Some photos from yesterday

Our crayon crafting :o)

Isn't it cool when even trash is pretty?

They didn't smell as appealing as muffins LOL!

Finished product.

Still as cold as yesterday. I'm off to vacuum the house to keep warm :oP

Damn Siberians!

They should keep their high pressure fronts from invading us. It was -56C (-70F) in Siberia and -37C (-34F) in Moscow yesterday and -19C (-2F) here today. And folks, it's only going to keep getting colder.

Brrr.....

'Dig out the blanket, wool socks and sit inside' kinda days.
Alas, I had to go to the post office and grocery store today. I walked. Well, I mean it's only ten minutes to the stores. Layering is the magic word. After a lifetime of living weeks of weather this cold, you adapt. I might not like it, but I know what to do. I survived my walk. I even bought ice cream since there was no danger of it defrosting on the way :o)
But you know what was really annoying... the inside of your nose freezing.

I should have been doing laundry today, I will still go throw a load in.
But I had a whiny and bored kid at my hands. I have to thank Martha Stewart for sending that newsletter today. She had a perfect craft there. We made big chunky crayons from all those little bits that accumulate. We made fun colors too, mixed four greens and voila- perfect crayon to color grass! It was easy too, if slightly messy. You cut up the crayons to pea sized pieces, mix the colors you want and put into mini cake baking tins. Put into a oven preheated to 65C (150F) until they have melted (about 20 minutes) let cool and pop out. I stuck mine outside for just a bit, but in your case a freezer will do the job ROFL!

And I finished the baby album. I'm so proud of myself to have gotten that done so fast. I'll show you photos tomorrow. Now if I could only get the last 7 entries of that Xmas journal done. Next on my list. Can't leave that hanging for too long or I'll never finish. I know me.

So those butterflies...

Niina will be five next Monday. FIVE! She was just born... I can't believe she'll be five. Five.. it's just not sinking in. Can you tell? LOL!

Yesterday morning she was looking through the Family Fun's Parties book (that book is saving me from some major headaches, thank you Christine!) and then yelled out "MOOOOOMMMMMM!!! I want a butterfly party!" I wasn't surprised, butterflies and fairies are big in her world right now.

So I read it through, decided what to do, still mulling over a few things. Depends on whether I find the right supplies. Boy do I ever miss the party supply stores now. But hey, you gotta work with what you have, right?
Goodie bags for guests have not been a part of Finnish parties for very long. It's nothing as elaborate as in the US though. I always try to think out of the box.
So, I bought the birthday girl these beautiful butterfly wings. Teal, turqoise and lilac. Beeaauuuutiful. I also bought several big sheets of cardstock. I'll be cutting out 7 pairs of butterfly wings out of those and painting them with watercolors to match. The guests can decorate the wings with turqoise and green glitter glue and sequins , butterfly stickers, lilac and pink fabric flowers and ribbons. And the wings will be the favor they take home.
There will also be a butterfly cake, naturally. Atleast that is easy to make!

Last night I played in Photoshop and made the invitation:

The text says: Welcome to a party.

I am looking for ideas for some fun butterfly games however. I will do a flower hunt, I'm probably going to cut a bunch of flowers using scraps from my endless supply and attaching a candy in the middle. Any ideas for something else? Or shall I just let them flutter about prettily? :o)

It just started snowing, it's also getting colder. The cold front is approaching, it'll be well in the teens by tomorrow. Alas there is also wind... I hate wind chills. You end up looking like the Michelin man with all the layers.

And yes Laura, I did mean you. ;o)

Tagged, tagged and tagged once more for good measure!

And just so you know I don't even know how come I didn't come back here all last week. We'll just blame it on the January blaah's, ok?

So I was tagged by Courtney, Robin and Jill. Guess I should get to it...

Four jobs you have had in your life:
Breakfast waiter at a fancy hotel
Salesperson at a gift store
Had my own flowershop for a bit
and my most challenging one: mom :o)

Four movies you would watch over and over:
Chocolat (be warned to have chocolat at hand!)
Any Wallace and Gromit flick (long or short)
Das Boot (the ultimate submarine movie)
...ummm.... need one more...
Oh yes... Silverado

Four places you have lived:
Helsinki, Finland
Olympia, WA
Espoo, Finland
Lake Orion, MI

Four TV shows you love to watch:
(right now)
Everwood
Desperate Housewives
CSI
Deadwood

Four places you have been on vacation:
Sailing on the Baltic Sea
caravaning in Norway
back in '99 we drove from MI to Florida to go to Disneyworld
England

Four websites I visit daily:
The TIPster message board
2 peas in a bucket
several blogs

Four of my favorite foods:
Pasta
love anything with parmesan and prosciutto
Tomato soup
bread, any shape or form

Four places I would rather be right now:
A week from today and have Niina's b-day party behind me LOL
Nosing around Jill's store :o)
Drinking a dacquiri someplace warm
Living next door to my Sis

Four bloggers I am tagging:
Laura
Sharyn (just cause I know you hate these.. hehehee)
Shelby
Tawny

*grin*

I need to run now, but I promise to come back tomorrow to tell you about the party plans.
Fluttering sparkling butterflies.
OY!

Back to real life

Schools started today. It's nice and quiet in the house. For another hour until I pick up Niina from preschool anyway.
I'm sooo tired. The entire vacation I've been back to my night owl ways, hardly once going to bed before 1am. Last night I'm in bed at midnight. An hour later I'm still not sleeping. And at 1.30 Niina pees in her bed. Ugh.
So I wasn't ready for my alarm a bit past 7am.

