Ode to Bavaria

My ode to Bavaria is a big giant Bretzel (as they call it in German). I LOVE pretzels but who doesn't? And over here they are delicious. So different than American pretzels. And Germans make all kinds of versions: sticks, croissants, rolls, etc. All out of pretzel. The pretzel symbol is one of my favorite things here. You see it everywhere. At Oktoberfest it was on earrings, phone charms, necklaces (which I had to get me one!) and so many other things. I had been looking for a unique something to put on my front door when one day we passed a Bavarian shop full of Bavarian things and they had huge giant pretzels in the window hanging by the easily recognizable Bavaria/Oktoberfest ribbon (see here). I had to have them! The shop owner said they were not for sale but I could have the baker two doors down make them for me. So I did and at only 4 euro each! And now a few days later of them drying out and me shellacking the crap out of them with spray varnish, they are ready to hang! I just need to get some blue and white check ribbon and I'm set. I had two made just in case one breaks or doesn't preserve well.

The chalk board banner has been up since before Christmas (posted about it here). And a couple of weeks ago I decided to make it look nicer by printing out parrishplatz and some stars on printer paper, taping it to the banner and shading it in with regular chalk. Then I took off the template and filled it in with a Chalk pen. It's still looks really messy and not curved and just overall bad but so much better than me free-handing it! I will continue to perfect it but it's ok for right now. I do hate the seem in the middle of the banner but I don't know yet how to make projects bigger than 12".

I love it!

Vinyl Door Art

Have you seen this door art (for lack of a better name) idea floating around pinterest and other blogs and even Amazon? When I saw it I had to have it. It was on my Silhouette Cameo list of things to make when I got one and then it was on my list of things to make when we move and now I can check it off! I debated to have it say Hallo (you know, because we're in Germany) but Jon liked Hello. I don't like the look of capitals so i went with lower case. The font is my favorite; Century Gothic and the green vinyl is the one that comes in the Vinyl starter kit (don't know the name of it).

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I want to explain the black tape over the door with letters and numbers on it. I found it fascinating and never ever saw it (meaning I never noticed it if it was there) in Stuttgart but it was on every house in our little town of Geldersheim in Schweinfurt and now I see it everywhere here.

Here is an explanation I found online.

The custom in Germany is that of the childrens' festival between January 1-6 (Three Kings Day). After a service at the churches the children go from house to house to gather offerings for poor children in poor countries. They are dressed as the three kings and carry sticks with stars on the top. At the homes they sing songs and recite messages of Christmas. At each house they paint the letters "20+C+M+B+10" which are for the Latin Christus Mansionem Benedicat (Christ bless this house). At the same time the letters are the first letters of the names of the wise men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. — Christmas Stories from German Culture. *the 20 at the front and 11 at the end is the year it was blessed. Ours wasn't blessed this year:)

And then of course (of course!) I had to have it say goodbye in German on the way out! It's one of my favorite German words. In case you want to say it too, it's pronounced "chewss" or you can say "chewssy". And I'm just guessing on the phonetic spelling. I see someone phonetically spelled it like this "Ch-eeuus" on the internet.

Want one too? I will gladly take special orders:) 

Email me what you want (any wording) and I'll give you a price.

parrishplatz (at) hotmail (dot) com