Yesterday the post guy came with a surprise parcel!  ”I received something from Finland!?” – I said, “Santa is in Finland (Rovaniemi), so it must be, my… SECRET SANTA PRESENT! Yay!!!”

But this present did not come from Rovaniemi, but from a bit more to the south, from Turku!! where my husband Matthias studied in the time we met. Isn’t this a beautiful coincidence? Secret Santa gift swap is an action/idea from the European Street Team in Etsy. Every year people participate in this swap sending presents to each other all throughout Europe. I already sent mine .

Sofia Knust, from Sofiasobeide and Varm, sent me these gorgeous accessories for home and for me to wear. Love them!!! I love crocheted accessories, and these ones fit perfect in our home deco this Christmas! She sent me 2 pairs of coasters in red and white, 2 Christmas canes that will go to the Christmas Tree high close to the top, one little Guardian Angel (holographic and reflecting light) that is perfect to decorate my bike , and 2 crocheted brooches that I used immediately and kept them all day long!

Love them all and thank you very much Sofia! (Tack så mycket!)

Don’t panic, no hospital. Just my bed at home where I’ve been for almost 2 weeks. This has been one of the worse colds I’ve had, at least that I can remember. Yesterday I thought it was getting over, but today this cold knocked me down again.

Today is Thanksgiving day for many around the globe. Did you know that being thankful is one of the secrets of living a happy and prosperous life? I want to Thank you for keeping up with me during all this incredible time. And Thank you for keeping up with me in a future that starts today!  And to add something more as an special thank you from me, you will find something for you at the end of these lines.

Now I will update you with some few notes about what’s being happening around Kirschbits. A lot, despite the long silence in my blog, facebook or twitter. Without an strict chronological order, more or less here they go:

1. I’ve been learning and trying new sewing techniques. This takes time, but the results blown me away! I can’t wait to use them in my new collection! (but I must wait, this cold still has me in bed!).

2. I got a new sewing machine! Those who saw one of my few Facebook updates of the last weeks, already knew about it. But for those who don’t, I got a Janome Memory Craft 5200, and even if its not their newest jewel, it is an incredible sewing machine! I’ve been as well testing it. So far I’ve been able to make one bag (soon to be in my shop), which will be the first of my new Unisex crossbody collection! The machine worked so smoothly in such thick and sturdy bag! Makes me SO HAPPY!!!

3. Me and my husband have been renovating our home step by step. My birthday was earlier this month, and all I asked for presents was used to enrich our living room, and some corners here and there in our home. We got new cabinets, one for my sewing corner, which still needs some decorative work -my task >still not done > I’m sick-. I decorated a new mirror in our hallway, we built a new closet for my son, and hubby made a new cabinet for our kitchen to match the new one we got. The next carpenter project will be my most needed and awaited Thread Rack Cabinet! We designed it and got all materials now. Yep I will document step by step and if possible bring you a tutorial! It is a piece of furniture so much needed to keep organized our crafting and sewing world!

4. I’ve been slowly working on my new website. I know it’s been taking longer than expected. But to make it well, secure and compliant with laws has been taking a lot of work tweaking details here and there.

5. This weekend is the long awaited Black Friday / Cyber Monday offers worldwide! Kirschbits is no exception! I’m offering FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING! in all my Etsy shop products! Additionally I have a special offer reserved for you! 25% OFF IN ALL MY PRODUCTS! Grab this code: BFCM25OFF and paste it in your check out process at Kirschbits.etsy.com 

So I hope to be hearing from all of you soon, as much as you will be hearing from me very soon again (why Bilbo Baggins birthday party speech came to my mind just now?)

Off to bed with my blanket up to my chin and a cup of hot lemon, ginger and honey tea!

This has been an incredible week. We went to what I believe is the most important event about Handmade business and Sustainability. Hello Etsy! A 2 day conferences in Berlin, happened last weekend, Saturday and Sunday 17-18 Sept. 

