Mia's Rainbow Party

WARNING: this post is very picture heavy. But hopefully all the prettiness will be worth it :)

On Saturday, the 16th November was Mia's birthday. She is my youngest, so my baby. I always feel the change from 2 to 3 is a very big step. They change from baby to child and from their 3rd birthday on, everything changes. So I wanted something very special to mark this great occasion. And Mia is a very happy and cheeky child, who makes me laugh a lot. Therefore rainbows were the perfect theme. I also have seen so many beautiful blogs with posts about rainbow parties. Such eye candy!

Enter the party through the balloon rainbow!

This wooden ring with candles is a tradition in our house. Every birthday, it comes out ad gets lit in the morning when the girls are coming down to open their presents. I love it as it reminds me of Germany and the traditions I grew up with.

My lovely friend Julie from Mademoiselle Poupette made the beautiful rainbow bunting for me. I literally decided two weeks before the party on the theme, so was pressed for time. As I am working like crazy on my own christmas orders, she was so kind to make me one. I also have now clue how to make bunting. Dolls are no problem, but bunting? Scary lol

I took the rainbow theme very serious ;)

Rainbow cups.

Rainbow Skittles and Smarties...ok, at this point a friend of mine said that it is borderline OCD...lol I love to be organised haha.

Rainbow napkins

Rainbow party bags with handmade stickers.

I made these Cake Pops that very delicious. Covered in white chocolate (my favourite) and covered with colourful sprinkles. Perfect!

The cake! I have seen a similar cake online ages ago and saved the image but can no longer find the link.

Everything was rainbows :) But it was so lovely and bright and happy!

And here is the birthday girl in her dress made by me :)

And on her tippy toes, eyeing up the jelly Beans.

Sisters: Lucy and Mia together in their Mummy made dresses :)

 Blowing the candles.

And here is the very impressive inside of the cake. I was not very happy with the outcome of the outside as it looks like a child had wrapped play doh around it and in my perfectionist mind that was just not good enough. But the inside had the very desired wow effect. And it tasted scrummy, too!

Some playtime with the new toy and friends :)

And then it was Pinata time! And all the children had lots of fun and there were no fights over the sweets, which was great.

Lucy with her treasures :)

Mis is enjoying a Cake Pop

And the children all found a way to get the sweets haha. But best was that they all took the cups of the table, put the sweets in and had a picnic under the table lol. the result was that the amount of sweets eaten was not monitored anymore and they all ended up veeery hyper. We had to remove all sweets in the end.

So, that was our rainbow party. It was so much fun to organise and see it coming together. but the best was the children's reaction to it. I would definitely do it again.

Therese xxx

Angels...

This week was very emotional for me. It was tough, sad and at times overwhelming. And progress was very slow. But I was glad about the task ahead of me and grateful and I have to admit, it made me feel special. Special, because this lovely family put their trust and faith in me to create something truly special for them. 

Last year, I had a lovely lady ordering three dolls of me. When I changed my business name, she followed me to my new page and sent me a lovely message at the start of September: 

"Before my husband & I had our 3 children pictured in my profile picture we very sadly had another little boy who passed away - every year we buy a new Christmas decoration for him for our tree but this year I had a thought if you could make a boy doll with angel wings to sit at the top of our tree? "

I was very touched by this request and of course agreed. The result of four days work is this:

This task was extra difficult for me as I have my own experience with Christmas and death. What I am about to tell you, is very personal, but I feel like sharing it.  

There once was  a man in my life, who meant the world to me. His name was Marcel and he was my father. Sadly I didn't have him in my life for very long. When I was only 12, life became overwhelming for him and he no longer could bare the thought of living. So in the night from Christmas Day to Boxing Day, he took a rope and with that rope his own life. What was left was a horrible, deep and very dark hole that took many years to get a little brighter. When I was a child, I imagined that he was my special angel, my guardian angel, who watched over me and protected me. And many times in my life I felt protected, so maybe it is true. 

Christmas has been a tough time for me ever since. Every year I do feel pain but this pain is getting easier to deal with. Now, I can enjoy Christmas again and thanks to my girls I even feel excitement. 


This little angel is called Jake. He was only little and should not have left this world yet. 

I really wanted to give him a very special set of wings that will carry him forever and can wrap around him when he is in need of a hug. 

And all i want to say in the end is this:

Rest in peace little angel and may the big angels be at your side forever.

Therese xxx 

Happy 2 years!!!

Today two years ago, I started my own little business. That time it was called Lena Design and at first I tried myself in some crocheting and a bit of jewellery making but it didn't really satisfy me enough.

This is a crochet pouch I made for my cousin and below is a granny square blanket I made for Lucy.

But I yet had to find my real vocation. This happened luckily really soon, after I started.

I wanted to make a present for my friend's little girl. She was getting a little baby sister at the time and I wanted her to get something special, too. So I searched and searched for the perfect present ad finally came across the Clothkits dolls. I ordered one and started to make it. They are pretty simple as everything is printed onto one piece of fabric and you just cut out. I quite enjoyed making it and loved to have that finished doll afterwards. I think in that moment my love for doll making was born.

