Window shopping in Bremen

At first we have a clothes and accessories shop:

Then my favorite, a toy shop, I think Ulla would like this shop too, already for their gorgeous carrousels and doll house furnitures etc.:

Then a This & That shop:

and a gorgeous old fashioned sweets shop:

Then a lovely tin & enamel shop, all you can buy there is made out of tin, like signs, boxes etc.:

a tourist & souvenir shop, where you can by mementos of Bremen

a doll shops with puppets on a string etc.

and a tea shop with some fairies and christmas bubbles etc.

That's it for today, there are many more gorgeous shops in the "Schnoor Quarter", but I couldn't take pictures of all of them. What would you like to buy?

Bremen's historic "Schnoor Quarter"

My German blogging friend Anita has just read my mind in her comment on my last posting, because the next pictures of my home town that I like to show you now are all taken in the the historic Schnoor Quarter (Schoor means Schnur and that means Thread in English). It's rather like a thread of beads, little houses from the 15th/16th Century huddle together in the city's oldest living quarter. In most of the small houses are toy shops, art shops, restaurants etc. now and it is of course a touristic attraction. Especially artists will love to shop here:

There is also an all year round christmas shop in the "Schnoor Quarter" :

Nex time I'll show you pictures of the gorgeous shop windows so that you can also window shop a bit with me. Would you like to?

Bremen, the German city where I live

This last weekend my cousin from Toronto, Canada came to see us with his son and he also wanted to see our historic town center, so we went there on Sunday and I did the tourist thing for you and did lots of photos, because I thought that maybe some of you would like to see it as well.

Bremen is a very old Hanseatic city, constituted in the 8th century. It is a port city, situated along the river Weser, about 50 km south from its outflow into the North Sea. Bremen is one of two towns belonging to the state of Bremen (official name: Freie Hansestadt Bremen (Free Hanseatic City of Bremen), referring to its membership in the medieval Hanseatic League), the other being Bremerhaven. Population: 663.000. The metropolitan area (Bremen-Oldenburg) has a population more than 2,37 million.
I best start with pictures of our medieval town/city hall being build in the 13th century and being restored in the 15th century and then constantly until today. It's the only European city hall that has never been destroyed and it belongs to the "UNESCO World Cultural Heritage" because it's absolutely unique and authentic.


It has a lot of fascinating details, so I zoomed in the picture to show you some:

Isn't it gorgeous? Medieval people have had so much more imagination in building houses than nowadays! Here is another picture from the left side:

and these fellows, I'm sure you all know them, are standing at the left side of our city hall:

Ignore the people please, there are always people taking their pictures with the "Bremer Stadtmusikanten" (The town musicians of Bremen) because of the famous fairy tale written by the Grimm Brothers.

This is our Cathedral, called the "St. Petri Dom" build in the 13th century. It has a so called plumb basement (Bleikeller) where plump for the roof top works has been stored and dead people, like a roofer who fall of the roof top during his works in the 14th century can now be seen as a mummy, preserved through the plump containing air in the cellar. Spooky!

Okay, looks like blogger won't let me post anymore pictures in this post *rolls eyes*. So I'm going to post more about my medieval home town in one of my next posts if you like.

Studio Friday

The question of studio friday http://www.tinesparkles.squarespace.com/studio-friday-drop-off-zone-/this week is who everyone takes their inspiration from - an artist of traditional media, multimedia, craft world, living or dead.

Well for me there are two artists on the net that are inspiring me with no end!

One it the fabulous "Pamela Garrison" http://pamgarrison.typepad.com/ to whom I have already dedicated my last post!

And the other one is the miraculous "Ulla" http://ullam.typepad.com/ullabenulla/
who has inspired me to try different things like for example the papier marché theatre easter eggs I've posted in march.

So I wanna thank them both very much for sharing their wonderful art and ideas with us and for encouraging us to go and try to make our own kind of art!

The upside of the rainy weather

is that one can do other things than gardening or relaxing in the garden for a change. On Sunday, a very rainy day, I have rediscovered my other creative side and have created a new collage. I've had a break from collage for a few months, but I've kept collecting papers, fibers, brads, stamps, ideas, inspirations etc.. Seeing that I have this obsession for birds, nests and eggs for a long time now it was clear to me that this would be the theme for the first collage in my new crafting corner upstairs in my loft room. So this is what I came up with and I hope that you'll like it:

and for a closer look:

Another thing I've tried to do a few weeks ago was a banner because seeing all the lovely banners for example at Pam Garrisons inspirational site http://pamgarrison.typepad.com/ and also from her article in the last Somerset studio zine I wanted to own one too. The only problem is that I can't sew so I've created this little banner from cardboard:

I know it's nowhere as gorgeous as Pam's, but bear with me please because I'm just a beginner! At least it was fun to work on!

A garden overview for Sue!

Sue has sent me lovely e-mails with photos of her London city flat with a gorgeous ickle patio and garden (where she lives with her husband, a dog and 3 cats, one of them looks like our Sammy!) and of her country cottage in New Forest, Hampshire where she has created a delightful garden from what was a field before. Unfortunately she has no time for an own blog at the moment. In all her e-mails she wrote how much she likes to see views of my garden. Well my garden is quite small so it has not to many views but here are a few up-to-date shots of my terrace and back yard. So Sue here is for you and of course everyone else who likes to see more views of my garden:

New rose book and ripe grapes

First of all I wanna show you my favorite shot of the week:

And then I like to show you some pictures of my new rose book which is full of lovely photos, tips, recipes and creative ideas with roses. My friend and neighbor Ulla gave that to me as a gift because I have watered her garden and fed her cat while she was in vacation. I haven't expected such a lovely gift and I like it a lot! :D

And because some of you liked my little bird feeder with grapes in my last post so much, I took a photo of one of my birdhouses, also with grapes:

This is what the Geranium (Pelargonia) in the above photo looks like close up, the color is perfect, don't you think?

and this is a close up photo of the grapes in the birdhouse photo. I think they also look perfect now:

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend dear readers (or in my case I should better say watchers, because I don't write too much) and blogging friends and neighbors!

A few more shots

from my summer garden that I think I haven't shown you yet: