Greeting Cards (Hello, card! Hello, Alex)

Hey,

was your weekend as nice as mine?

Saturday afternoon I enjoyed some cheesecake and coffee with all the little ladies living in our cul-de-sac. The Germans call such an event "Kaffeeklatsch" which can be translated as coffee chit-chat or hen party (but with less alcohol, I guess), and it tends to sink into oblivion as something only for old people. But although I was the youngest there (yay!) all the girls were truly young at heart, and we had much fun. 

Afterwards hubby and I drove to Bergisch-Gladbach. But no, we didn't want to pay a visit to screeching Mrs. Klum with Hans and Franz but we went to see a dear friend of mine. 30 years ago, when we rode to school on our dinosaurs, you know, we passed our A-levels together. She had - like many of my circle of friends nowadays - a special birthday, and we spent a very nice evening with many dear classmates from my oldschool old school :-)

As you can't arrive empty handed to such an event I prepared a voucher wrapped in a nice birthday card. And in connection with this I will show you some examples of greeting cards I tinkered over the years… It's far from complete but I don't want to bore you.

One of my first attempts I made already 9 years ago:

It was the save the date announcement for our wedding - of course adorned with my favorite flower and quite suitably with a tied knot (pun intended :-) Short explanation: The Germans don't know the expression "to tie the knot" but if they want to remind themselves of something special they "make a knot into the hanky" to remember that thing or event. In connection with our wedding I did a lot of stationery and other DIY projects but this might fill a whole other post. May be something for May... 

After the wedding I only made some Christmas cards now and then and all other greeting cards were storebought. Fun fact: Last year's Christmas cards were already finished in fall but I was not very happy with them. They looked as if some three year old did them in pre-school, although a Christmas tree popped up when you opened the card. But I could neither stand nor send them and so I designed a new one on my computer and just printed it out. After all, it's some kind of DIY, isn't it?

Then, a few years ago, I made a card for Marie which somehow disappeared in her dorm in Munich, unfortunately. The money/the voucher inside got refunded but the greeting card itself stayed lost. Well Marie, at least you can look at it here:

Here is an Easter card with finger prints turned into cute little chickens: 

And this is the aforementioned card I made for my friend last weekend: 

Please pay special attention to the bunting and the sight - I sewed them on with my sewing machine. Sounds funny but went very well. 

And once I started I couldn't stop and continued with the cards for my dad and my dad-in-law.  I know it's early but what I have, I have :-)

And next Friday my BFF Bine has her birthday - and the guys who know her know also that the design may possibly appeal to her :-)

And again, I used my sewing machine:

Oh, by the way: If somebody waits for my next post to go online on Monday, he or she has to stay patient until Ash Wednesday - I have to (!) celebrate Carnival :-)

Alaaf y'all!!!

Gone with the wind...

Oh boy, that hurricane really hit us! I hope, Sabine left you safe and sound. But for safety reasons, our company told us to work from home today. Which I planned to do anyway because Mondays and Fridays are the worst for commuters, I can tell you! Therefore, I recently changed my habits and drive to the office only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am really grateful for this opportunity. 

And then I have good news - I will be in Vienna next May for our company concert!!! I already told you about our joint musical event, and it showed that there were more applications than availability, and thus they had to decide who can take part and who has to stay at home. I don't know exactly how they made their decision but last week I received confirmation that I am on board! I am really looking forward to a weekend in Vienna although we opted for hubby staying at home looking after house and hounds. The whole project will be filmed and surely published also outside of EY but if anyone wants to take a first glance at the location - please google for the Vienna New Year's concert… I, personally, am deeply impressed.

But before, there is Carnival, Alaaf! For five years I wasn't able to go to my hometown but two years ago I reinstated my tradition to celebrate Carnival in Eschweiler. Dressing up is obligatory, and as we are outside most of the time the costumes have to be nice AND warm. These were my costumes for 2018 and 2019:

And it's up to you to speculate
what the choice reveals about my personality :-)

This year I opted for Disney - and let's be realistic,
it's more Maxie than Minnie Mouse :-) 

Traditionally we serve deep fried sweets on Carnival such as "Quarkbällchen", "Muzen" and "Berliner" (sorry, there are no translations - rest assured that they are pastries high in calories and taste). At least they make the following fasting period (or lent) necessary… In order to cut some calories, I tried to make some Berliner in the oven instead of deep-frying them in fat, and when they were still warm, they were nice and fluffy. But all in all I wouldn't call them Berliner; they were more like the English Scones. You can do, but don't have to. I would prefer the original treat and prolong the gym-time for half an hour afterwards...

Please don't get blown away!

All that glitters is not gold

Hi, y'all,

I suppose I don't have to repeat that well-known saying, but anyway. As you probably know, zero waste or zero plastic is THE trend right now and I am definitely a fan. I won't reduce my plastic waste to one yoghurt cup per year - let's be realistic. But in my eyes it is definitely important to have a critical look on my waste and maybe rethink my habits.

I am still using kitchen paper rolls although I know you could use cloth wipes and throw them in the washer afterwards. But if you have toddlers with a tendency to collect stomach bugs (or furry friends who tend to puke a bit) you might be thankful to be able to throw out the mess as a whole. Therefore, I won't do without kitchen paper (at least for this purpose). But I thought I could do without these yellow-green dish-cleaning sponges and as I had some twine on hand I decided to crochet such a sponge like you see all the time on my favorite inspirations platform. But to be honest: That thingy isn't handy at all and of no good use for cleaning my pots and pans (which I usually clean by hand) and therefore: Glitters, but is definitely not gold.

And I have another example from my bathroom: When I was done with my cotton pads, I crocheted a bunch of these little round pads out of cotton yarn. 

My plan was to use them for make-up or nail polish removal but it didn't work out properly. Although the yarn is pretty absorbent, the nail polish didn't get off as smoothly as I hoped. For my liking I had to use much too much remover liquid (which doesn't make sense when aiming for zero waste) and there were these little remnants around the cuticles which were annoyingly persistent. So, another example for "glitters, but is only brass". My tipp: Use an old t-shirt instead. Cut it into a handy size (like a normal washcloth or German DIN A5 for the Sheldon Coopers among us) it does a way better job than the crocheted stuff and plus you don't have to hem them because they don't unravel. Win-win-situation!

Saw that in the net the day before yesterday - laughed so hard:

Could the Brits at least take their weather with them?

Pretty right - since weeks it is pouring with rain and I regularly check the dog paws for any webbing… Therefore, we didn't do anything exciting last weekend. Stay dry during the upcoming week!