Last Thursday I was running all around home selecting stuff to take to Berlin for 4 days and one day extra at my parents-in-law, close to Hamburg.

To make it even more stressful, I decided to make our travel bag the same day!

So I cut all the pieces and started to sew it at 8pm! Yep you might think I’m out of my mind, but my point is, I make bags, so how in Heaven I’ll be using a cheap-almost-plastic sportive travel bag? Yes it has been faithful to us in many short trips, including Matt’s trip to Venezuela. But we were going to the best conference about Handmade, so easy: I had to make our travel bag. Isn’t a beauty?  ;)

Friday

Friday morning we went on the road with our minds and hearts full of dreams and questions, and hoping to meet so many “virtual” friends we’ve made along these 2 years of Etsy Journey that we’ve enjoyed so much, and also hoping to meet a lot of new people, make new friends and learn a lot from all the conference’s speakers.

We arrived at the apartment we were going to share with other 4 fellow members of the Etsy Germany Street Team, other sellers from Germany participating as well in Hello Etsy. Our Team captain had arranged 2 flats through Airbnb -a Hello Etsy special offer- for a group of us to go to Hello Etsy, so we could participate as a group.

The flat was amazing! 3 story old apartment, completely different distribution, as it seems it used to be 2 or even 3 apartments joined in one. Several rooms, several beds, one big kitchen and living room area, a shared garden, balcony, free WI-FI, and a lot, lots of curious decorative stuff-and we all think still in use-  from clothes to shoes, to jewelry to books. Totally bohemian, handmade, chic. A perfect reflection of Berlin to my eyes.

Once the other girls arrived in the flat (April, Kathrin and Birgit, and Cathrin) arrived to the flat, we agreed to go to Hudson’s Cakes, a small place where Etsy Berlin had the pre-registration tea and english cakes party. We met there many more people and the other group of the Germany Street Team members that were there (Johanna and Eva-Dewi, Anke, Tabea, Katherine), as well as some of the European Street Team members.

There we received our badges and bags from Hello Etsy, as a confirmation for our registration in the event. Aren’t these badges so cleverly made? When we were at Etsy Labs in Berlin, Anke had the great idea to add stickers with the name of our Street Team to our badges. So we all agreed and kept them (and I added my own Moo Sticker to it).

Our bags are made from organic cotton and were printed in several neon colors and some in black. We got blue, was quite nice as we both love blue.  Inside the bags we received the program for the 2 days, a book with ideas and more information about the speakers. Several promotional stuff from different sponsors. A drink from Lemonaid, pens and a nice booklet to write down our notes. I wrote several in almost all the sessions I was.

Well back to friday. After the nice meeting at Hudson’s Cakes, we went walking with the Germany Street Team group to the Etsy Headquarters in Berlin, to participate in the very first Hello Etsy Event “Community organizer roundtable”, hosted by Morgan Evans and Danielle Maveal from Etsy NY.

Morgan talked about Teams, and the importance of leadership and how to build and keep an effective Team. It was great that some of us as a team were there.

Though it was mostly dedicated to introduce the Team ideal to the Etsy newbies and people who were hearing about Etsy for the first time, Morgan gave us some very good tips we can use as a team.

She talked about the importance of the Team Leader as a figure that articulates, delegates, visualizes, coordinates and mostly inspire the rest of the team members. But also she remarked that is very important to acknowledge the team leader’s work, not only to help him/her to feel comfortable, but also secure that is making it right. In few words, to support our team leaders.

She also highlighted that through Etsy Teams we can work together within our communities, as well as organize craft night or craft markets, and get the help from Etsy through the “Etsy Grants” program, or Etsy as sponsor, or through the “I heart Art” program. This last one is a great idea to get involved with museums or other Institutions to organize exhibitions. “A team is a network, that keeps us local and personal”.

