Hello dear SISTERs!

Like every year the number of interesting events increases with the end of the year. This week SISTER Magazine participated in two very interesting but also very different activities.

After Thea had a wonderful afternoon at the Blogger Meetup with decor8 at Soho House, we of course subscribed to decor8′s Twitter account. Very lucky – otherwise we maybe wouldn’t have known and thus wouldn’t have taken part in the Gift Wrap Class with Anthropologie at Barcomi’s Deli.

At Barcomi’s Deli Anthropologie put up a Pop-up Store for the opening of their German online store. Exactly the right location: the Deli already has something of an Anthropologie Store. Hopefully the physical Anthropologie shops will follow soon because they are a happening in itself. I often go to the store at Regent Street / London for a quick inspiration visit, e.g. for Christmas decoration.

The event yesterday was perfect for the beginning Christmas time. Cosy with coffee and cake the very nice and creative Holly taught us how to create out of simple materials like cloth, paper bags, simple boxes with joy, creativity and colourful masking tape wonderful wrappings and gifts.

Holly’s advise not to handicraft alone but with friends is really good. In the group with 7 other girls the whole work was much more fun and a lot of ideas evolved while watching the others create their boxes and bags – and of course we got to know new friends: Julianne (frokenskicklig.com/), who creates the wonderful Fröken Skicklig dolls, Annie from Montreal, the two Ursulas: Ursula (cutelicious.info/), who makes very cute buttons at Cutelicious and Ursula who reads all our blogs, Anja (makingofeden.blogspot.com/), who offers as Eden very nice bird brooches and Anna (annasterntaler.blogspot.com/), the Social Media Queen from DaWanda :-)

I was really touched about all the positive feedback to SISTER Magazine. This means so much to us and gives us a lot of energy. If you have questions or remarks please comment below or tweet (@sister_mag).

A big thank you again to Holly, Cynthia Barcomi and Anthropologie for the wonderful afternoon.

Yours Toni

P.S. More pictures you can see on Anna Sterntaler’s Blog.

While she will capture fashion from the streets of this world (as a global nomad herself, Janan comes around a lot!), our lovely contributor Janan could probably be featured herself at sartorialist-sites all over the world! Read our little questionnaire – today with cofounder of Casa di Culture

Pictures: Janan’s Picture on fyb, all other courtesy of Casa di Culture

Good night, dear SISTERs!

An eventful day is coming to an end and we want to start telling you a bit about the events, places and people we meet every day while creating SISTER Magazine. Coverage of the conference “Hello Etsy” (September 2011) and “Blogshop” workshop with Bri and Angela (Berlin in October 2011) can be found over at Thea’s blog Neu4bauer. Because these events are such great places to meet contributors, lovely fellow bloggers and ‘digital natives’ we want to move these articles over to SISTER Magazine Blog!

Today SISTER Magazine took part in the Blogger Party in Berlin, where we were able to meet lovely Holly Becker from the famour Decor8-Blog. The party was hosted by Brigitte (German women’s magazine), you could buy the German and English edition of Holly’s book “Decorate” and in the end there was a book signing. Before I want to go into details of the actual event, I want to tell you a little bit about the setting! With a city like Berlin, places and rooms oftentimes represent a part of history. Their style and architecture often incorporates the political setting of its building beginnings.

The Decor8 party took place in Berlin’s SOHO HOUSE. The exclusive membership-only club house is worth an article itself with its great design and distinguished interior. But it also has a fascinating history. The landmarked house in the style of late Bauhaus with its distinctive symmetrical facade was first a Jewish department store before it devolved to NSDAP/Nazis. They used it to coach the ‘Hitlerjugend’ (Hitler Youth) from 1942 to 1945. After World War II the whole complex was nationalised (a little explanation: it of course was situated in the Eastern part of Berlin) and since then served as the administration centre for the socialist party SED.
Why is this important when telling about the blogging event? Well, we were only allowed into one part of the massive complex: the so-called ‘Politbüro’: the former office of GDR state president Wilhelm Pieck. The paneling of the walls has been reconstructed in the original way, big dark green lamps with tassels are hanging from the ceiling … the Soho House has accomplished something truly amazing. They’ve incorporated the (a little bit intimidating) style of GDR with modern aesthetics and interior design.

