If winter arrives overnight...

.. I'll feel so cheated on.

Because when we leap [see.. clever aren't I] from February to March it is spring. Even if there's snow on the ground. And it's still chilly. But the days are longer and it is spring. Period. Yes we usually get snow in March. Usually not a big deal.

Only this year is different.

It's been the warmest winter in 100 or so years.
We've hardly had snow and I've needed my down winter jacket maybe three times all winter. No skiing. No skating. No snow lanterns. No cold.
Basically we just had an extended fall with a few odd snowfalls.
Nothing I'd call winter.

So if that winter now comes in March...
I'll not only feel cheated out of a winter but also cheated out of a spring.

Besides, my snowdrops are blooming :)

Crafting Friday

Here you go.
Tiny little peeks into what I'm up to.

Be patient.

You'll be seeing more eventually.

Trust me.

How about some inspiration?

As promised. some Flickr favorites of mine :)

How about some pretty pink and green?
Simply delightful.
I love this color combo....

.1., 2. Porta-jóias flor 1, 3. Alice no País das Maravilhas, 4. Pink & Green, 5. ., 6. Pink n' Green, 7. Vintage Velvet, 8. my favourite pink doll shoes, 9. Snapdragon, 10. carrie_2, 11. Still life, 12. Rosanna's Sweets Crown 6, 13. after_storage2, 14. How Green Was My Chandelier, 15. pink gadgets, 16. A Fairies Gift - fused glass pendant of pink, green,blue and yellow, 17. A Candy for You?, 18. Du vert et un sorbet à la pomme verte - Green and Green Apple Sorbet, 19. pink wellies, 20. granny close up, 21. Pink and Green, 22. pink & green, 23. Jingle Bracelet, 24. Hot Pink & Green Dangle Bracelet Close Up, 25. pink & green & black

Maybe a peek into some fabulous craft spaces/rooms?

Wide Shot, 2. anthropologie craft room window display 2, 3. The Posie studio, repainted and reorganized at last!, 4. above my desk, 5. London Craft Room, 6. The Posie studio, repainted and reorganized at last!, 7. Pottery Barn craft room, 8. craft room as of Sept.14, 9. New studio redo, 10. craft room, 11. My New Craft Room, 12. Craft Room Ribbon Jars, 13. Studio* Kookii:Kooky, 14. ribbon holder, 15. Crafting Studio, 16. my miniature studio

A few fun felt crafts...
I forgot to save the html for the links...sorry...


And what girl doesn't enjoy a little romance?
You know.. lace, tulle, rufffles, pastels, glittery things and flowers.
Go ahead.
Indulge.

1. Perfect Party Cake, 2. tulle skirt, 3. Rustic Elegance, 4. Meet Rachel Ashwell, 5. chandelier with ornaments, 6. lace spiderweb, 7. Beautiful birds, 8. Rumpled Rose, 9. blue bird, 10. Vivian's shadowbox collage, 11. Harp, 12. My creation for the handmade Tiara/Crown swap (for Holly), 13. pink cabinet and apron, 14. pink market basket, 15. I love pink!!, 16. flowers, 17. hats, 18. Detail vintage prom gown, 19. Summer Houses, 20. camellia, 21. Tiara ~ Crown Swap, 22. tpc400, 23. Green and Pink Hydrangea Two, 24. Betsey Johnson part 2, 25. LOOK AT Those beauties DRESS IN ROME

I'm enjoying the quiet of a kid-free house.
Mmmm....

Aaaahhh....

Winter break week... YES!

All the hassle from a busy week at school that involved the circus of the seniors leaving (for a few weeks of study leave before their final exams) called "penkkarit". This involves a show, lots of candy being thrown about, silly clothing and yes... they do indeed leave the school on the back of a truck. It's a tradition here, all the seniors on their trucks meet downtown for a circular route they drive through a few times.
Back in the day I did that too. And it was a cooolllllddd day then.
Although our ride wasn't quite this stylin'...

The blonde kid with a red coat in the middle holding up a plastic bag for candies is Saara :)

So this past weekend I had a couple of scrapping friends over and I got to borrow this beauty:

Sigh.
It's the Bind-It-All.
I'm planning to get a couple mini albums punched this week... fun fun fun...

We also went shopping and I got a little something.
Can you guess what?

Heheee...

Indeed, the Fiskars circle punch.

I LOVE it.
It is so easy to use and I went through my entire box of KI scraps just happy punching.
And talking about KI... have you seen their new lines?
This Bloom line coming in May is the one that'll get me into trouble.
Because.I.want.it.all.
All.
All I say.
The line even has albums...

