Posts from — Februar 2010

Here’s my second book review and it’s about LIVIN OUT LOUD by Keri Smith.

If you’re lacking ideas you can find them here! This lovely spiral binded book is nicely illustrated, colorful and loaded with playful exercises that will make your creative juices flow once you flip through the pages. Keri encourages you to be original, write a journal and gives you tips on how to start one and why you should enjoy it, a chapter on how to make a living doing what you love (yay). Then there are activities for you to do e.g. “Lifestyle for Sale” (what would you sell if you had a lifestyle store) that challenge your imagination. Throughout the books you find stickers, postcards with quotes, nice illustrations, crafty tutorials… the book is full of nice discoveries.

I read it once but I always come back to the book to read a certain chapter again. Some activities are not for me but overall it’s a cool book which inspires me and cheers me up. It’s a little kick in the butt as well when you’re down and you lack of motivation. Get it! It’s fun!

see them pictures bigger in my flickr.  one, two, three and four

I love this quote!! It’s also available in a different size and can be downloaded here.
Have a relaxing weekend.

Today I will start my series of 7 book reviews as mentioned yesterday. Those books inspired me in more than one way to either live a more creative life, to set new goals in life or better to set goals generally, to find a way how to see every day in a different light… each book had a different impact. While I read them they set up a little fire, wanting me to start changing or creating something right now on the spot. In my opinion that’s the definition of a good book. So let me start.

The first one is a title by Compendium Inc. and called 5. Just that. And it simply deals with the question

I actually don’t remember how I got to know about Compendium Inc. That company offers a big range of inspirational books based on quotes by different people. They have quotes on every item they sell so you have inspiration all over the place. They sell beautiful notepads, journals, postcards, prints, childrens books and much more. When I first ordered there the team was very kind and helpful as they didn’t deliver to Germany  yet and I once even won something on their fanpage on Facebook. But back to the book.

It’s really a book to work with. No images but quotes and questions to make you think about your present and future life. On the first pages they write: “The truth is, most of us are so busy doing what we think we have to do that we never get around to doing what we really want to do. This book celebrates the “want to’s” the “choose to’s” and the “I can’t wait to’s” in your life….” The book makes you think about your personal lifetime values (the Top 5), about your dreams, goals, wishes, the people that you’re grateful for and many things more. They make you WRITE IT DOWN and make you deal with your personal self. They introduce you to yourself by making you aware of what’s important to you.

As it’s about where you will be in 5 years I thought I’d write down my ideas when I become 30 (August this year). I’m a little odd when it comes to tasks like this. I couldn’t just begin in the middle of the year on a random day. I want to catch a special moment that I will remember 5 years after so I can easily check on what really happened and if my dreams came true trying not to be disappointed when things didn’t happen :-)

I highly recommend this book. It made me smile, think, dream, plan. It’s just lovely.

Compendium just released another book called 1. How many people does it take to make a difference? Can’t wait to get this in my hands. I ordered yesterday and I will let you know about that one, too. So that would be review number 8 – a little later as Amazon needs 2 -4 weeks to deliver:-)

I hope you enjoyed this first review. Stay tuned for some more joy on Saturday.

Being a bookfreak – reading one per week – I though it would be nice to introduce the books that inspired me the most lately.

It’s a pile of 7 books and I will post the reviews every second day starting tomorrow.

Enjoy and get inspired :-)

Lucky me had a ticket to the great Ambiente Fair. It’s an international trade fair for GIVING, LIVING and DINING here in Frankfurt. A huge happening with 24 halls (soccer field size) full of the future trends. It’s totally amazing to stroll by the stands, thank god you can’t buy anything there. The fair is for people who have shops and want to place orders. Many things I checked out will not even be available in Germany. I’ve been there with my Mom for 6 hours and still didn’t see everything.

I want to show you some interesting products we’ve found. Researching them was a real hassle. The things I’ll show here are not available in stores yet so finding decent product shots was not easy and what I’ve found so far is not the best quality. Photographing was not allowed anywhere. Bummer. There was a LOT great stuff to see.

This is a lovely cradle by Kare Frandsen. Egged shaped and you can either hang it on the ceiling or put it in a stand. When you don’t need the cradle anymore it makes a little seat for the child. So sweet. Want to have one of those when I have a baby.

A Vespa Rider for the little one. I’m italian. I.Love.Vespa. Ultimate cuteness!

I found this kitchen cloth at the stand of dein-hausfreund.de. The text is so funny. It refers to the German translation of the movie “Once upon a time in the west”. They replaced 2 letters with another and it has totally different meaning. Good idea.

Normally I’m not that interested in dinnerware. Yes… until I’ve been to the fair. There I’ve seen so many great sets my heart sometimes missed a beat.

My favorite was the set “Filmpaper” by Rosenthal. It’s just white and the texture looks like a pile of paper that was slid to the side. Hard to explain. Very minimal and elegant. Made of biscuit porcelain and you have to pay your soul to the devil in order to buy the whole set. BEAUTIFUL!!

Uh, and this is something very very creative and fun. It instantly caught my eye as I’m a big fan of graffiti street art and here it’s combined with old-school china.

The project here is called 300++. 2 young designers redesigned old classic porcelain by famous and traditional German brands. The collections are highly limited. Each of the the 10 sets contains 12 or 18 pieces (4 or 8 persons) and is limited to 300 sets (we’re celebrating 300 years of porcelain culture this year).  The image shown here are from the collection “WEIMAR ROCKS” and would be 349 Euros for a set of 12 pieces. Reasonable for such a great work.

Before:

After:

A big trend are double walled glasses that keep the warm/cold drink warm or cold :-) That’s not new but it’s still very hip.  These here are made by BODUM.This brand RÄDER I just discovered recently at a local book store and instantly fell in love with it. For someone who loves quote this is a must-have. They have all kinds of gifts in their collection – stationery, calendars, decoration pieces, things for the garden, things for the dinner table… I can’t name it all.  The material is carefully chosen and the items are beautifully processed.