But obviously I couldn't and didn't want to sell dolls like this. I knew they needed to be more individual and so I searched again for the right pattern. I fell in love instantly with the fox pattern of 'Bit of Whimsy Dolls'.

This fox is the first doll/softie I ever sold. Many followed and I loved making more. 

I don't mind that it is sometimes tough. The CE marking was my lowest point I think, but I worked myself through that and got to the other side. That was a very proud moment in my doll making career. 

There are always ups and downs in business and it will never be an easy ride. I think as long as you make yourself aware of that it won't get to you as much when you have a down time in your business. I watched my husband grow a flower business from scratch. It was tough the first four or five years and then it started to get easier. He goes through a lot of downs but also many ups. Watching him, helping him and listening to his advice and stories, made me more confident in my own business. It made me less naive as I realised that no business takes of over night and that it is hard work all the time. 

I love being able to stay at home, while working as well. It is only a small business but I have big plans for the future. If they will work out or not, we will see. If you follow my journey, you will get to see it, too. But I will certainly never give up.

I value and appreciate each and every customer and am eternally grateful that you make it possible for me to follow my dream and do what I love.

P.S: Due to the time and effort the ce marking takes, I no longer make that fox.

The Super Kids are here

So, I made two more crazy haired dolls :) These two are super heros, with capes and masks.

Stripy Sandor is a super boy, who dresses in stripes, stripes and did I mention...stripes? Even his hair is stripy!

Sandor is Hungarian and means "Helper and Defender of Mankind". I thought that was a very suitable name, especially as I wanted one to start with the letter "s", like stripy. At first I was thinking of Stripy Sam, but there was just no meaning behind that name.

Stripy Sandor's Super outfit in blue with lime green stripes. The back is the same stripy fabric as his top.

Where there is a super boy, there also has to be a super girl. I think with the super hero theme, girls are often left out. But I think girls enjoy hero play just as much as boys. Even my oldest daughter Lucy, who is very girly and loves her princesses and fairies, has begged me for a super girl for a long time now. If I only had the time to make them all the dolls in the world.

Anyway, when I was thinking up my two super dolls, I knew I wanted to make one for boys and one for girls. I have made a girl doll with stripy hair before, so it had to be dots this time. Originally her name was gonna be "Spotty Sue" and that name was floating around in my head for a long time, but today, when editing the pictures, it struck me that it makes her sound like some wallflower with a spotty face haha. But of course they are polka dots, so her name was changed to Dotty instead of Spotty, which meant I needed a new name beginning with the letter "d". So, after a bit of research, I settled on Devon, which means "Defender", again a very suitable name for a super girl. 

Dotty Devon wears all things polka dot and again, her hair sports the same theme. In fact, it has 26 individually sewn on raspberry pink polka dots. That took quite some time. I love the colours of her outfit. I always liked the combination of pink and green. She looks very cheerful and happy to me.

Dotty devon's super outfit, in lime green with a large pink polka dot on the cape and a machine stitched on flash.

I enjoyed making these two a lot, though they did tale quite some time with all the detail of the hair and the outfits. Also, with this kind of hair, the head gets so thick, that it is rather difficult to turn the dolls and took me up to 30 minutes each but I think it was well worth it.

Summer, sun and sandals

We had two sunny days in a row! This is very rare for Northern Ireland, so with three girls in the house, of course we had to treat ourselves to new sandals. Yay! And we all wore them proudly today.

I have my doll project put on hold for a few weeks, while I will tackle two very large orders, which combined are five dolls alone, plus a few extra bits and bobs. I am not complaining though, as it will be good money for our holidays at the end of July. A much needed trip home to visit my family in Germany. Hopefully with lots of sun, lots of family, lots of laughter and banter and lots of love. i am really looking forward to this trip and Lucy has been talking a lot about it as well. She is now getting to that age, where she is really understanding that there are two different countries, with different languages and different cultures and it is great to see how her love for germany grows and grows and how she appreciates being different.

The Need to be Different...

A while ago I made Candy. 

She was different, because her hair was red and white striped like candy cane...hence her name. she went off to live in Australia but when I shared her on my facebook page, she got lots of positive response. I loved her myself and enjoyed making her a lot.

So I had an idea for other dolls with different hair....here is a little sneak peek of what i am currently working on.

Therese x

New Adventure

Sometimes you need a new adventure. Sometimes you need to change direction.To keep your business alive. To keep your interest alive. ..but most of all, to keep yourself alive.

This is my new adventure. It might be big. It might take a while. But it has potential to be massive. And I hope you will enjoy it as much as I will.

Therese x

Manchmal braucht man ein neues Abenteuer. Manchmal muss man seine Richtung im leben wechseln. Um dein Unternehmen lebendig zu halten. Um dein Interesse lebendig zu erhalten…aber am Meisten, um dich selbst lebendig zu erhalten.

Dies ist mein neues Abenteuer. Es mag gross sein. Es mag eine Weile brauchen. Aber es hat das potential enorm zu sein. Und ich hoffe, ihr werdet es genauso spannend finden, wie ich.

Therese x