Luloveshandmade

My Life in Instagram photos: March, April and May 2014

May 31, 2014

Hello hello! Better late than never, here’s my everyday life from March to May in Instaram photos. :)

Dog friends. // I was on TV in a DIY episode in a German kid’s show. :) // Running. // Our pretty balcony with my beloved doggie planter from Rice DK.

Spring flowers. // Froyo!! // Excitement, I was on TV! // Daily outfit, pretty home and Flo crashing my outfit photos.

Spring walk. // Happy sports outfit. // At the beergarden. // Day with friends, Jilli and Sina. :)

Date with my lovely friend Albertine. // Colors. // My Mogli. ;* // Frozen yoghurt, mmhh! // Balcony day. // Summer is coming!

At university. // My dog is the cutest! // Kitchen love.

Colorful outfits, ice cream date with the family and Easter brunch at my bestie Anja. :)

Awesome Christmas present, Spreepark tour at the abandoned amusement park in Berlin!! :)

Spring is here!

Date with Flo, May 1st hiking and flamingo outfit. :)

Flower girl!

Delicious burger at Tin Tin. // Rooftop view from Klunkerkranich. // Daily outfit, plant repotting and visiting the Olympus photography playground with Albertine. :)

Morning view. // Happy day at the BeautyBloggerCafé for DaWanda with my colleague and getting to know sweet Nielufar. :*

Cutest dog! // Brunch date colors with a good friend. // Bike tour selfie. // Pretty flower girls. // Beergarden with lovely girrrrls. // Fresh raddishes from the balcony. // Beloved vintage dress. // Farewell workshop at the Snuggery.

Weekent in the nature with my beloved Mama. :*

My springtime was pretty lovely and I hope yours was it, too! :)
Lu

Everything Else

Balcony Makeover Spring 2014 – My Colorful & Green Oasis

April 25, 2014

Hello everyone, happy sunny weekend! :)

This is gonna be a really loooong blogpost with many many photos, because it shows the whole process of turning our balcony into an oasis this spring. :)

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while now might already know that we moved into out current home about 2 1/2 years ago and that this is the third season I’m working on making our balcony perfect. :) If you wanna see more about the past two balcony seasons, simply have a look at all past balcony oasis blogposts. So here we go:

Our balcony after winter:

Each year when winter comes, I leave the dead flowers outside. I think it’s prettier to have a balcony full of rotten plants than to have an empty balcony. Moreover, it looks to pretty when old sunflowers are covered with snow. :) Strawberries, peppermint plants and chives usually survive winter and come back next spring.

So at the beginning of March when spring came, I could hardly wait to get rid of all the dirt and the dead plants and to make everything look fresh and pretty again.

Each time I work on the balcony, Mogli somehow has the impression that it’s really helpful sitting or standing in my way. :D But nevertheless, I managed to clean everything in only one afternoon.

Of course I always ‘recycle’ old soil from the previous year, this especially works well for flowers. For planting and sewing fresh new veggies and herbs, I rather use new organic soil because this is perfect as breeding ground to make plants grow.

For making the balcony look extra special, I painted some average flower pots in pretty colors and added some polka dots, this makes everything extra pretty.

Moreover, if you haven’t noticed yet, sweet Mo of RiceDK sent me the most amazing pink doggie planter for my balcony!! Isn’t it gorgeous?? I was full of excitement when I received this surprise gift! It perfectly fits my style and makes me smile each time I look out of the balcony door. :)

Filling the balcony with pops of color

In the middle of March the next step after cleaning everything was filling the balcony with color! Flo and I went to the garden center and I picked some colorful spring flowers.

Moreover, I got myself some cute tiny red shovels, this makes balcony gardening extra fun.

How much I love the pink planter I colored myself!

This was lots of fun and after buying those first plants, the balcony has already been looking so pretty!

Sowing and growing

As each year, my mother sends us organic seeds and plants for our balcony. At the beginning of April, for making enough space for all the delicious future vegetables and herbs, I needed to fill many empty old pots with fresh soil.

To add some extra color and to mark which seed is in which pot, I again made little masking tape flags.