OK, I have to confess I did shop a bit more.
I ordered this Making memories tag maker set with the rims because
A. I have a long lasting love affair with the rimmed tags.
B. You can't find them anywhere these days.
C. It was dirt cheap at scrapbooking.com

Now I just have to impatiently wait for it....

So this morning we all woke up at just before 8am when the mailman rang the doorbell.
He had a big box.
From Utah.
Mika looks at me with the "what the heck have you bought now" look.
But I hadn't ordered anything that big....

It was my Blogging album that came home from Srapbook Trends!
It got quite a few pages in the January issue.



And of course there were the goodies too...
Two magazines, glue, Scenic Route paper pack, birthday brads...

..Christmas stamps, Doodlebug Christmas embellishments...

...which I have to admit are a bit too neon green for me...
Cute though.

And then something interesting:


That's glitter and flocking fluff...

and check out the amount of chipboard!
Geez...


Color therapy time.
You might have noticed how much I enjoy making mosaics from great Flickr photos.
Here's one in aqua and brown.

1. Aqua Brown - Sweet Dot Outfit Set, 2. Sybil Bag, 3. tv tray with candies, pouch, cookie, buttons, pompoms, 4. Aqua Shower, 5. gorgeous beauty blue & brown, 6. wool - brown and aqua, 7. lovely friends 5, 8. 0612 aqua and brown revisited (for a quilt), 9. Hair Clips in Aqua & Brown Floral, 10. blue feather flower, 11. buttons, 12. JULIE Quilted Shoulder Bag - Chocolate Brown & Aqua Blue, 13. aqua & brown swap, 14. fabrics, 15. Aqua Crepe Paper, 16. Quilt top - Aqua and Chocolate D9P, 17. JULY SWAP 1, 18. Cupcake, 19. LEISURE SUIT- Hand Painted Superwash Sock Yarn, 20. zipper back, 21. swap elephant, 22. brown aqua apron dots 2, 23. Tent Decoration - Aqua and Brown 4, 24. The little bear has a new bag!, 25. Shingles & Blue

I think these will be the colors in the next scrapbooking workshop that will be on Thursday March 13 at 17.00.
I know just the Chatterbox papers for this...
Now to just think up what to make.. stay tuned, I'll come up with something still this week.

This year I'm taking part in a dollhouse/miniature birthday swap. That meant that for by b-day yesterday (a fabulous 39, thankyou very much) I had a BUNCH of envelopes filled with fun things. You can see pictures here on my dollhouse blog (text in Finnish only... sorry).

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair done and sending the kiddos off to my in-laws. Then I'm taking the afternoon off to wander around downtown. But tonight... I might entertain you with a few more Flickr mosaics... I find them so inspiring.
Hope you do too.

What's wrong with this picture?

or this one?

I'll give you a hint.

It's MID-FEBRUARY!
We should be knee deep in snow shivering in sub zero temps!

But no.

My flowers are almost blooming....

And the lichen is enjoying the wet weather.
It's thriving on my silver birches!



Nope, not lichen anymore.
Think mushroom of sorts.

February my... ummm.. foot... ;)

Happy birthday Cathy!

Sweet Cathy, who has a heart of gold, celebrates her birthday today!
And we are having a worldwide blog party for her.

Grab a party hat and join us wishing her a fabulous birthday.

Hyvää syntymäpäivää!
*smooches*

I love mail

Especially really exciting can't wait to tear the package open kind of mail.
I got one of those boxes on Monday.
All the way from California.
From my sweet friend Suzanne.
{hugs}

I picked up the box from the post office on my way to a camp school meeting. (one of those days that I leave the school after work, head home, fix dinner and head right back to the school again.. ugh)
So that lovely package sat patiently waiting for me in the car while I slightly impatiently waited for the meeting to be over.
And then very impatiently drove home.

Finally, once I had kicked off my shoes, I tore that box open on the kitchen floor.
Didn't even make it to the table.

Ooooohhhh.....
A box filled with California.

I'm saving the chocolates for the weekend.
The Sun Maid raisin boxes completely cracked me up.
I had just bought some from the store the previous week :)
Those travel in my purse.

Mika was enjoying the magazines.
He found some nice ocean front property for a mere $36,000,000...
I knew the cost of living in CA was high... but really... heheheee...

This is soooo cute.
Look, it's teeny tiny Mickeys!


