Friday, August 20, 2010
Pimp my sofa
Today I got a little sofa in my room. It's been in another room for as long as I can remember, but we did a little bit of rearranging, so it doesn't fit there anymore. And because I've always wanted a sofa, my parents decided to put it in my room, instead of throwing it away. I don't really mind! I hope next year around this time I've already moved out. But I have to live with the sofa for about a year, so ... why not altering it a little bit! It's super ugly, super old, not exactly the most comfortable sofas to have, and it's even a little bit dirty... I think it really needs a new look. And I'm actually pretty excited! Nobody wants it anyway. I have no idea how to make new covers to the cushions (or whatever you wanna call them), but that's what makes this even more interesting! :)
Now I'm not sure when I'll be able to do all this, since I've got all kinds of things to do before my month-long trip to Central Europe, but hopefully I'll come up with something nice and manage to put it into practise! It always makes me happy to know that I've got something where I get to be a little creative :)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
got some good news!
Craft lover meets American craft stores
Vielä viimeisenä, eikä suinkaan vähäisempänä, on yksi mun suosikeista: glue dots. Näitäkään en ole Suomesta löytänyt. Näillä saan kiinnitettyä kaikki pienimmätkin yksityiskohdat, strasseista puhumattakaan! Spesiaalin tekee tästä löydöstä myös se, että nämä löytyi pienestä aivan hurmaavasta askarteluputiikista, joka taas löytyy eräästä Poulsbo-nimisestä skandinaavisesta kylästä. Ei tosiaankaan mistään niistä suurista askartelumarketeista.
ps. Kertokaa, jos teillä on ongelmia sivuston lataamisessa! Nämä kuvat on aika älyttömän suuria, lähentelee seitsemää megatavua. En jaksanut nyt niitä ruveta pienentelemään, mutta jos ongelmia tulee, niin hoidan sen sitten!
~~~
Americans are the pioneers of scrapbooking. Americans make the best materials, and they come up with the best ideas for using them. (The sad thing is that Americans seem to have more versatile selection of different crafting tools by Fiskars, even though Fiskars is a Finnish company!) So when a craft lover like me spends a month in America, there's no way I could come back home without having my bag full of scrapbook material! So today I'm showing you pictures of the selected few items that I find somehow precious :) and they're all 100% American.
The first picture shows two thirds of all the materials I bought while I was in the Seattle area. They're all from Michaels; at that point I hadn't seen JoAnn yet. (JoAnn ended up being almost better than Michaels, but for some reason I managed to spend just a fair amount of money!)
In the second picture I have my one-dollar stamps, which is a rare thing to see in Finland. Cute stamps like those will never be just one dollar in Finland! The Sachel Paige stamp and the little "handmade from the heart" stamp were not on sale though, those were a bit more expensive. (But then again, all wooden stamps are.)
Clear stamps are my favourites! And those kid quotes are the cutest things ever. Two of those quotes are also some of the best quotes I've ever heard!
Rub-ons are a bit rare in Finland. I've seen some, but I've never bought any, because so far they haven't been very interesting. These, on the other hand, were something that I just had to get! I love good quotes, and those friendship quotes were so darn pretty too... and the ones that talk about traveling are perfect for my travel journal.
Seattle chipboard stickers were a must! :)
The 6th picture is yet another good example of my passion for quotes; English speakers just have better quotes, and they make them look good too. I don't think they are as fascinating in Finnish as they are in English.
I'm really excited about the items in the seventh picture, because I've been searching for clear stamps like those for a long time.. and those rhinestone versions are super rare in Finland. (I have no idea what to call those decorations! I guess they're ...wreaths, of some sort?)
K&Company's tag pads are expensive in Finland. And the brown ones are a bit rare too. They're not the most exciting things I bought, but they were worth it anyway! K&Company's tag pads are super cute.
And last, but not least, glue dots! They might be something that you'd consider to be completely normal, but again those are rare in Finland. I remember the frustrated feeling of not having glue dots (it's quite tricky to attach rhinestones that aren't self-adhesive..), and I didn't even know they exist! So to me it felt like a miracle to find glue dots.
ps. Let me know if you're having troubles with reading my blog! My pictures are huge, like 7 Megabytes, so loading might take a while. I'm not sure, so let me know if something like this happens, and I'll resize the pictures. :)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
"this is the first day of the rest of your life"
Nyt sen sijaan syksyyn mahtuu jo aika suuria suunnitelmia, ja kotiutuminenkin alkaa olla kohta puoliin ohi (niin, olen tunnetusti hidas...) joten ehkä nyt olisi korkea aika herätellä henkiin tämäkin harrastus? Nyt kun siihen intoa alkaisi taas löytyäkin. :) Synttärisankarit odottelevat korttejaan, valokuvaus on vihdoin aivan toisenlaista uuden järkkärin ansiosta, ja pari videoprojektiakin odottaa syntymistään. Uusia ideoitakaan ei tarvitse enää niin hirveän kauaa odotella. (tai ehkä tuo on vähän vielä toiveajattelua..) Ehkä etsin siinä samassa tälle blogille uuden layoutin, sillä vaikka tästä omalla tavalla tykkäänkin ja tätä kauan etsin, tuli huomattua omalla läppärillä ettei tästä layoutista näe oikeasti puoliakaan. (Oma kotinäyttö on sen verran suuri, etten koskaan tullut ajatelleeksi koko juttua.) Mitä järkeä on tehdä blogitaustalle sellainen design, ettei se sovellu tavallisille näytöille?
Anyways, hirveän kovasti toivon että tästä pääsen taas vauhtiin, anteeksi taas etten mitään kahteen kuukauteen pukahtanut. Korttien ja muiden sellaisten tekeminen (..vieläkin vältän sitä sanaa 'askarteleminen'..) pitäisi nyt olla entistä hauskempaa Amerikasta hankittujen tarvikkeiden avulla, ja kun järkkärillä saa niistä napsittua parempia kuvia... ah, melkein jo odotan ensimmäisen tekeleen valmistumista. :)
I remember that little quotation from a song I heard while I was in the US - yes, that's where I've been, for a month, and unfortunately I have failed to mention about it. I was going to update this blog during my stay, but I wanted to be away from Finland for a while. What's also unfortunate is that ever since I came back home, I've been trying to settle in and get my life started.. And that was about a month ago. I'm truly sorry, but I hope you understand.. Even though the quotation mentioned in the title sounds a little cheesy, I have been thinking about it a lot lately. Every day is the first day of the rest of my life, especially because I'm having a gap year and so I'm having ..a fresh start.
A fresh start is also a little something that this blog needs, perhaps. A couple of weeks ago I finally purchased my very own DSLR camera, and the craft tools and materials I got from America are something that can't be found in Finland, so I believe crafting will be a lot more interesting from now on. I'm also starting to get new ideas for new projects, so hopefully I'll be able to bring this blog back to life! I'll have my fingers crossed, hope you'll have yours too. :)
//: miksi pidän aina loppujen lopuksi enemmän englanninkielisestä versiosta...? mä en osaa puhua suomea kuulostamatta tönksähtelevältä. äehm.
//: changed the layout. don't know if it's any better, but it's something ! although i hate white backgrounds.