Never-ending laborious work

Beginning of this week our webshop technician told me: “Barbara, it’s time to work on the  meta information of the products. Fill in  meta title, meta dscription and meta tag.” Well. this sounds like an easy job. In fact it is an easy but boring job that I started today. Arriving at bags which names start with D in the women -> handbag category I still have a lot left after 3 hours of work. I fear that this super-job will accompany my next weeks.

I already start to get depressive about that and need a break from this boring job! I must think about giving a part of this work to Anna next week. Poor Anna.

Spring spying

Spring is on its way. There is no doubt about that. Today when I was on my way to the shop, I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t instantly hit by a freezing wind,  a wind which I’ve unfortunately have been hit by – one too many times during these past few months. But not today. I put on my (fake) Ray-Bans, and could actually feel the sun’s rays on my back during the entire 15-minutes-walk, from my house to the shop. It felt nice. It was like meeting an old friend, that you haven’t met in months…Exhiting!

I’ve been doing some spying today, spying on fellow “Spring:ers” like myself. It’s fun to see that people dare you step their foot outside their door again, it’s been a long Winter. I’m hoping that this is it – it feels like this could be it – but you never know… In Sweden we have this great expression: “Du ska aldrig ropa “Hej” förrän du har kommit över bäcken.” (Translation: You should never say “Hello” before you’ve crossed the river.) It means that you should be careful getting ahead of yourself. I think this expression has proved itself right way too many times this Winter…

Well, I think Berlin is on the right track. That is more than I can say about Sweden. My mother sent me a picture of our Labrador Frida, playing in the snow. Look at the height difference, comparing the dog to the snow. I must add, our dog is not very big – but come on…

(Pics by marsupialia and Ingrid Sundlöf Eriksson)

Neu im Kiez. New in the neighbourhood: Je länger je lieber

I smell Spring

The weather changed the last days: no more snow, warmer even sunshine and more and more puddles on the street, because of the melting snow. That made me thinking about Spring and redecorating our winter sales area. I threw all the winter stuff out and decorated the new FredsBruder bags and the new beautiful dutch scarves from Jago.  Have you noticed the one with the birds called Boxer? Isn’t it cute?

Ahh…now the shop looks much better: bright colours, more fresh. I really couldn’t stand all this winter stuff any more.

(pics from Marsupialia)

Strange food discovery

Yesterday on my way home I was starving and not motivated to cook at home so I stopped by a pizzeria to get a pizza to take home. While waiting for my pizza I skimmed through  Globetrotter magazine and found this: A Cheeseburger in a can that is meant to be trekking food. You prepare it by heating the can in water. Burger is ready! I instantly ripped the tiny article off the magazine and decided to blog about this kind of really disgusting food today.  Would you eat this? I definitely won’t. I enjoy eating and will never eat this kind of industrial food. (For Germans: It’s fun to read the clients opinions about this product on the globetrotter website)

PS: I am sorry for not blogging yesterday. I was offline the whole day because our computer decided to be on strike. Instead I cleaned windows, tided up etc. the whole day. Today I brought my laptop from home

(pic from Globetrotter, linked to its source)

My Favourites

Today I would like to present one of our newest products here at Beuteltiere – the “Börse Pur”, made by Fredsbruder.

I am that kind of person who keeps everything in my wallet – everything from keys and lip balm, to stuff which actually belongs there – coins, bills and receipts. If you are anything like me, you will like this wallet!

The wallet provides amazing 18 compartments for your cards, an extra compartment for your ID card (especially important for our German readers, who probably have trouble fitting their Personalausweis in their wallets) and three extra compartments for bills, receipts and other various pieces of paper. In the back of the wallet, you find a compartment suitable for your coins, fitted with a zipper. The wallet is securely closed with a button, invisible from the outside.

The wallet is made out of high quality calf-leather and feels nice and soft. A real joy to take out of your bag and show to the rest of the world!

You know – if you have to “get rid” of your bills and coins, then you should at least do it while holding somethings that feels soft and looks pretty…

(The wallet is not in the online shop yet – so you have to be patient and keep your eyes open…)

(pics by marsupialia)

Paper bag.

Thanks to Nicoletters Twitter status that I read this morning in bed I found my blog idea for today: Saskia Diez, a jewelery designer,  and Stefan Diez, one of my favourite product designers,  designed a collection of bags made of paper. The bag is made of Tyvek®, a synthetic paper that is extremely lightweight. Their product is a succesful symbiosis between bag and paper: very lightweight, but robust and waterproof.

(pics above from Saskia Diez, linked to their sources)

Reactions.

The idea for today’s post hit me this morning while I was looking out the window and saw two women passing by the shop window. Their way of passing by was pretty special: they were both pushing a stroller, not stopping in front of the window, but both turning their heads simultaneously to our shop window. That is one way how people react to our shop. “Oh my good they have so nice things! Don’t look at it too close, I don’t have money to spend on bags or accessories.” Lucky us that they remember us when they want to spend some money.

Another way how people, mostly women, react on our shop. They stop in front and stare into the window. It’s extremely interesting to observe the voyeurs clandestinely, e.g.  when the shop is closed on the Sunday and I am standing incognito near the shop and people are offensively staring at the products in the window, pointing a finger on their favourites and loudly commenting. That’s really interesting and funny.

Well pointing a finger on the favourites is not my favourite, because the shop windows need to be cleaned afterwards and I am the one doing it and it’s not my most beloved job.

(picture above from Alfred Koppel, linked to its source)

White.

Inspired by the winter-wonderland outside and a blog post that points out a dutch photographer called Jeltje Fotografie, who has a whole website with fascinating white on white pictures, I started to think about writing something about white today and was looking for white on white pictures on Flickr and found some from Johanes Jander:

In our Western culture we consider white as the colour for happy moments: wedding, baptism…. It stands for innocence, virginity, purity. Other cultures consider white as the colour for mourning. That sounds a bit strange to us, because black, just the opposite colour, is the colour for mourning. For Chines white is the colour for age and autumn and off-white is their colour for mourning.

(pics above from Johannes Jander, linked to their sources)

My Favourites.

Today it’s time for me to present one of my personal favourites: Moonlit6 by Ina Kent. (I wrote about Ina Kent some weeks ago. Read it here) For me it’s the perfect disco bag! Small, but still big enough to host the most necessary things I always carry with me, it’s sportive or less sportive depending on the way I carry it. It’s very simple and clear, but has a bit of the necessary finesse with the gathering on both sides . And then the fancy shining metallic-violet leather. Oh my god I love it. I think this bag will be officially mine sooner or later.

(pics from Marsupialia)