Giving Thanks 2013

I have so much to be thankful for this year. I don't know where to start with my list.

1.Thanks to all my wonderful customers for keeping me so busy this November making it the best ever sales month for my little shop..

2.Thanks to the kids for being so good and helping me with my packaging and getting boxes ready for shipping this year. My label printer happens to be in our basement. So it's good to have someone else make the trip down the stairs...and make sure the labels go on the right box.

3.Thanks to the members of the Natural Kids Team on Etsy! After all these years of being on the team I am still thankful to have their support and friendship.

4.Thanks to my family for putting up with my sewing at all hours and the trail of sewing thread that follows me around the house. No matter how much vacuuming I do, it appears that little pieces of thread show up everywhere...

It's a turkey walking past a pie...Duh!

5.Thanks to the family who is taking us in for Thanksgiving Festivities this year. Since we have no family in town it is wonderful to be adopted by another family to be part of this great American tradition.

6. Thanks to my dear husband. The champion pie maker who struck again this morning and baked two pies to take along to the feast: One apple sauce and one pumpkin pie. I can't decide which I love more. Let's just skip the turkey and go straight to dessert...

7.Thanks to my daughter for going to the gym with me this morning and giving me such a hard work-out program. Now I don't have to feel too guilty eating more than one slice of pie.

I know there are many more things that I should list, just don't have the time right now. Must go and get cleaned up for the party.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you live in the US! If you live in another country I am sure you can still come up with a nice list of things to be thankful for. Giving thanks is always therapeutic...

My Favorite Color?

What's your favorite color? My daughter asked me the other day. I had a hard time deciding. In truth, I love all colors. But maybe right now my more favorite color is this lovely light blue. I call it Winter Blue. I got so obsessed with it I made a whole mess of doll pyjamas with fabric of that color the other day. Don't they look sweet?

 

Made me kind of sleepy and want to crawl into bed afterwards.

It's been chilly in our old drafty house. Some days I have to go outside to warm up...

 

But who has the time for naps and walks. I have been working working working. This has been the busiest November ever for my little shop. I wonder what December has in store for me? Hopefully I'll sell out my shop and then take a vacation in Hawaii.

 

You know the North pole has it's perks, but it would be nice to catch a little sun...

winterblues

winterblues, originally uploaded by germandolls.

Working on some winter blue doll clothes. Feeling a bit chilled in my studio. It's the perfect color for such a day...

Just a reminder...

Visit Amanda's Blog today to enter in the NaturalKids Team's wonderful Winter Giveaway. I will be sending the winner one of my little snowflake babies. They are so sweet and won't make your hands colds at all. Promise!

Have a great weekend!

REALLY BIG Giveaway on Soulemama!

Don't miss this one! 17 members of the Natural Kids Team on Etsy have done it again. We have come together once more to make someone very happy.

We are giving away 17 most adorable items to ONE lucky winner. All are perfect items for stocking stuffers or hannuka gifts maybe...

But hold your horses. It's not until 11/23/2013! I just wanted to give you the Thumbs-up. Visit Amanda Soule's blog on that day!

Here is a picture of all the cool stuff the winner will get:

Are you totally wowed? I certainly am.

Pink Blanket Doll

I finished this sweet Waldorf style blanket doll this morning. Looks like many people are still looking for small gifts for little ones this Christmas. I don't think this one will sit too long around my Etsyshop.

Looks like the German Elf will have to get busy over here and make some more...

Thinking about Food Matters

I have been thinking a lot about food lately. This time of year I miss a lot of the special foods from Germany. But then again, I think it's just well I can't have them. German Christmas treats aren't exactly healthy. Still, I can't help but feel I ate much healthier food when I lived in the Vaterland.

Needless to say, I was a bit shocked when I came back from my trip to Germany this summer, and hopped on the scales. REALLY. I had gained 8 pounds in less than two weeks? That's crazy. Is there something wrong with my memory? Or was it just that everybody fed me sweets and cakes when I came to visit because they missed me so much?

I have worked really hard since June to get rid of the extra pounds. When I need a break from sewing I go to the gym. I try to go a minimum of 3 times a week. I am proud to say I can withstand an hour of torture on the elliptical machine these days. Don't even feel winded afterwords. Still, I have not been able to shed all the extra pounds. I hover around the same weight. And it's driving me nuts. What is it with your body not cooperating any more once you hit 40? What happened to the good times? I can't even have a glass of wine any more without waking up the next morning with a bad headache.

So I went to the library to check out some books on nutrition and dieting. It's not that I am overweight. People who know me laugh at me when I say I need to lose weight. Why you? You are skinny. That is nuts. I just don't like the lack of energy. I don't enjoy feeling tired all the time.

Why not try a new approach? I stumbled upon Mark Bittman's book Food Matters and I have decided that it's perfect for me. It expresses a lot of the thoughts and emotions I have had around food and eating. From the day I moved to the US I have struggled to adjust to the different diet. I guess what I miss mostly from home is bread. In Germany it was one of my main food staples. You know, the daily bread thing goes a long way when you are a poor student in Berlin. But here? If I want to buy a decent loaf of bread I have to drive 50 miles and spend oodles of money. I highly recommend the Prussian Rye at Whole Foods Market! It comes closest to what people eat in Germany.

