Replanting

When I moved to my own home, to live on my own, I bought a coffee bush to decorate that home, about 10 years ago. The coffee bush was so tiny back then. Now it's not so tiny anymore. It was time again to replant the coffee bush, since it had out grown from the previous pot. I was hoping that I could have found a white pot for the coffee bush from my large collection of flower pots, but I only found a terracotta one on the right size. Terracotta is not bad either, it's after all very traditional.

Now the coffee bush is covering one third of the whole window area. I would prefer to have it deeper in the room and not having it in front of the view. But our living room is not the sunniest especially on winter and the plant would die from lack of light if it would be deeper in the room. Our bedrooms are lighter and I could keep the plant there, but I love to have one big plant in the living room. It makes the room come alive.

Stamping rehearsals

Remember when I made the owl stamp? Finally I managed to use it. I was inspired by the Piipadoo blog and their stamped kitchen towel. They had used a potato as a stamp. I have stamped with a potato back when I was kid and wanted to do it again. So I also did some stamping with two potato stamps.

I used the owl stamp on a plain white duvet cover for Likka. I used three different colours and also mixed them to get two complementary colours. The stamping quality is nowhere near perfect, but I do like the duvet cover now. 

I made two potato stamps, a half circle and a star. With the potato stamps I decorated two flats, which we do not use when cloth diapering. These flats I use mostly when nursing and for wiping some drool and the occasional burp. That means that those flats are kept out in the open, like near the sofa and it does not hurt if those flats look nice. 

Crafts basket

Small things can make world of a difference. I started to make a crocheted basket last year, but I unraveled it because it looked horrible. Then I got a book Virkkuri (only in Finnish, so far) by Molla Mills as a Christmas present. The book has lots and lots of new ideas where and how to use tradional chrocheting techniques. The book has excellent pictures and fresh feel. 

So I got the book and there were two hints about crocheting a basket, the first was instructions on how to make a 90 degree angle turn between the base and the sides of the basket and the second was to use labels. Those two ideas made all the difference. Even though I crocheted with the same yarn and made the same size as the trial before, the basket just ended up much more modern and crisp. I love it.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year

Each year I have bought or made a Christmas tree decoration, last year I made himmeli inspired ones and the year before that I made a pearl garland. This year I bought one or actually three. Three glass mushroom shaped decorations, that do not hang but are clipped on to the tree. I think those are fun and sweet and I love that there is three of them, I feel that those represent that there are now three persons in this family.

Also to let you know, I will have a blog break for almost two weeks. We are off to celebrate Christmas with our relatives. I plan to let our relatives entertain Likka as much as possible so I can consentrate on crafts. I'm taking few knitting projects along and hope to finish them soon.

Hope you have really nice and enjoyable Christmas time and cheerful New Year! 

See you back here on the 3rd of January.

Christmas preparations

The second set of Christmas flowers were bought and so the old ones moved into an old coffee pot. The tree is decorated and most of the gifts are wrapped. No theme for wrapping, no cohesive colour scheme, I'm merely trying to use up the wrapping paper and ribbons we have.

Today me and my sister will make some gingerbread houses to give as presents and then I'm all set in the gift department. Sunday some food shopping needs to be done and then there is nothing else to do than celebrate Christmas.

Prettifying trash cans

Before Likka was born I put together a diaper changing area in the bathroom. At that time I did not really pay attention to the trash cans that are needed for the used diapers, I just took two bucket from the cleaning cabinet and placed them on the bathroom floor.

It was practical but the buckets were not that beautiful, besided we need those buckets from time to time for other purposes. I originally did not pay that much attention to the diaper trash cans since we will not need them forever and so I did not think this would be that important, but once I realized that kids can wear diapers till the age of two I started to think otherwise. Two years is a long time to look at ugly buckets.

So once I realized that I was on a look out for more beautiful buckets or trash cans. Then I bumped into a pair of plastic trash cans at a trift store. The trash cans are originally from Ikea and not so beautiful on their own and as they were used they were also dirty.

To prettify the trash cans I used black electric tape and adhesive shelf paper which I happened to have at home and of course washed the trash can properly.

So much better I think, I think they are fun and nice looking.

Christmas porridge

There are some disadvantages being on maternity leave, like that the rice porridge/pudding served in the canteen at work is not available for me. But I can make it myself. I also made plum kissel to eat with the porridge. This is a very traditional dish to eat here in Finland around the holidays, but usually the kissel is from dried plums.

 

 

I really like the waiting of Christmas, I think I like the waiting even more than the Christmas day itself. And I like to prepare for Christmas, like decorating and such, but I like to keep things simple still. For example a simple flower arrangement does it for me. Tulips are from the local market and the blueberry and lingonberry branches are from a near by forest.

 

Holiday sofa pillows 2013.0

Some holiday decorations in the living room.

 

I sewed on the red pillow covers I usually use around the holidays some lace. The crocheted corner laces are, if I remember correctly, made by A's mom's mom. These were made for bed sheets but had never been used and A's mom gave these to me. Now I'm using these as holiday decorations. Those are very loosely sewed on so those can be removed later and used in some other place later.

 

In 2011 the pillows had ribbon decorations.

 

 

Is it echoing here?

Hello...hello...hello

Am I hearing an echo from last year or actually from two years ago? Again I made a wreath for the front door. I over estimated how much material I have and used too much first and had to then ration it for the remaining parts so the wreath is now a bit bottom heavy, but I don't care.

I found the material for the wreath while on a walk with Likka. I know some of you have wondered where I collect all the natural materials. Well, by the side of the roads, this time the city (I assume) had done some logging by the side of one of the ring roads of Helsinki. 

There is always branches and other logging waste left over, so I collected some from there. Also parks and road sides have often fallen branches that I take with me if I need them. The road sides are also really good places to collect flowers.

Candy cane cable

The kitchen corner where we have the coffee maker, toaster and the electronic water heater has always looked really bad because of all the cables that are needed for the appliances. I have tried to hide the cables with not much success. Since hiding didn't clearly work, decorating should do a better job.

Sometime ago I saw a cable tuned with electric tape on some blog and later I have seen tuned cables everywhere in the blog world. Such a cool idea, I wish I knew who started this.

So inspired by all the blogs and the coming holiday season I pimped one of the cables candy cane red. I love it and amazingly I'm not annoyed by any of the cables now.

Anti winter depression lantern

These are NOT Christmas lights, this is a keeping-away-the-depressive-darkness lantern.

Had to mention that because for some people putting up Christmas lights in middle of November is just too early, but since these are not Christmas lights so this is ok. Do not pay attention that I've labeled this post to "holidays". Ignore that.

This lantern I used to have in the conservatory, but now since there are already the circus lights, I felt there would have been too many different lights if the lantern would be there too.

It's always tricky to run those cables for the decorational lights, there is no socket outside by the front door so the cord runs inside under the vestibule rug then behind the yellow metal cabinet to a socket by the toilet door. I think I did a good job hiding the cable this time.

Preparing for the christening

Some stuff to do for tomorrows christening of Likka

Over the weekend

We had a studio built in our home. A friend of ours is a pro photographer and we asked him to take some baby and family photos of us. We already got some photos from him, really good stuff. I will show some on Wednesday. Now we need to deside which of those to have print and framed.

Part of Finland has got the first snow last week. South Finland got just some hail, but it has been cold, really cold. I did a bit of crafts for the christening of Likka, those will be in two weeks. In the christening she will also get her real name. Need to plan the food served at the occasion and also the decorations. We got some table cloths and other items from A's mom and cousin for the christening which I need to check. Then have I done some fall cleaning on the front yard and some sewing.

Origami bird mobile

I made a origami mobile to hang over the diaper changing place. The mobile frame itself is from Granit. The origamis I folded with the help of this site. I made mainly birds for the mobile, there is one dinosaur too just because I wanted to make a dinosaur and birds evolved from dinosaurs anyway (maybe not from tyrannosaurus... but what ever).

After taking taking these pictures I removed the one extension piece from the mobile, because A hit his head on the mobile while changing diapers. I'm sure Likka does not even see that far, it mainly humors me now.