so this will be a new series on my blog!

Today let me introduce you to one of my favorite German bands, Wir Sind Helden (We are Heroes): three boys and a girl named Judith Holofernes (I have no idea if that is her real name or not but I love it!) who have no reason to pretend...they make very cool music!

Here are a couple of my favorite songs: Guten Tag (Good Day)--the video is a kind of tongue-in-cheek account of their sudden rise to fame that came with this song...



...and Nur Ein Wort (Just One Word) as a very Bob Dylan-esque video...



Never mind if you can't understand the words...aren't they great fun?! But, if you are someone who still likes to understand the words...I did find this site with English translations of Wir Sind Helden lyrics. And here, by the way, is the Wir Sind Helden official website. Now go buy their albums here.

I hope you like...and if you happen to know of any other good German (or any other nationality for that matter) bands you think I should check out, let me know!

(Ok, fine...if you missed that Conan episode, here is a link to that creepy androgynous-ness that is Tokio Hotel. They normally sing in German, by the way...and don't say I didn't warn you.)

favorite shop friday: sarah ogren

Today's shop has been a favorite of mine since I first discovered Etsy.com. Sarah Ogren is an artist with a very distinct style: a little bit dark, a little bit witty, and very much what I'd like to see on my walls!



Sarah is a mixed-media artist and her work seems to be inspired by the Victorian era and Romantic Gothic moods as she combines images of people, animals and nature. And I love the strange but pretty moodiness that results!









You can keep up her work at her blog: http://sarahogren.blogspot.com. And, of course you can buy her wonderful work at: http://sarahogren.etsy.com.

doors and windows 2

Strasbourg Cathedral, France



Speyer Cathedral, Germany



Oberweier Chapel, Germany

Titisee, Germany



Eguisheim, France

the game

I got this game from Chickpea Sewing Studio (who got it from Bunnybum but I'm seeing it other places, too). It was fun to play with! Sort of a Flickr self-portrait! Mine is above but you can make your own:

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

It was fun to see the kind of results the searches came up with. If you get tired of trying to figure out what my answers were by the photos then you can see the mosaic here and read the notes over the photo...but I will share with you my favorite result: No. 10. My answer is, of course, my husband Karl. When I put his name in the search the very first photo I got was for an old post office in a district of Berlin...our favorite city and the reason the two of us eventually met. Perfect!

So what do you look like on Flickr?