Both the big S and that jewelry above are this lovely shade of aquamarine.

It's just so pretty.
Sigh.

Wanna see something fun?

Yup.
My name is on there.
Love the American style capital S.
I'll be the envy of all other mice in the 'hood.
*grin*

There should have been someone taking a photo of me taking a photo of the back of my head.
Contortionist I am not.
I nearly dislocated my shoulder.

And yes, I did bake some of those Runeberg tortes.

Yummy.

You Americans might have had your Super Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday, but we also had a double whammy holiday.
Runeberg Day (our national poet) and Laskiaistiistai (well.. not really Mardi Gras, no parades here, but the same basic idea, a day to have fun and eat lots of calories as you start the 7 week wait for Easter).

Now for us, there is Runeberg tortes for 5th of February and laskiaispulla, a sweet sugar topped bun cut in half and filled with strawberry jam and whipped cream, and sledding for laskiaistiistai. This year they were the on the same day.
Two delicacies tied to a certain day.
Needless to say as there was hardly any snow, sledding was out of the picture.
But I did have one of each of the goodies.

It's pretty much a civic duty, right?
Just as important as voting.
Heh.

And it's not like these two holidays will coincide during my lifetime again.
Next time is in about 150 years.

Hei, mukaan vaan!

Skräppäys workshoppiin on KAKSI paikkaa vapaana.
Aika on tänä torstaina 7.2. klo 17 Helsingin Meilahdessa.

Nyt sana kiertämään!
First come, first serve :)

Oooppsss...

There went January.

It really is February.
And you know what I did today?
Well, besides being bored out of my mind for the second day running as I'm home sick... you know you can only watch so much tv..? Who knew?
So.. I pulled the plug.
Yes.

I killed the Christmas lights outside.

I tend to leave them on in January as it is just so darn dark around here.
I was reading in the newspaper that we got a total of 23 HOURS of sunshine in the entire MONTH of december!
Light deprivation, indeed.

Ands if I hadn't been suffering from a fever induced headache yesterday, I might even have written some meaningful post about how time flies. Yesterday was the first anniversary of my Mom's passing. I don't know where the year went. Today is her nameday and I think just because of that I'll be making some of these today. Mmmm...
Ok, so that wasn't the meaningful post I had planned in my head.. but oh well.
*grin*

So in my last post I mentioned we were in for some snow the next day.
This is what that next day looked like:


Lots of very wet snow.

Niina loved it. She was building snowmen while I sweated it.

Teeny wipers on those glasses would've been nice.

So after the shoveling I needed some of this:

Naturally it all turned in to rain later that night.
We got some more snow this Wednesday, that also turned into rain.
And incidentally it is snowing right now. But not a lot. All in all there's barely enough on the ground to cover the grass. Maybe 2cm.

Last weekend was all about Niina's birthday parties.
Yes, parties.
Two.

I made teeny tiny cupcakes.

This was the year it was ALL about the presents. In fact we even had a talk about that on the crowded bus (I'm sure they were all listening in) as Niina was upset that one of her friends wouldn't be able to come. She was most upset because this meant she would not be getting a present from her.
So we had a little chat.
While presents are great, friends mean more.
Tough lesson to learn.

Now why does Mika take photos like this of me?

According to him, that's what I look like.
Gee, thanks hon.
Did he snap anoher frame after realizing this one was.. well... less than flattering?
Nope.
Sigh.

Niina doesn't like cake so we had ice cream.


I'm glad I survived the two parties. It can get tiring.
And yes, she really did try regarding the presents.

Oh hey, I've been meaning to show you this:


I'm hoping it makes finding my knitting needles a bit easier.
Need to sew another one for the different knitting needles. Not to mention all the crochet hooks I have hanging around.

And then for some stuff in Finnish :)

Skräppäily sessio on ensi torstaina, 7.2.08 klo 17 eteenpäin, paikka on Helsingin Meilahdessa.
Vielä mahtuu mukaan pari innokasta.
Laita viestiä susanna.tunturi miukumauku dlc.fi (korvaa miukumauku @ merkillä ja poista välit) niin laitan tarkempaa tietoa.

Tarkoitus on tehdä (jos ei ihan valmiiksi niin ainakin hyvälle alulle) minialbumi.
Kuvassa näkyy osa materiaaleista. Ihania Basic Greyn papereita, Priman herkkääkin herkempiä paperikukkasia, samettinauhaa...
Mulla jo sormet syyhyää... eikun mallia tekemään.. heippa!