 Then the Germany Street Team members that were there, decided to look for a place to eat together. We found a small but decent pizza place close to Kottbuser Tor U-Bahn station, where we munched some pizzas, lasagnas, and chatted about crafting, marketing, craft markets, and how difficult it can be in this world of “its cheap, give me 3”…

Then we had a great time meeting new people and Morgan herself, with who we had a great time chatting and fooling around with free beer from the Etsy Labs fridge

Saturday

Next morning we were with our hearts up, and ready to leave at 8 am. We left the flat together and walked down to the nearest subway station, and at 8.30 we were sitting in our places witnessing the introduction and beginning of the most important Handmade and Sustainability event of the year, I dare to say, in the world! I’m so glad to have been part of it!

Matt Stinchcomb (head of Etsy Europe) and Emily Pelich (more or less who organized Hello Etsy Berlin) made a funny and warm -as always- welcome to all of us, crafters from all around the world, to Berlin and to Hello Etsy. Invited us to walk around the place and get to know such an amazing facility.

E-Werk used to be an electrical substation during the DDR times, and then became one of the most well-known Techno-music club. Today is protected (as well as all the area) and its used as events facility. Indeed the spaces are amazing. The most remarkable is the control room, where the old panels of the control station are kept.

Some measuring machinery and a lot of cables are still there (with mountains of dust, which makes it look even more creepy). As I mentioned to Matthias, it looks like Homer Simpson’s control room after he pressed the wrong button!.

Sadly I can’t tell you all about all the speakers we heard, because it would take me a book to do so (sorry this is already quite long!). But one thing I must do, and is to recommend you, to pray to you, not to miss the videos of the speakers available at the Etsy Online Labs.

Specially Tom Hodgkinson, who gave us an hilarious and amazing journey -and a delight to hear his particular british accent- through his experience of the most exciting moment of creation, liberty, responsability and prosperity, by idling!

Yes!, by doing nothing. Haha! sounds crazy, but once you think about it, it is a very tight relationship between the most creative moments and idling. How he created the magazine “The Idler”. “He urges us to throw off the ‘mind forg’d manacles’ and recreate our own everyday lives”. It was mind blowing and a brief introduction of the wonders we were going to learn during these 2 days.

Another speaker you shouldn’t miss is Chad Dickerson, Etsy CEO. Finding your courage was the title of his speech. And what an example of someone who against all odds, found his courage and by ‘decision-taking’ is where he is now. Very ‘waking-up’ words he gave us. I guess I can resume it with one line he quoted: “I’m not perfect, I’m perfectly myself”.

We had great time all together, people around the world joining in the main common room to have snacks, coffee or lunch. The atmosphere was totally energizing. So much to hear, to know and so many people like us to meet and learn from!.

Natalie Chanin showed us a good example of how a small handmade business went to a major design and fashion company, by getting her community involved. Helping her community and her community helping her, together created an amazing company that keeps faithful and true to its origins, and every piece of clothing is totally handmade, no machine work of any kind!

Another excellent, fun and full of ideas was the session with Charlie Festa from Threadless.com, who gave us hints on how to engage with our community to grow our business, as he said: Meet up! Organize Meet ups of any kind and engage everyone on it. Make it fun, but structure it, and keep making more. This draw more people to your brand and engage the ones that have already gone to a meet up.

Then the sessions began to be more varied, and people began to split here and there. We went to hear and learn from Hessam Lavi, who talked about SEO tips for small business. He gave some very useful tips about the correct use of Keywords, and answered a lot of our questions, including one from me.

On the break we went to the roof as people was praising the view and how nice was up there, so we went and indeed the view over the head of Berlin was stunning!

After the break we enjoyed the creativity of Ullaa Engeström from ThingLink, a creative company that bring life to your images on the web. It was amazing how during her speech she presented a new feature, that enables users to record directly on the image!. So she did it live to show it to us as the very first official example of this new feature. Click here to listen, scroll down until you find the photo of Matt and Benedikta, hover with your mouse over the image and click on the button over Matt’s shoulder (Thinglink Recording). You will listen our voices recorded live last saturday at Hello Etsy! Isn’t amazing?! Definitely I will give ThingLink a try!

