On this sunny and warm Tuesday many of you may have come home again or are on their way back, maybe even sitting in their offices again. We hope that you are walking as loped and happily as we are, still smitten from the impressions and talks of the last weekend.

Sunday just continued to be really interesting and thought-provoking. Anxiously the presentation of “Freunde von Freunden” was anticipated (*hehe* – no wonder in a room almost full of girls and women ;) about the story of their book publication, their attitude towards the site and the amazing success of their concept.

While there were workshops about photography, food and screenprinting going on downstairs, the presentations continued on the fourth floor (and yes, we always had to take the stairs – no lift!). Toni and I were mostly divided, so we could take some input from all the speakers.

Oum from “Un blog, une maman” shared a lot of practical tipps how to grow your readership, whereas Toni followed Lindsay’s (“Lost in Cheeseland”) ten tipps how to bring together your real life and blogging. Since they were really helpful and Toni was a vivid tweeter, we wanted to show them to you here. Thank you Lindsay @LostNCheeseland, we’ll definitely try to follow your steps:

While Toni was listening to the amazingly talented photographer Marika from “tonbogirl” about Street-Style-Fashion-Photography, Eleni (“My Paradissi”) explained in the arena, where to find original content and pictures and how to compose them in aesthetically pleasing posts. One look at her blog always shows me, that the Greek architect really has a wonderful eye for style and composition.

We were very much looking forward to the presentation of Emily, since we’ve had been talking to her at the very very beginning of the conference (“From China Village”). And she succeeded – which isn’t that easy – to hold a sweeping speech about creating a DIY tutorial. Especially her slides caught your eye, because she had photographed them herself, illustrating the structure of her presentation in a very creative way.

The last one to speak was Anne (“Prêt à Voyager”) about “Blog Etiquette” and how to handle negative comments on your blog. Since I’ve been following her work for Wayfare-Magazine and her blog for a while AND she had input from a lot of amazing bloggers from all over the world in her speech, I was really smitten with her presentation. You can find a full recap of her presentation on her blog.

Soon after the wrap-up you quickly noticed: no one really wanted to leave. On the fourth floor there were still little group of people chatting for half an hour, group pictures were taken, business cards were quickly dug out and hugs exchanged. I didn’t want to part either, for example from Maja (“mulipuli”), which I met for the first time this weekend, but with whom I had eMail conversations before. I cannot wait to see her feature in sisterMAG N°3! Or to meet and talk to Nicole from “In Colorful Waters” – here she is in deep talk with her outfit sister of the day Doranna. I was also especially thrilled to finally meet Sybille from the popular DIY magazine “Funkytime”. She is indeed as colourfully dressed and creative as you would expect from her blog and work and we are so much looking forward to the creative exchange with her in the future.
An acquaintance I was lucky enough to already know from before is Ashley from “Chasing Heartbeats”. The American lives for a few years in Germany and just moved to Berlin a few months ago. She agreed to meet me for breakfast in March and let me just say: her pictures (she is a photographer), her style, her attitude – we love her and are excited to work together in the future.

At the end we were interviewed by the crazy and very very nice “Diamond of Tears”, who is a video blogger on Youtube. As it always ends up: in the end five of us were still standing on the yard of Betahaus and started talking. And I am SO glad! If not I wouldn’t have had the chance to really talk to Julianne from “Fröken Skicklig”. Julianne is originally from Berlin (which she showed us later on with a mini historical tour through Mauerpark) and now lives in Sweden. The studied actress produced under the label of “Fröken Skicklig” dolls – the most adorable and beautiful dolls I’ve seen in a long time! I would love to now write a whole story about her, her ideas and the background stories of her dolls, but I do think I rather contain myself – it’s worth a whole portrait!
And I do not want to forget our two other “companions”: the wonderful Brittany from “The House That Lars Built” and Anna from Dawanda and the blog “Anna Sterntaler”. Brittany is an American expat living in Copenhagen, successful blogger and designer who has already worked with and for  Oh Happy Day, Brooklyn Bride, Chalkboard Mag, design*sponge, Styled Mag oder Kinfolk Magazine – an absolute idol for me. And she proved to be not only creative and nice, but interested and curious in all sorts of things. Last but not least Anna, who is a dear friend in Berlin. She does not only dresses most colorfully but we always have the feeling that she holds together the German blogger szene through her humorous air, curious mind and many contacts. As always: a pleasure to chat!

At the end, little Luzi (Toni’s car) took us through Berlin back to Prenzlauer Berg, where we (as mentioned) took a mini tour through Julianne’s childhood along the wall, before we parted from them. See you next time in Berlin and 100% on Twitter!

Yours, Toni & Thea