So the reason is: I feel that you should at least know where you are eating your cupcakes!!! ;)

Speaking of cupcakes, back to the party: the Decor8/brigitte event featured four speakers. Holly Becker herself was the first one – a great start because her speech was truly engaging and inspiring. When she was a little girl (at the age of 7) she would already move the furniture in her parents’ home around, she used to play ‘booksigning’ with her bears and dolls and would teach them her own learning matters. She told us this to illustrate an important point: sometimes you have to connect the points of your past to find your real passion! Hearing this, the SISTER editor must admit: she used to ‘publish’ a hand-drawn, later typewriter-written family magazine named “Resi’s newest news” – I guess, we are on the right path with SISTER ;)
Furthermore Steffi Luxat (from Brigitte & the blog Ohhh…Mhhh….), Caroline (from Callwey Publishing House) and Matt (from ETSY) talked. As inspiring as always, Matt told us the vision from ETSY, about their beginnings in Brooklyn and invited us to think about our ‘Mission, Vision and Values’.

What I enjoyed most (as always) were the discussions and talks to fellow bloggers and like-minded creative people. I was able to meet Frl. Text in person – who will be contributing to SISTER – she spotted me right when I was leaving the elevator. It is so great to meet all these online friends and acquaintances in real life (and she wore a lovely full skirt). I also loved to bump into Eleanor (from e.m.papers), who will also be working on SISTER Mag with us.
Below you’ll find some of the blogs I’ve “met” and “found” today! Enjoy and if you have any questions, please feel free to drop a note or tweet (@sister_mag)

Yours, Theresa!

Blogs from Germany:

• Susanne mit/with cherrypinkpurple: Blog for the colourful and nice things in live. Wonderful girly stuff and gift ideas.
• Clara mit/with TasteSheriff: The interior stylist shares thoughts and inspirations around living, taste and style.
• Stephanie with her named-after blog (Stephanie Levy): A little favourite full of inspirations and background infos around her collages, art and illustrations!
• Ricarda mit 23qm Stil: A living blog between Retro, Vintage and Modern with many thoughtful texts and living tipps.
• Rike mit Lykkelig: She writes about the stuff which makes her happy – whether it is a Tagliatelle or a great exhibition!

Picture Source: Soho House Berlin & Wapedia

If you’ve been following our Twitter account @sister_mag recently, you must have noticed a few hashtags we are introducing to our Twitter friends right now. One of it is called #sistermagrun. However I have to explain our idea and notion behind this simple tag! This summer I took on the big “Heidi Klum Summer Run Challenge” – with the launch of Heidi Klum’s new website on AOL her fans and followers were asked to go running or walking every day during the month of July (actually it was about 6 weeks).

While I very much enjoyed the exercise and the thrill of running every single day (I skipped two days) I was not at all convinced of its community aspect and execution. Participating runners were barely mentioned, I never read any feedback or motivational tweet from Heidi Klum or her ‘exercise specialists’. It all revolved around promoting their books/DVDs/clothes/shoes etc.

Hence SISTER Magazine wants to take on the general notion of HKSummerRun but instead of promoting any products, it is supposed to be about YOU! We all know what a motivational draught can feel like. You really want to go running, but especially in these dark winter months cannot find the strength to tie these laces! Think of #sistermagrun  as a motivation bootcamp, as a community full of like-minded women who like to exercise, go jogging or walking and keep healthy.

1. Start tweeting about your accomplishments and don’t forget our tag #sistermagrun. We are in the process of putting together a designated webpage where all your tweets will be displayed.
2. Follow @sister_mag on Twitter to find out about challenges, badges and accomplishments you can earn!
   We will also have special information and goodies for followers!
3. We will feature consistent runners on our SISTER blog.
4. Who knows: there might be a feature about you and your experiences with #sistermagrun in one of our issues of SISTER Magazine!

For now we have one question for you: do you use any running/jogging apps (iPhone, Blackberry, Android)?? Do you like them? Comment below or tweet to @sister_mag!!!

Keep running!! Yours, Theresa

P.S. Yes! That’s me in London, jogging in Hyde Park. Such a lovely setting!