Hello BamFam....just thought I would share with you all some inspiration. Inspiration comes in many forms -- as you all are very well aware of, I'm sure. But, that's me, Captain Obvious -- and I dig it, so just roll with it ;). Anyway, when I was a kid, my dad was in the Army and we were fortunate enough to be stationed in Germany. Well, dad was in Germany once before (courtesy of the Army as well) when he met these great people -- Willy, Ralf, Harry, Roland, and eventually Sonja........I was four when I met these folks -- and they are my family -- in fact, my little brother's middle name is Willy's first name {Wilhelm} and Willy & Sonja's son, Manu has my dad's name as his middle name.....needless to say -- we were all super duper close at one point -- and as life went on and we moved from place to place (even back to Germany for a second tour) we remained family.

Okay, get to the point please......Well, there is a super cool clothing and jewelry company that is headquartered in Reichenberg, Germany -- right around the corner from Würzburg -- where we lived for a while. This company, called SIM, was created by and is run by my uncles (Willy Sommer -- the S, Ralf Middelmann -- the M, and Harry Isfort -- the I -- SIM) :) I say that with extreme pride....well, when I was a kid, they just moved in to a school -- yep, they bought a school and made that their headquarters!! I can still remember running around that place -- looking at all of the jewelry and wanting to grow up so badly so that I could wear their clothes. I can also remember being so happy when I finally got my ears pierced so that I could FINALLY wear some of their earrings.....However, nowadays those babies are sold in Harrods of London and are slightly outta my price range! lol.....I do wear a couple of their rings everyday though :)


Enjoy,
Kate :)

So, I get three magazines every month in the mail -- I wonder if you could ever guess which ones they are! lol.....I will tell you that one of them is Country Living....yep, I LOVE Country Living. Every time I see it in the little mail slot {we don't have actually have mailboxes here for some reason -- it's like we live in an apartment complex and have to walk a mile to get the dang mail} I smile and wait to read it until I have time to really look it over. It's "me" time and it rocks!


Since it is a new year, I have decided that portions of my house need upgrades -- or a new look....lol...whichever comes first :) The montage above comes from the Country Living website -- which is chalked full of inspiration and DIY projects -- which I will be undertaking and posting about on here as well so stay tuned for that. If you have the time, try some of them out and let me know how it works out for you.....and, if you can think of some things to do with pallets, let me know -- I have 5 of those things in my garage waiting to be reborn in to something fabulous!

Enjoy,
Kate :)

I am always on the lookout for different packaging -- I am a super creative person and I kinda think I am never satisfied -- but, then again, things evolve so why not packaging?!


Here are some of my latest "finds" -- and there is also an Etsy packaging Flickr stream if you would like to see some more goodies. The problem that I run up against is that most of these really cool pictures and ideas are for smaller goods -- not for apparel pieces or aprons.