My mother sent us seeds for flowers, Easter gras, salad, radishes and and mangetout peas and we even had some seeds of last year’s flowers left. :)

We have a total of seven strawberry plants, half of them came back from last year, the others were ordered by my mama this spring.

Doesn’t this look super pretty? I’m so proud how much I make out of this tiny balcony space each year.

Always in the way and curious as can be. :)

The empty pots with the tiny flags are reserved for organic tomato and basil plants which are about to arrive in late April.

How much I love this cute doggie planter and all the other colorful pots! Those which aren’t painted by hand were bought at Butlers, xenos and Tiger. :)

Making progress: seeds becoming plants

In late April, many of the seeds had already become tiny plants and grewed a lot. It was so much fun watching them pop out of the soil during the weeks. :)

Those gorgeous chairs are vintage, my mama once got them for me as a birthday present on DaWanda. :) The table is simply from our local hardware store.

Soon to be colorful marigold.

On the left, you can see a pot with organic lemon balm I bought at Mutter Fourage and on the right there’s some thyme in the background which I had also bought there. In the foreground, you can see the raddishes that I had sown. Stupid me, when sowing them I forgot that my mother had told me that those seeds need a distance of about 5cm in order to grow properly, so I will now have to repot them or simply remove some of the tiny plants. :)

Two years ago, my best friend Anja got me tiny peppermint plants from her mother’s garden and they come back each year. :) Can’t wait to harvest some leaves for cocktails and smoothies!

My mother loves nasturtium a lot, so she got me some seeds. They grow without any effort and the edible blossoms look so pretty in a fresh salad.

This might be one of my fave photos of this whole series, because it’s so full of rich green and bright colors and shows how fast everything has grown! :) Proud girl!

These are the mangetout peas that I had sown, can’t wait to try them!

The strawberries are growing and blooming so fast and even the Easter gras had gotten this size in only about two weeks.

Marigold and lavender from the organic garden center.

This planter is perfect as a highlight in the middle of the balcony and draws lots of attention to the flowers inside.

Luloveshandmade and the Urban Jungle Bloggers

With this colorful blogposts and the progress my balcony has made in the fast few week this year’s spring, it’s the first time I’m taking part in the monthly Urban Jungle Bloggers series. :) This is a blogger series of a community created by Igor of Happy Interior Blog and Judith of JOELIX and its aim is to make the blogosphere green, to share the colorful and green happiness and to connect each other. :) Awesome! If you want to participate (either for this month’s green balcony or window sill theme or next time), simply check out their Facebook page for more details and have a look at all the other bloggers’ lovely green blogposts! :) The hashtag on all social media channels is #urbanjunglebloggers.

So for now, I’m done with my balcony, but in a few days, hopefully the tomato plants and basil plants will arrive and then I can watch those grow.

There’s nothing better after a busy day than to relax, sit on the balcony, look at all those green plants and beautifully colored flowers, watch them grow and enjoy the fresh air outside! :)

Can’t wait for summer when all the wild flowers and sunflowers on my balcony have reached their full size and all the cute honey bees come to visit me! :)

Happy balcony gardening!

Everything Else

My Outfits – Products with Illustrations by Little Ell

April 24, 2014

Hello everyone! I hope your were having relaxing Easter holidays and some nice days with your loved ones! :)
Do you remember my recent blogpost about the outfit illustrations by Little Ell? Sonja used my colorful outfits as inspiration for her illustrations and then even designed some products with them. I was over the moon and totally flattered and then she even topped my excitement with sending me the cutest surprise mail with some of those items she designed. :)

Sonja sent me art prints, stickers and even some magnets with all four of the outfit illustrations.

This winter outfit is one of my very favorites. :)

Those are the two art prints I got, I immediately bought matching frames and hung them above my sewing table so that I can enjoy them every day.

Aren’t her drawings incredibly adorable?

If you adore Sonja’s super cute illustrations as much as I do, make sure to visit Little Ell’s Facebook page, there she always shows insights behind the scenes and you can have a look some of her other projects.