The first couple of years I tried to bake my own bread. Unfortunately it didn't go so well. I found high altitude baking in Colorado very challenging. I finally gave up and resigned myself to the stuff they call bread in the grocery stores here. It has about 5 million ingredients, including sugar and preservatives. Even the supposedly "healthy" overpriced loaves are full of sugar and sweeteners.

But like I said, I am tired of feeling tired, and I am ready to try Mark Bittman's approach. I want to cut out as many highly processed foods, white sugar, and as much meat as I can. Maybe I'll  even give baking my own bread another try. Just hope hubby won't suggest burning it in the woodstove again. That's what happened to that last German-style sourdough bread I baked years ago.

Confessions of a Fabriholic...

I have been pretty good all year. I bought very few yards of fabric. I am afraid to lose customers because my shop is full of the same old same old stuff. So if you are one of those folks who is getting bored of late with my fabric offerings here is a new fabric design I just added to my stash.

I swear it was on my watch list for months on EBay. This weekend I finally broke down and bought it. I feel a bit guilty. But you know the fabric monster needs to fed once in a while....

Tell me I was right to break down. It just couldn't be helped. I had to buy it...

It's so lovely and pink, and everything a girl could possibly want in a fabric!

New Mermaid Doll

After working on a number of little merbabies it was time to create another big Mermaid girl. Mermaids have always fascinated me. Maybe because I am such a terrible swimmer.

It's a wonder I survived my childhood. My parents would just drop us 5 girls at the pool and say:" Have fun!" My mom didn't know how to swim. She worked all the time and didn't own a bathing suit. My dad had a skin condition that prevented him from going to a public pool. I have no happy memories of my parents playing with us in the water and keeping me safe. I never had swim lessons. I guess my parents figured my older sisters would take care of us or the lifeguard would safe us if need be. So I pretty much grew up terrified of water.

To this day I envy people who are good swimmers and move in the water like fish - or like a mermaid.

Gingerbread anyone?

Here she is: my first Gingerbread Girl of the season. She is even sweeter in real life! Wish I had some Lebkuchen to eat right now. Looking at her dress makes me hungry.

 

I bet you, they have Lebkuchen for sale in every grocery store in Germany right now. If I want some these days, I have to order it from a specialty store over the internet. We used to order a box from Schmidt's Lebkuchen every year. But it is quite pricey and  a couple of times I was disappointed with the quality. It just didn't taste as fresh as I remembered it from my childhood. Or is it just my imagination? Whenever my parents felt flush and could afford it they ordered the Festtagstruhe. My sisters and I would fight over the chocolate covered Elisenkuchen and the Dominosteine (little chocolate covered cubes made from layers of cake, marcipan, and jelly).

I feel myself breaking down. I may just have to order a box...


In Germany you can buy the cheap imitation of Schmidt's Lebkuchen at every store. No need to spend $100. Oh well, on the bright side - this is how I have been able to maintain my girlish figure. If I lived in Germany I'd be a big Frau, no doubt. I'd eat Schokolade and Lebkuchen all day. Here I just don't care that much about sweets...

Hump Day Giveaway

Ha! I recently learned a new word: Hump Day. It's the fun part about being in immigrant. The learning never ends. There is always new vocabulary to learn...Now at first I was a bit stunned. I thought the word meant something indecent. My 15-year-old son laughed at me cruelly. I wasn't getting much help here. Just teasing.

So I went and looked it up in the Urban Dictionary where it says:

Hump Day:

 

1. The middle of a work week (Wednesday); used in the context of climbing a proverbial hill to get through a tough week.

After hump day, the weekend gets closer.

So in celebration of my newly learned word and the fact that we are getting closer to the weekend I decided to do a fun Giveaway on my Facebook Fanpage. Please visit my page for details.

Who would steal a broom?

In case you are wondering where I have been and what I have been up to: RAKING LEAVES.

The joys of fall. Is that why they are called leaves in English? Because everybody just wants them gone from their yard. I think they are so pretty. Why not enjoy the sight and crunching a bit longer? But I finally got tired of the neighbor's angry stares. Every day when I left the house I felt his piercing eyes. Maybe I was only imagining it. I decided to get the rake out. My daughter and I spent two whole days raking the front and backyard. Funny thing was, when it was time to sweep up the last leaves on the walkway I found that my broom had gone missing from the front porch?

Who in the world would go up on another person's porch and steal an old broom? Was it a witch on Halloween night who lost her's maybe? I guess we will never know.

And of course, last night a big wind blew into town and sprinkled a fresh layer onto the lawn. Seems like you just cannot win some days. Oh well, it was good excercize. Who needs the gym when you have yardwork to do?

I will just ignore the neighbor, the leaves, and the yard. Got more sewing to do. Or who will make the stocking stuffers for the little kids this Christmas? A little while ago I got a request for more merbabies. I swear, I did not forget. Just took me a while to get around to it. In fact, I had not made one since this summer and plain forgot how I made them. Does that ever happen to you? With a recipe or pattern? You don't make it for while and forget how it's done.

I am glad I remembered. Here are 3 little merbabies ready for some fun!