Then we enjoyed listening and watching so many ideas from Lisa Rodwell (Moo.com) on how to create, grow and promote your brand. How important is to build a strong brand and how to do it. All through the example of how Moo.com grew to be one of the biggest printing companies of the world. (Yes I do love my Moo cards, mini cards and stickers!). She gave 5 S’s of Brand building:

1. Serve a purpose
2. Stand out from the crowd
3. Stay focused
4. Stick to your purpose
5. Spread the word

She also provided a very nice graphic that shows how a solid brand is, or how everything around your logo, or the name of your business is actually creating your brand. Everything that is in contact with your customer, creates your brand.

Lisa gave a lot of tips and ideas and reminded us constantly that from the packaging to the invoice, everything that can bear our names or our logos, defines our brand. So its important to take care of every detail in every step of the process with our customers, audience and the world.

As a closing to this wonderful, long and tiring day, we had the pleasure to craft our narrative, through the story of a creative girl and Etsy fan from an almost extinct tribe in Alaska, told to us by Farai Chideya (Etsy’s VP of Voice). Through this story she taught us how to recognise and be oneself with our own roots, our own stories, how to bring it to our business, and make it part of it as important as it is part of our lives.

After all this amazing day and our heads full of so many ideas and knowledge, the members of the Germany Street Team, and this time finally joined with our Team Leader Eleanor Mayrhofer, who was totally nervous as her speech was going to be on sunday, we went to have dinner and found a nice and decent Vietnamese place very close to our flats. We had a great time talking about anything and everything. Another Etsy seller from Israel, but living in Berlin for some time now joined us as well. It was very interesting to hear new stories and so many different points of views. One thing was common to all: sending goods by post it is a risk beyond our control that we all must take.

Sunday

We started early in a very dark, cold and rainy Berlin. We didn’t want to miss our friend Eleanor’s speech about Project Management for Indie Business, so we took April with us and Matt drove us to E-Werk. We made it in time to the roof room where Eleanor was just about to start her session. It was more than just be present there to support a friend.

As I told her personally, it was the perfect “knock knock” on my head and at the right moment, for me to come back to my roots and start a real time/schedule management on my own business. It was nice to find so many common points in her career as in mine. Both graphic designers, both working for so many years in big corporations, both managing projects…

While she spoke I was watching my own movie in retrospective. That brought my feet on the ground, and set me back to confront my own need to come back to project management -even if I had already said NO some years ago, to go with the flow- but as the time passes and the more serious and steady the course of my own small business it gets, the more I need to come back to project management.

Eleanor gave a short, deep but easy to understand system to manage your time that she developed during years of experience dealing with this, for other people, and most recently on her own business. It was a real workshop.

She had worksheets for us in the benches that we should fill through the session, which made even easier to understand every point or phase she was explaining to us. It was dynamic, and very very very useful. Many people asked many questions, and seems everybody was happy to have been there getting a bunch of knowledge and useful tips to increase productivity and bring some order to our creative time. You can find more about here.

After the break we had one of the most mind-blowing sessions we could ever imagine. It was time for Douglas Rushkoff, who was welcomed by a very enthusiastic Matt (Stinchcomb). Rushkoff is what I called a real digital subversive. The guy is a perfect digital era punk, with the deep knowledge of this multimedia-digital-internet era, coming from Silicon Valley, he is a real philosopher on this automated era where everything can be found on the internet and almost everything can be done online.