Those cute prints make me happy each time I look at them! :) They have such a special and cute style, can’t get enough of staring at them. :) Moreover, they perfectly match the other framed pieces. :)

Thank you again, Sonja! :)

Happy day, Lu

P.S.: This is not a sponsored post and this blogpost was no condition for receiving those illustrations. They were simply a gift and I wrote this article as an expression of my appreciation and excitement. :)

Everything Else

Happy Easter // Handmade Origami Paper Tulips // Bunny Card Printable

April 18, 2014

Hello everyone, happy Easter!! :)
I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend and are enjoying your Easter holidays!

My handmade origami paper tulips

For pretty spring decor, I made some pastel paper tulips. I learned how to make those during a workshop at the beginning of the year, but if you want to make some yourself, I also found a paper tulip DIY on Pinterest. Those are so pretty to look at and I simply used shashlik skewers to hold the tulips.

Masking tape Easter eggs

Apart from the tulips and the handmade postcard, I’m using simple handmade cardboard masking tape eggs as decor, I hung them above my sewing table. :)

Aren’t those tulips the cutest?

Easter bunny printable

In case you need a last minute postcard, here’s last years’s free Easter bunny card printable.
Enjoy your long weekend! :)
Lu

P.S.: I randomly chose a winner for the printic giveaway, the winner is Wolken Heim, congratulations!! :) I’m now gonna send you an e-mail! Thanks a lot for participating to all the others!

Everything Else

Happy 7th Birthday, Mogli! // About Living with a Dog.

April 7, 2014

Seven years ago, little Mogli was born and since that day, he has always been enriching our lives!

For this occasion, I thought it would be nice to share the story of how we got Mogli and write down some memories. :)

When Flo and I became a couple, we soon found out that we both like dogs a lot and thought that it would be nice to have a dog in our family one day. We both grew up with having pets (I had ducks, geese, a turkey, chicken, cats and goats during my childhood, Flo had bunnies, a cat and a turtle), but none of us ever had a dog. We talked about this more often, but it only was daydreaming and no real planning.

During that time, we often watched the documentary ‘Dogs with jobs’ on Sunday mornings and then we fell in love with dogs even more. There were always dogs with special skills or which fulfilled certain tasks and one day, there was a dalmatian who lived with a family with a daughter who suffered fom epilepsy and the dog saved the kid’s life with waking up the parents during a nighttime epileptic shock and calmed down the kid. This was the first time we really became aware of dalmatians (apart from having watched ‘101 Dalmatians’ for a million times during childhood ;)) and fell in love with this breed.

The more we talked about dogs and admired them, the more aware we became of all the breed’s differences and began reading books to find out which breed would be perfect for us one day and it turned out that dalmatians were a great fit to our lifestyle. We like being outside and going on really long walks a lot (where a pug or a chihuahua for example would have difficulties when going on a bike tour with us) and because dalmatians originally walked next to horses and buckboards in the past, this seemed to be perfect. Moreover, a dalmatian’s character is awesome: super friendly, attentive, curious and positive. This kind of dog needs lots of attention, but not as much as a shepherd’s dog, for example. Moreover, dalmatians love being with people and are really sociable, which is another plus point. It’s lots of effort to bring up and educate them, but not more than it’s the case with other dogs and in a way that it’s suitable for first time dog owners.

After having thought about it and talked about this for several months, we also started planning to move together and the thought of then wanting a dog became more serious. While I was reading lots of dog books, Flo began searching for a good dog breeder and found someone on the Internet. He came across Forst Eichenhorst via the German Association of Dogs Beings (= Verband für das deutsche Hundewesen) which controls dog breeders so that they bring up puppies according to a certain standard. Of course it’s always better to rescue a dog from the local animal shelter, but because it was about to be our very first dog, we didn’t have the confidence to deal with a dog who had gone trough a lot of trouble and rather decided on taking a dog about which we knew it didn’t have a difficult past which might influence its behaviour and overwhelm us with educating it.

Flo then contacted the dog breeders and they immediately invited us to visit them. We drove there halfway across the country and spent there half a day, talking about dogs, about having a dalmatian, about responsibilities and what it would mean to take care of an own dog. The couple at Forst Eichenhorst was super friendly, patiently answered all of our questions and of course asked us a lot, too. They really wanted to make sure that we knew what adoption a dog would mean to us and our lives. They also asked us about a plan B and who would care for Mogli in case we would split up, but we also had an emergency solution for this. From that day on, we stayed in touch and decided to wait for the next puppies coming in a few months.

In the meantime, we went to the animal shelter several times a week for a few months, during good and bad weather, and took out all different kinds of dogs. We wanted to make sure we could really do this and moreover, those dogs were so thankful for someone spending time with them and taking them out. Sometimes I thought we could also have taken a dog from this place, but it simply didn’t seem reasonable considering our lack of experience with a dog who has gone through some traumatic experiences. Nevertheless, spending lots of time there taught us a lot and we were at least able to give some dogs some happy hours outside with us.

With time passing by, we became more and more excited and then one of the dalmatians became pregnant. When it gave birth to the puppies, we nearly couldn’t stand our excitement anymore. :) The dogbreeder then put photos online each week so that we could see the puppies grow. In the meantime, we had been moving together and got everything ready for our life’s new episode with a dog. We drove away for a long weekend for our last short holiday as a couple without the dog. We spent all weekend thinking about dog names, talking about the names of sweets (e.g. Snickers) or movie stars or what else came to our mind. Then we got stuck at Disney movies and the Jungle Book and the name ‘Mogli’ came to Flo’s mind, that was just a perfect fit!!! :) In case we would take a female dog, we chose the name ‘Lily’.

When the puppies were four weeks old, we were allowed to visit them for the first time. Until that day, we still couldn’t decide on whether we wanted a female or male dog. We had been thinking about the pros and cons for a while, but simply couldn’t decide, so we thought it wouldn’t matter and we simply should let it happen. When we came there, it felt so magical to watch those teeny tiny dog babies which at that time had about the size of a guinea pig, their eyes still closed most of the time and only having a few pale dots. :) We were allowed to touch them slightly and carefully take them into our hands and Mogli was the first one we build up a connection with. He stayed on my lap for a while and then peeed into my hands and we fell in love with him. :) This was supposed to be our cute baby dog and we decided that he should be the one we would take home soon.

We drove home full of joy and love feelings for this tiny furry creature and counted the days until we could finally get him. In the meantime, the lovely dog breeder always sent us photos so that we could see how he and his siblings were developing. This was SO exciting!

When he was finally eight weeks old, the big day came! We had read as many dog books as we could (to soak up all the theoretical knowledge ;D), prepared our home and made it dog-safe and bought necessary equipment. Then we drove to get him with our hearts nearly exploding from all the excitement. During those four weeks we hadn’t seen him, Mogli had nearly tripled his size and was a lively and incredibly cute little puppy! It felt super strange taking him with us, knowing he would probably never see his siblings and mother again, but Mogli was brave, only cried a few minutes in the car and then he nearly slept on Flo’s lap during nearly the whole four hour car ride while I was driving. He only woke up for a little break and then immediately fell back asleep.

When we arrived, he explored his new home and then fell asleep super quickly, still being a tiny baby. The very first night with him at home was sooo special and magical, we watched him a while before we fell asleep ourselves, our hearts already filled with love for that cute little thing which from that day on would enrich our lives every day!

Especially the first weeks were exciting, happy and exhausting at the same time. Of course he wasn’t house-trained, yet, and peeed into our home A LOT! :D It took us several weeks, but then everything was fine. Mogli immediately felt comfortable at our home, was super curious and we had the best time watching him become bigger. Our friends were also super excited about him and we really had to tame them because all of them always wanted to be with him at the same time and we didn’t want to overwhelm this tiny creature. :) First of all, we had to get him used to the two of us and slowly teach him the basics on how to behave.

Time went by so quickly and he grew up so fast, my computer is full of photos of cute Mogli, growing up and learning something new each week. For the first few weeks, we went to puppy school so that he could meet other puppies and socialize with them and we lived next to a huge dog field and next to the forest, so he had lots of contact with many other dogs. I think this is mainly the reason why he’s such a friendly dog today: from his early days on he had always been in contact with other dogs and quickly learned how to behave.

