Replacement bathrobes

You might remember that I mentioned that I have replaced some of the items I got rid off on the Minimalist game. Two of those items were bathrobes. In theory there was nothing wrong with those robes, but the only occasion where it ever occurred to us to use the robes was after sauna. I'm not sure you know but after sauna you will get sweaty really easily if you feel even a bit too warm. That is what we call after sweat in Finnish. But after having sauna it's nice to hang out and relax and it's preferably done in a bathrobe, but our robes were just way too hot. Once you put them on you were sure to have after sweat issues.

For years I have been thinking of replacing the robes with Japanese yukata. Yukata is similar to a kimono, but it's made from cotton and is way more casual than the kimono. Yukata is also very simple to sew and so I assumed I could make ones for us, but I've postponed making those for years now and so I felt that it's very unlikely I will ever be inspired to start those and decided to buy them.

 
I bought two similar yukatas, both were from the men's section of the online store, there were nice patterns on the women's side too, but I preferred to have both the same and I like the simple stripe pattern which was only sold on the men's side. With the yukata also came belt on the same pattern, it's standard that the belt is not attached to the yukata robe in any way, but I think I will make some sort of belt loop for it, just so that it is easier to use.

I know the yukata is nothing as fancy as a silk kimono, but I would love if we had one wall in the bathroom where I could keep one of the yukatas hanging from a bar as shown in the first picture. It would just look so good.

And no after sweat problems anymore. Yay.

(I'm not getting payed to link to the Kimono shop, I just bought mine there, and I'm happy with them, but I'm sure there are many more online shops similar to the one I've linked here)

Brush for the pram wheels

So far we have not got much snow and all the snow we have got has melted in couple of hours. But from the experience from those few snowy hours I know the pram wheels will collect dirty snow all over them. Because we keep the pram in the entry the dirty snow will melt there and make the place discusting. We do have a good rug in the entry so it's not a huge problem but it would be better if the snow did not come inside at all. So I bought a brush that can be used for cleaning the pram wheels.

To have the brush easily accessible I hammered a nail into the wall and hung the brush there. Now there hangs a broom and the brush. Hanging the broom on the wall next to the door is an idea I originally stole from Chez Larsson long long time ago.

Dustpan and a brush

For years I have been thinking of getting some sort of solution for the crum removal in the kitchen. I did want to get a hand held vacuum there but I've not heard good reviews on their batteries. Also their price is quite high, especially if their battery wont stay in shape more than a year. I did also consider swivel sweeper, but because that also works with a battery I guess it also has the same problem as the vacuum. So a more traditional dustpan and a brush was the only solution I could come up with. Why I did not want to get a dustpan and a brush in the first place is because I think it's difficult to pour the crums and dirt into the bin from the dustpan. Especially from a dustpan with a long handle. Also the dustpan is usually so wide that the crums do not pour in a contained manner. I find this most difficult when the trash bin is already quite full, which it often is. Does anyone else have similar issues? Or am I the only one?

Well anyway I desided to get a dustpan and a brush. Then I had to find a set that would not cost a fortune and that would still be nice looking. Most are just made of plastic and are truly ugly and I want to have the dustpan and the brush on sight all the time, because if I hide it in a cabinet I will forget to use it.

Finally I found a set from Granit that wasn't too expensive and it looks good. The brushes are the only thing that are from plastic, but I can live with that. And no this is not a paid add. Just needed a dustpan and a brush and bought one.

And yes our kitchen floor is that patchy. And has dirt spots, mopping once a year clearly isn't enough.

Blog lights

These or similar lights I have seen in many Finnish blogs, almost too many and I've understood that they have got the lights through their blog somehow. I'm bit annoyed that I've seen the lights in so many places but I fell for them anyhow. Because those are lovely.

Not sure where those bloggers have got their lamps but I bought them from Granit. Only two years ago I bought new lanterns for the terrace, I still like the lanterns, but I do not like to go outside and light them, it's such a cold and annoying thing to do. So even though real candle light is nice, electric light works way better for me.

I added a few hooks to the terrace and hung the lights on those. But what I did not realize when I bought the lights is that ten 25W lamps are together really super bright. 250 W to a conservatory is just too much, we don't have that much light even indoors anywhere. Here is how bright they were.

That was just over the top. Not really what I had been envisioning, so I had to get a dimmer and the lights are also on a timer, that is handy.

Do you get a feeling that you are in a circus or in a funfair when you see the lights? I do, I love it.

On friday I will show yet another thing I've bought.

Sofaside wall lamp

Yay! I got rid of a floor lamp that had been on the side of our living room sofa and replaced it with a wall lamp.

I love things that are attached to the walls (or ceiling). I do not mind drilling gazillion holes to our walls especially when I can get rid of things that need to be kept on the floor. Also the floor lamp we had was not really of my taste and I bought this Ikea PS lamp to replace it. 

I fell for that lamp already sometime last year when I saw it the first time, but then I did not know where I could use that lamp. At some point this year I had started to think that the wall lamp could be good in the spot we had the floor lamp. I did not run out to buy the lamp but waited till I had something else to get from Ikea. Now after many months we finally had to give in and did need to get some baby gear from there so I at the same time bought the lamp.

I'm really really happy about the wall lamp, it has good cool light and it's modern. Looking at it from a distance makes it appear as it is attached quite high and it is, I just don't want to hit my head to it when I sit on the sofa or that any of our guests would hit their head to it.

Offshore

We are sail boat owners now, how cool is that!

We bought a sail boat together with A's parents'. A's family used to have a sail boat quite many years ago and now they had missed sailing so much that they wanted to get one again. My family used to have a motor boat when I was a child, so I'm not that unfamiliar with boating, but sailing is something that I need to learn. I have sailed a little before with some friends' boats, but I cannot do anything in a sail boat without instructions.

The sail boat is old of course and it does require some maintenance. Besides the yearly maintenance it could use new covers for the seating and sleeping. And curtains could be renewed. Maybe those projects are something I could work on the winter.

This summer we will just enjoy the boat as it is now. Pretty exciting!

Two things I've bought using the kid as an excuse

Odd thing is that before I have never been that interested in children or their stuff, but ever since we did agree to one day to try to have a kid I have thought about buying two things when the plans of a kid become more real.

One of those items is the Iittala mug Mymble's mother. This purchase is really for me, just used the kid as an excuse to get that mug. I always thought that when I will be a mom I will use that mug. I know, it makes no sense. Especially as I was just explaining this Monday that we are drowning in stuff.
 

Also I have always loved the Bo boo print from Marimekko. I used to use a sheet very similar to the Bo boo design when I was a kid (which I by the way still have and am planning to make one thing from it). When I was visiting the Marimekko factory sale months ago I bought the Bo boo dish set. I know the kid could eat from any other dish we have, but I still wanted to get these. There is no sense in this purchase either. It's just something I had imagined the kid to use, when ever we would have one. Most likely the kid will eventually drop the bowl or plate on the floor and then the horribly expensive Bo boo dish will get shattered. But never mind that. 

Anyway these items had been a part of the when-we-will-have-a-kid dream and I guess I had to get them to make the dream come real so to say.

Smoke detector

I've understood that for our apartment which is about 95 square meters it is suggested to have two smoke detectors. We used to have only one, it is still on the hallway near the bedroom and the office. But now I got another one and also got it on the ceiling.

I must admit that this might appear as a bit of an add, but the only nice looking smoke detector I found from Finland was the Kupu by Jalo Helsinki. I bought it in light gray. It is not the best colour for our ceiling but I have a dream that one day we will move to an apartment with white ceilings or that I will paint the ceiling of this apartment. So I bought this mainly for it's looks, but I'm sure it also works fine.

Marimekko sale

On sunday I was with my friend in Marimekko factory outlet on a sale. And I must admit that I maybe lost it a bit. I bought fabric and sewing kits I have no particular plans for. I usually try to only get stuff I know I need and will use soon. But everything was so cheap! (compared to the normal price).

I bought orange and stripy jersey knit fabric, some green shade cotton fabric and a packet of welt rib knit fabric in four different colours. Also I bought three sets of sewing kits, now I'm well equiped with zippers, I think there were almost 30 zippers altogether and lots of buttons. I also bought socks but those are not in the pictures. I'm surprised by the colourfulness of the fabrics I bought.

I have also now been super inspired to do lots of sewing and knitting and I have like gazillion projects unfinished. The office where I do my sewing is now a massive disaster.

Stockholm souvenir

Sorry to have skipped two days of regular posting. When I wrote about the new schedule I never meant to skip two posts in a row. I meant to skip one here other there. But this and last week have been really busy at work and I have been home earliest at seven, and even though I love to write my blog it's still the lowest priority compared to all other things.

Ok so the souvenirs from Stockholm. Although calling them souvenirs might be bit wrong since our plan when we visited Stockholm was to shop and not to get just souvenirs but design and home goods. I know it might sound a bit weird getting home goods from Sweden, but they do have just bit different stuff there and shops we don't have. For instance in Sweden they have binders that have a beautiful fabric spine and the form is also a bit different. I really fell for the binders when I saw those on Benita's blog. I already have a few of those binders in the office but now I bought from Åhlens two slimmer versions to company the old ones (for anyone in Finland thinking of buying those too notice that the punching standard is different to Finnish, so you also need to get a puncher from Sweden). From Granit I bought the white wrapping paper. That is a bit odd purchase, it's just wrapping paper, but I have not seen one in white in Finland. The cards are from Ljunggrens Pappershandel. I did not actually need anything from there but it was such a beautifull shop I couln't leave empty handed.

For the kitchen I got two cling foil holders from Muji, one for cling foil and other for aluminium foil. I felt a bit dumb getting those. Not like the packages the foils come in are not usable, but these are so much nicer looking and the foils do cut better using those sturdier containers. The napkins are from Svenskt Tenn. For some odd reason I wanted to get something from there, but most things were really expensive and too difficult to transport to Finland, so I ended up getting napkins. The Dala horse cookie cutter I got from a small store in the old town, I'm afraid I do not remember what the store was called. What I think was the best purchase was the rag and the rag holder.

Those were most likely the cheapest things I bought. The holder was attached to the wall by a double sided tape. The holder has cut outs in black rubber insert where the rag can be pushed in.

We used to keep the rag folded on top of the faucet, but it was on the way and especially when the rag was dry and hard it kept droppin down from the faucet. Now it's out of the way but easily accessible. The rag and the rag holder are both from DesignTorget.

Håll Stockholm rent och vårt kök också.

(Keep Stockholm clean and our kitcher also)

Pilgrimage to Stockholm

Hejsan from Stockholm. I was there with my sister last weekend. I bought flight tickets for me and my sister to Stockholm as a birthday present to her. She had birthday already on August, but I found cheapish tickets only later to the fall.

Both me and my sister had been to Stockholm numerous times, but we had never spent the night in Stockholm, yet alone spent as much time there. The standard trip to Stockholm for most Finns is the weekend cruise from Helsinki or Turku where the main pass time is to drink till you fall. Also that type of Stockholm visit will consist of walking to the center to the Burger King and not eating anything because of the hangover. Then it's time to get back to the ship to drink some more. That is considered a very successful trip by Finnish standard.

But we did not want that so we took the one hour flight to Stockholm. I had also booked a hotel room for one night. The hotel room by the way was very similar than the cabins in the cruise ships. So we were able to get some feeling of being on a cruise anyway.

I also had some ulterior motives booking the flights to Stockholm. Ever since Benita posted the Stockholm Shopping -  list of shops I've been wanting to visit those places. I picked what I considered best shops and even made a google map and I also wrote the opening hours. My sister wasn't really aware of this plan of mine. But when she realized what was the plan she was totally happy with it.

View stockholm shopping in a larger map

We had such a nice time in Stockholm. We felt that we could have even spent longer time there than just two days. This time we just concentrated on the shopping, we had seen all the standard tourist attractions on our earlier trips. But while we shopped we actually saw more of the city and the people than what we have before. Now I think we kind of got how the city is built and where is what. We walked quite a lot and visited many shops. We did not get to go to all, we ran out of time, but to most we did visit.

I will show you later what I bought from our trip. Also we spent some time in different cafes and had a very nice dinner in a Tapas restaurant. There were also sushi restaurants all over the city, ah, heaven. We were also blessed with excellent weather, sun was shining all weekend, amazing.

Flea market finds

Flea markets are fun places but I go way too rarely to those. Last week I did go and found some cookie cutters. I especially like the bird and the mushroom cutter. The others are a bit more standard. Also the cutters came with a cool ring. I added all my cookie cutters on the ring, it was such a handy way to store the cutters.

Also I bought some baking forms, similar what I used when redoing the soap. But these are a bit bigger and more traditional in form. 

Little My figurine

Museum shops are intriguing, they always carry stuff that cannot be found anywhere else. When we went to see the Futuro I bought a Little My plywood figurine by Lovi. It was so cute, I had to have it. It was fun to assemble too.

Little My went to visit Totoro in his Teahouse. She will stay there for a while and perhaps then find her own home from the office, once it's finished.

New lanterns in the conservatory

I bought new lanterns Mörkt from Ikea. To tell the truth I had ok lanterns even before, one was a bit too rusty and hard to open but the other ones were fine. I just got tired of them beeing so old fashioned and they were all different. I wanted something more uniform and more modern.

That's before, in that picture the lanterns do look beautiful though, it's taken last year in December. I really need to take a picture of the new lanterns in dusk too and with snow (wich we don't have yet).

Runway for souvenir

Scb at her blog Where there are Meadowlarks started a talk about souvenirs and while I commented on her blog post, I started to go through in my head all the souvenirs I have. When I noticed that I have so many souvenirs that I cannot keep a list of them only in my head I started to write them down.

Also at Simplify 101 Aby just talked about souvenirs and how she often has a practical end use for them. I tend to get something practical from my trips too. Ofcourse I also get things that are just pretty or fun. Some of my souvenirs have nothing that would indicate where they are from. I've bought things that look like they could be from anywhere, but since I remember where I've got them, then they are souvenirs.

After I had written down all the souvenirs I could remember, I took my list and then started to walk around the house to find even more of them. While I was circling in the house I thought I could take pictures of all of them. And I thought that maybe you would want to see those too. Wouldn't that be fun? So here they are, room by room.

Livingroom

Kitchen

Entry

Toilet and bathroom

Office / Guest room

Bedroom

So those were MY souvenirs, but we have even more, I did not include souvenirs A, my friends or family has given me or souvenirs A has brought from his trips. And I'm sure I have forgotten some.

Wasn't that fun? Now I need to continue to build the roof to my miniature teahouse. I chose a laborious roof model, but it's going to be so worth it. It's very important to the get the roof on, it's soon winter and all.