wünschen wir Euch schon jetzt, da wir morgen abeide auf große Fahrt gehen. Und die Wetterverhältnisse sagen: Früh aufstehen dafür… Allen Anderen, die auch noch eine lange Reise vor sich haben: Toi, toi, toi! Wir sind im Geiste mit Euch!

Bis im nächsten Jahr!

Katrin & Barbara

Hi out there! For all who need the last hand on their christmas-presents. Here comes the perfect toping as a free Beuteltiere Download:

English

German

Just print out on a bit heavier paper and cut out with sharp scissors. Than attach a cotton string on the backside of the tags with some scotch tape. Done. Have fun in crafting and enjoy making presents!

Coming to the shop on saturday morning in a good temper in anticipation of a busy christmas Saturday I came here and found our christmas tree laying on the floor. lights destroyed. Very sad! First action I made:  I reinstalled the tree.

Good prepared we bought two light chains, so it is glooming again in the dark. But isn’t it sad, that somebody felt the need to break our nice tree? Especially in that time of the year. Is the stress level that high seeing the christmas holidays coming?

(pic form Marsupialia)

with these inspirations I collected at flickr:

Enjoy a hot chocolate with cream and bisquits. Or share laughter with your families, wrap presents, enjoy the first snow!

As you already know I made some crochet stars for the Beuteltiere Christmas present wrappings. For those who want to see again, click here. But you don’t know our christmas wrapping paper jet. It’s perfectly cooperate identity Beuteltiere brown turquoise:

And the company who is producing these beauties I did not introduce till now too. Bad girl as I am. The paper is coming from stewo, a paper factory based in Switzerland. And what should I say: Fabulous designs.

There new catalogue for next year is out now and we have hard times, deciding which style we should choose for spring/summer! You can download the catalogue here as a pdf-file.

Happy present wrapping everybody! Who still needs a present: Beuteltiere On-line Shop.

(pics froms stewo, linked to their source)

Today i want to make a confession: I love to sing. Well. As loud as possible, and as right as possible, which not always works. Of course. But anyway: my passion still keeps me on trying. And a few weeks before I found a great illustrated song-book for the whole family: Halli hallo Halunken. For those who don’t know German, I try the translation into: Hey ho rapscallions!

Inside there are a lot of more traditional, german songs and a few new ones. At the official website you can download these new created songs, a karaoke version and piano notes for them. That’s really fantastic! And as I figured out just now is that the illustrator Sybille Hein has a blog too and doesn’t live far away from our shop! So, Sybille: When you are around Beuteltieres Shop in Raumerstrasse 19 come on in! You will get a nice hot coffee

Today I spend my day alone in the shop with  folders, lists and numbers. Tax day! Well… taxes. That’s not the most amusing subject ever, but necessary and indispensable. I think about nice things for not becoming desperate. I know that some more enjoyable jobs will come one day.

(pics from Marsupialia)

Neither Katrin nor I had an idea what to blog today. And we weren’t motivated to think about what to blog today. That happens sometimes. Often we give ourselves ideas. Katrin says to me:  “You could blog about ….” And vice versa. But today… well that’s why you get a picture of our christmas birch in front of our shop to celebrate the 3rd Advent weekend.

I hope now you understand the heading of todays post. We wish you all a nice weekend.

Since I have been to Singapore in September I love Chinese food. But not that chinese food that is served everywhere here in Germany. No not this disgusting kind of chinese food with brown sauces or sweet sour, bah. There are some restaurants here in Berlin that serve real Chinese food and that’s what I love. And Ende of November the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin had a special issue on Chinese food that a friend gave to me last week. Really interesting issue: talking about traditional chinese food, what to do or what not to do. Shortly a brief introduction to Chinese food culture.  They also give some tips for delicious Chinese restaurants in the big cities and three of them in Berlin. We will try one out on Wednesday next week. Yeah! I am looking forward to it, looking forward to eat some delicious Dim Sum again.

In the meantime I am working on becoming an expert for all other kinds of Asian food: Vietnamese, Japanese or Korean. Hmmm, lecker (german word for delicious). Does anybody know a delicious Korean restaurant in Berlin? I am still looking for one.

I already think about making wan tan soup or Dim Sum myself. We’ll see…

(foto from Monaz, linked to it’s source)

First I couldn’t believe it was for both of us. Well we were both written on the parcel as receivers, but because it came from Barbara’s parents I thought Barbara would be the lucky one. But no: We both will enjoy the great Christmas goodies which were included in the box! The card is the proof!

And look which fantastic, delicious sweets we got:

I remember Barbara getting all that good stuff during since her studies started. But that I would be once a beneficiary. Wow! The stollen is marvelous, the fruitcake I didn’t dare to cut without Barbara around. The recipe is coming from her grandma (as she told me some time ago), so special and wonderful. If you could only smell the scent streaming out of that little box!

Thank you Parents of Barbara. You made my day, my week, my waiting till Christmas is finally here!