When he was about a year old, he was a tiny devil. He often pretended not to hear our commands, he peeed onto the couch, destroyed some furniture and one day he got caught after having torn apart all my books and notes of the current semester at university. :D I was angry, but couldn’t stop laughing. Too good that this episode went by quickly, but it cost us lots of energy, some tears, some broken things at home, lots of strict behaviour towards him, but also lots of laughter and precioius memories.

So what is Mogli like, what is life with a dog like?

Flo and I are both people who enjoy being outsite a lot, so a dog was just perfect for us. Mogli gets to spend lots of time outside, we love long forest walks, sometimes a morning run, wandering around with friends or exploring the city in summer. Mogli is with us most of the time and that’s great!

Having a dog means taking lots of responsobilily and is nothing for people who love to travel frequently. We love holidays at the seaside where we can take Mogli along, all-inclusive holiday clubs aren’t our first choice. :) There’s so much one has to take into account when thinking about getting a dog, this can easily become overwhelming. We thought about it for 1 1/2 years before we finally got him and we also have an emergency plan in the worst case that we split up one day. Moreover, I’ve got relatively flexible working hours and Flo is at home a lot, so it’s not a problem to take care of Mogli and he seldomly is alone for too long.

So how is he like?

Mogli loves being outside, he loves ball games, hunts and running and he easily gets bored when he isn’t entertained enough.

Mogli has some good dog friends with whom he shares kisses, toys and even his bed. :)

He is always curious and loves observing us.

He loves this A LOT! :D

Sometimes when he’s love-sick (poor guy!) he sits there in a strange pose, simply staring at the wall.

Sometimes he gets dirty and only a few times a year (for example when he rolls his body over a dead bird or wild boar excrements ;)) he needs to take a shower. We have been practicing this since he was a baby, so no big deal for him. :D

And sometimes he gets REALLY dirty! The darker a puddle of mud is, the happier he is. Well, at least until he is forced to get a shower afterwards. ;)

Moreover, Mogli is super greedy. :) But if he only knew what ice cream would do to his poor belly, I bet he wouldn’t want it anymore.

When he’s at home, he loves being with us and he loves to cuddle a lot.

But he doesn’t only want to be with us for cuddling, he also wants to help. He loves to ‘help’ with garden work, he keeps me company when I’m sitting in the sun or he tries to warm Flo’s lap. Isn’t that super kind of him? :)

The happiest he is when we are outside, of course he enjoys long walks and outdoor adventures. No mountain high enough, no branch heavy enough for brave Mr. Mogli, he loves showing off what he has and can. ;)

When he’s not too busy with fulfilling his daily tasks, Mogli also loves going on holiday with us. At first, his chest harness had been attached to the seat belt while sitting on the back seat (and trying to come as close to us as possible ;)) and then he moved to the trunk where he has more space and some luxurious pillows for comfortable travelling.

One of his fave places is the seaside. Mogli loves running around the beach like crazy and he even enjoys drinking salty sea water. ;P

When we try to take a family photo, he enjoys crashing it with jumping into our backs…

… or he simply pretends not to know us at all. :D

And now after a happy 7th doggy birthday filled with extra snacks, extra long walks, even more cuddles and a play date with his friend, he is deeply asleep, probably dreaming about upcoming adventures and keeping me company (as he always does :)) while I am writing this blogpost.

Life with a dog costs some time and effort and requires lots of planning (no spontaneous movie dates without walking the dog in advance, no long disco nights until the sun comes up, because the dog needs to pee, no plane rides as a couple without having someone to take care of the dog, …), but if you are aware of this and it still fits your lifestyle, a dog brings so much joy and happiness and I wouldn’t want to miss any of those moments of the past seven years with Mogli! :)

Can’t wait to see if someone of you will ever read this super long blog post! :D I think it’s one of the longest blog texts I’ve ever written. :)

I will go now and cuddle my cute dog!

Happy happy day!