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.

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.

Nursery in the bedroom

I was going to blog about the nursery before Likka was born, but at that time I wasn't sure if we would leave the area like that or if it would need some changes. I just wasn't sure what a nursery needs, but as it seems it does not need much. Now after few months of use I can show our nursery because I know that it's a functional one.

The so called nursery, what does that word actually even mean? Is it a room or an area? I'm unable to translate that word. When I search that word from pinterest I see lots of images of huge rooms with a crib and diaper changing table and some cute nick nack. Anyway... we are clearly not having much from that. Our nursery, if this can be called a nursery, contains of a crib and a shelf in the bedroom. 

Having the crib in the bedroom does make the room bit crowded, but that is fine. We bought an older style crib because those are smaller than the newer ones. The width and especially the lenght is shorter. I made a bumper pad for the crib before Likka was born. I'm happy I made one. Likka tends to push with her feet so that eventually she bumps her head to the head of the bed. I don't think she can harm herself even if there were no bumper bad, but I like that there is some cushion in between.

We already had a small shelf in the bedroom where we kept used but not yet dirty clothes. We emptied that shelf so we can keep Likka's clothes on that. Most of Likka's clothes are stored in the office in boxes but the ones that do fit or are just about to fit are on that shelf. The top shelf has shirts and similar and the middle shelf has pants. On the bottom shelf are some outdoors clothes, which are still too big. Inside the cabinet are the bed linen for the crib and some bigger hats and mittens.

On top of the shelf are some containers with more of Likka's clothes and other necessary items.One of the containers has socks and other has hats. One of the smaller containers is empty and the other one has Likka's hair brush and comb. Also there is a small flash light which I used to use when checking Likka's diaper at night.

I haven't really decorated the nursery area, I did buy a house shaped shelf from Luhta for some keepsakes. The pineable decorations also refer to Likka's real name, I thought those would be funny, but I don't think we will have those on the wall forever.

So that's the nursery. Small, but there is everything Likka needs.

Crocheted hamburger and other foods

As a part time crafts blogger the Christmas season is a difficult time for blogging. There are so much happening in the craft front but I can't blog about them or then I would ruin the surprice for the ones who are receiving the crafts as Christmas presents. But now I'm showing one craft I did for a present. For A's god daughter I made some crocheted food. A's god daughter is two and a half years old, I highly doubt she is reading this blog.

My mom loaned a book Tasty cute: 25 Amigurumi Gourmet Treats by Annie Obaachan for me, it was really inspiring, I couldn't resist, I just had to start crocheting. At first I did not even know who to make the amigurumi for, but then remembered A's god daughter. I think she is in the age where kitchen play is lot of fun.

I made a hamburger following the book's instructions, I wasn't happy with the salad on the book so I made my own version. Also the hamburger did not have any cheese and I think cheese is vital in a hamburger so I made a slice of cheddar.

Then I made a sunny side up egg. There were no instructions for that in the book, I just made it from the top of my head. After the egg I made a bread, which is topped with cheese, a slice of ham, some cucumber and sliced egg.

I meant to only do the hamburger but once I started it was so difficult to stop, these were so fun to make. These are also excellent projects for scrap yarn, I was able to use up some odd bits of yarn and I also filled them with smaller pieces of scrap yarn.

The plastic frying pan I bought from a trift store. If I'd be two and a half I would love to play with these, I hope A's god daughter likes these.

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.

Schedule for cleaning

 

Before we used to clean together, it took one hour, A vacuumed all rooms and wiped the kitchen counters, I washed the toilet and bathroom and did dusting. Because I'm on maternity leave now I spend time at home all day and let's admit it, I have too much free time. Or at least more than A does. And since I am home all day I do get annoyed by the messiness in our home because I see it all the time. Now because of Likka, we might not have one full hour for the cleaning, or we might but it might not be when we want. Also because of that I had been thinking that I should divide the cleaning into different days, that way I am able to start and finish the cleaning in even very short time periods. That is why I have created a cleaning schedule to follow.

Because I also hate check lists my schedule is very undetailed. Check lists make me feel like the tasks on it are mandatory, and mandatory things are never fun. And since I'm not planning to print or write it down (any better than here on the blog) I have created a schedule that I can easily remember and it's based on the first letter of the weekdays.

 

Makuuhuone maanantai (bedroom Monday)

Changing sheets if needed, general tidying and dusting

Toiletti tiistai (toilet Tuesday)

This applies also to the bathroom, every other week is cleaning of toilet and every other the bathroom

Keittiö keskiviikko (kitchen Wednesday)

General tidying, dusting and wiping

Työhuone torstai (office Thursday)

Putting away some finished craft supplies, tidying and dusting

Perus perjantai (basic Friday)

Yeah, I'm having bit of trouble figuring a name for this, if you can think of something more suited I'm happy to hear some ideas. Anyway this day involves general tidying and dusting in the living room and in the entry.

I'm still leaving the vacuuming for A, because I hate vacuuming. It's so noisy and just annoying because of all the furniture on the floor. Then of course I do laundry and wash dishes and that sort of things, but those I can do when ever needed.

I've now followed this schedule for couple of weeks and it's working ok. Places do look better than before and at least once a week each room looks quite good. Do you have a cleaning schedule of some sort and how is it working?

Knitted diaper pants 2

Happy Independence day to all Finns!

I was thinking of making an independence inspired post but could not think of what to write, so instead I'm showing another knitted diaper pants I made. Sexy topic or what do you think?

 

Well, the diaper pants are for the future tax payer of Finland so this topic is somewhat related to the Finnish independence day. Very loosely.

 

 

I more or less followed these instructions (click) when making the pants. I think those turned out awfully big, I hope those are good for Likka before the age of two. But we have not tried these yet, maybe those just look big.

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.