The guy gave us such an insight on what really matters. Slapped our faces making us see how we all have been nothing but products on this already programmed world, and how, right now, in this very moment, thanks to the same opening of the internet, thanks to the individual seeking being individual and personal again, the boom of the creativity and the small business, have given us the power to re-shape the world, and instead of being programmed, make the programs ourselves. In few words, be the real creators of our own ways and not being a child of the consumerism and fall in the trap of every new toy out there. Amazing, refreshing and mind-blowing. Don’t miss it and run here to watch it now!

After a quick Bio lunch (Ecological grown products) I head myself to the “makers” area. It was in the balcony of the big common hall, where several sponsors had smaller stands to help us creative people to create during the show. Downstairs were Moo.com, the Etsy stand (with the cute One Eye Alien Plant from our friend in München MissusD -See photo below), Burda Style, where they were giving away magazines for free, I got 3 and I am already inspired to make some nice garments for myself!

I found myself chatting with the german woman from Burda, and I got to tell the story of my mom and myself going through endless pages of old magazines from the 70’s and 80’s some even in german, that my mom collects since countless years. She was totally fascinated to hear the story how a venezuelan seamstress practically learnt her profession thanks to Burda magazines!

Beside the Burda stand there were the delicious fruits beverages by Innocent, and a big table with a big cloth where people could do embroidery, paint, or sew on it. Upstairs was a bigger area with 5 or 6 Bernina sewing machines and a lot of Marimekko fabrics. These Finnish fabrics are amazing! These were provided by Marimekko and the Nähinstitut Moritzplatz in Berlin (a profesional sewing institute that offers space and machines for rent to fashion designers and tailors). Here I stopped because I just fell in love with one of the Marimekko fabrics and I just had to make something out of it.

Well not just something, I saw the fabric and in my mind I saw 2 beautiful and small throw pillows decorating our -future- new sofa in our living room. So I went straight to the table, asked for a piece of fabric, and then had to wait for a machine to be free. Meanwhile I visualized and cut the fabric for the 2 pillow covers, and when done, I tried to help my friend Judit from the European Street Team, who was sewing for the first time. With the help of the girl from the stand, Judit made such a cute tote bag for her sister! So when finally one machine was free, I could sit down and work on my 2 cute pillow covers. There I met 2 nice girls who came to Berlin all the way from Sydney, Australia to be part of Hello Etsy, wow!!

Once I was done, I went to ask for a piece of batting to fill it, and found out that the girl helping in the stand came from Spain! So we had a looooooooong chat in spanish -finally!- about the social, political and economical situation for us creative people and small business owners, in Spain, Latin-America and Europe. Was quite an insight and somehow a back to the roots among so much, soooo much to see and to do that means being in Berlin. Oh Lourdes is so lucky to be living in Berlin for some time. But she misses her established business in fashion industry in Sevilla. Interesting enough she was there because the whole idea of the small business and sustainability called her attention. She didn’t know about Etsy, and didn’t believe in online commerce before. I hope I convinced her to join Etsy. She said she was going to give it a try. I wish her the best!

So I cut my batting pieces, filled the covers and voilà! my pillows were ready!. When done, I ran to the Control Room where Matthias was already at the Introduction to Product and promotional photography. I came late. The place was full, and even though there was a paper saying the place was crowded, the guy at the elevator let me pass in. I ended walking in right behind the speaker.. sorry Amina! Though I didn’t interrupted her, I sit down in the only available corner and realized I was just in time to hear and see the best half of the session.

With an example, Amina Moreau showed to us how she applied all the theory she had talked before (Matthias told me I didn’t miss much). It was very useful how she went through a whole revamp of an Etsy shop, and with direct and existing product images, she gave us examples and tips on how to improve our product photography as well as tips and exercises to get to find our style and define the color palette that identify our personalities, therefor our business.

One exercise was very useful, building ourselves a list of words that define us, ask someone close to us to do the same, then she -or an external person- build another (our of our products or what she/he knows from us). Then comparing them, some words begin to pop out, some will be removed. Then we have our primary keyword list from where we can select our basic color palettes. A very useful tip!

After the short break Matt was calling everybody to join him in the main room to participate in the last session from Hello Etsy, a live broadcast via Skype with Bill McKibben. Sadly the sound was terrible. Seems there was some sort of problem -sometimes happens in Skype- that the sounds gets interrupted for moments, making it impossible to understand. Matt had to cancel it and the event was then closed by the performance of the musician Josh Wise, who was at the stage with his guitar and a Mac for a small video background. Matt tried to help it but in a funny moment, he just couldn’t. Sadly the sound again had troubles and was not the best though his music was quite nice to close the day.

We felt sorry for the guy, but as we were dead tired, many people and friends were already leaving, and had to take planes, trains or drive hundreds of kms to go back home, we went out to say farewell to our friends and new friends under a soft Berlin rain.

At the end when everybody was saying goodbye, Etsy surprised us with a table with all the herb plants that were decorating the common room tables, inviting us take one home! There were few left. So I took not one but two! One Basil and one Parsley. We guess the plants came from the Prinzessinnengarten, an urban sustainable garden in the middle of Berlin, whose leader also talked to us on saturday. Very interesting project that already has branches in Hamburg and in München if I remember right.

Back home, last wednesday we had a Capressa Salad with some of the delicious leaves of the ‘Berliner’ Basil plant. Yummm Lecker!

And so Hello Etsy finished. We said goodbye and a BIIIIIIIG Thank you to Matt, Morgan and all the Etsy crew for such an incredible event. We do hope it becomes a yearly event and hope we can make it for the next!

Links of interest:

• http://www.etsy.com/
• http://helloetsy.com/
• http://www.livestream.com/etsy/ (video recordings of almost all the sessions are available online. Etsy announced they’re currently editing the rest of the sessions and will be made available soon)
• http://Moo.com
• http://www.blurb.com/
• http://www.thinglink.com/
• http://stealthisprocess.com/
• http://www.airbnb.com/
• http://www.rushkoff.com/
• http://prinzessinnengarten.net/
• http://www.stillmotion.ca/
• http://idler.co.uk/
• http://schoolforstartups.co.uk/
• http://www.farai.com
• http://www.charlesfesta.com/
• http://hessamlavi.com/

I know I’ve been silent for several weeks. I’m still alive. I’ve gone nowhere.

The reason I’ve been away all of a sudden have been the hell-of-a-mess my life and routine became the last 2 months. Then well-deserved (but short) holidays came, and back home,  the hard work started immediately.

Along the drafting, sewing and making available new Beach Bag models, I’ve been busy helping my husband in his revamped blog, and working on my brand new website!

I can only show you this sneak peak, but hold your grip! as very soon I will be proud to show it complete!

Meanwhile, if you ought to have news about Kirschbits,you can always check in my Facebook page or my Tweets.

Thanks for your patience, and I will be dropping by with news very soon.

Van

Sometimes is good and feels good to come back to the roots. As you might have noticed, I was away for almost 2 weeks. It was a retrospective and decision-taking time. Also was a time to share with the family, both for sorrow and for celebration. A well deserved time to go back to the roots and to plant some new.

But bags is what is this post is about, and when talking about bags and accessories, the best way is to get our hands on natural earthly and eco friendly materials.

Today I made a selection of Jute based bags. Different bags for different uses and different styles with one material in common: Jute!

1. Brazilian Coffee Sack Handbag with Red and White stripes by Beenanddone
2. Earthy Jute Wallet / Card Holder – Natural Brown Organic Nomad Purse by Girlwitharadiomind
3. Limited Edition Portland Clutch – Eco friendly and perfect for bridesmaids or a night out by Jolieandme
4. Yellow and Gray clutch with jute detail by Jensbags
5. Extra large blue pinstripe tote bag by Madebynanna
6. Bridal Party Gifts – Eve Jute Totes in Natural with Grossgrain Ribbon Handles – You Choose Color & Can add Monogram by Paristotes