I enjoyed a nice breakfast (tea, half a grapefruit and 2 pieces of rye bread) reading the newspaper and right now I should be paying bills, but instead found myself surfing online and ended up checking out the Mark Messier tribute pages on the New York Rangers website. He is the Captain of course and my all time favorite hockey player.
But I should pay those bills though.
In just a bit.

It's still nice and quiet here.

Getting unstuck

I got stuck on my journal and have been falling behind day after day.
Today I finally got three pages done, hoping to get the rest done soon also.

I recycled the hearts from gift tags I made. The middle tag is one my DH made for me (although I did cut out the heart LOL)

I got stuck on this page for the longest time, just didn't know what to do with it. Still not sure if I like it much.

Give me light. Candles, strings of tiny bulbs, a roaring fire...

I've been working on LO's and schtuff for the next AMLT gallery. I'm pretty hyped about this, you'll be seeing some fun things with our theme for next month! Totally worth the wait :o)
I've been named Creative Team Leader with Courtney Kelly, we'll be issuing challenges for you to take part in. If you haven't already signed up for the A Million Little Things newsletter, go do it now: http://amillionlittlethings.com/index.php

What are you waiting? I said now ;o)

On sale...

...two girls.
Dirt cheap.

I'm so ready for school to start on Monday.
*sigh*

Yup, that's me up there

Too much of a papers and scissors gal to ever turn a digital scrapper, but I do play a little sometimes. I have fun making new banners every month!
This photo of me and my mom was taken when I was 5 or 6 months old.
I just realized looking at it, that the small tree behind me is the big chestnut tree in my front yard. Wow, it's grown a lot in the past almost 37 years!
You can see the tree on this layout: http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/pg.asp?gallery=1&cmd=display&layout_id=332317&show=2

And I did take a photo to ring in the new year, took a shot of the one flower I buy for myself every Christmas, a blue hyasinth. Love the scent. And it has to be blue. Just has to.

It's a blustery kind of day here, dark...since the clouds are hanging low. Occasional snow flurries. Mika is back at work, the girls still have this week off school. I think we might have a scrapping day today. All of us.
Sounds good.

Carte blanche

It's almost an hour into 2006 in my nook of the world.
January 1st.
Clean slate.
Carte blanche.

I wish you all a happy one.
Onnellista Uutta Vuotta my friends.

Almost the new year already!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday!
We did :o)
I might even go to detail one of these days, but with the kids home and even DH off work this week (it's his birthday today!) my computer time is limited.
I will share this photo from Christmas Eve. Not your typical Christmas photo, but one of my favorite things.

This is a shot taken at the biggest graveyard in Helsinki at 8.30pm on Christmas Eve. The tradition here is to take candles to your loved ones graves at Christmas, it is an ocean of flickering candles where ever you look. I only wish I had taken my tripod along... this shaky shot was taken leaning to a tree and holding my breath LOL!

I've fallen behind on my journal again, not surprisingly though. But here are days 21-25.

Photos of my home that day. And yes... we were not supposed to use red and green...but ROFL... call me a rebel.

My to-do list that day. I only missed one thing then....and that was ironing...

Our stockings, not part of Finnish Christmas, we adopted them during our years in Michigan. We also adapted the tradition to fit, ours are dug into already the morning of Christmas Eve.

The big day for us. Family, food and gifts galore.

Christmas Day for us is lazing around and playing with our new toys :o)

And if you haven't figured out my format... the same square and rectangle shapes, white journaling around the edges, ribbon tab and a transparency on every page. And sticking to a color group.

By popular demand...LOL!

Some of my decorations... You have already seen my tree :o)

- Diningroom -
The table still needs a tablecloth. It was there, but DH managed to spill milk all over it, sigh. A grey cloth covered with a white organza with silver squares. I promise to take another photo...with fresh roses too LOL!
My favorite ornament is the angel dress I bought a few years a go. I attached some feathers to it, it's place is on the chandelier among the glass ornaments.

-Livingroom -
The tree naturally. Lots and lots of candles. Our stockings, handmade by me. And my happy "tonttu's" aka elfs. One bought, one made by Niina, the candle wax stained yarn ones used to hang in my grandmother's tree. They like to team up with the horse my uncle played with as a kid. On my tree hang two sugarplum fairies, the blue is Niina's there is a yellow one for Saara. I made those some years back. I love my 'snowballs', clear glass balls, I inserted a white feather. The beaded star is this year's find.

Some yummies from yesterday's baking. I love these Target bought Snickers tins from '96, '97 and '98. Do they still have Norman Rockwell paintings on them? I'd love to have just one more.

- Kitchen -
The Merry Christmas sign was a gift from my new friend Anna. I have my Christmas quilted wall hanging up, extra ornaments in a jar on top of my oven, and our advent candelabra doubles as a card holder :o)

There is never enough light. Never.

Peace

I'm baking all day today. Wanted to send a Christmas wish of peace to all of you.

These are some traditional Finnish star shaped prune jam tarts (don't be scared by the prune bit, I make my own jam and add a bit off brandy in it, makes all the difference!)

Don't you just love your mailman...

...during these days before Christmas? I do! He brought me a fabulous secret santa package from my TIPster gal Karen. I'm grinning here!

I got some great stuff to play with and the girls got some Pepperidge Farm goldfish and Cheetos!

Another thing I'm really impressed with the way our new neighborhood grocery store owner is making an effort. They held a kids concert the other week at the store, 20 minutes with a favorite crocheted teddybear Titi-Nalle (big as life, think Barney, but white and 500% less annoying LOL) which ended with goodie bags for the kids. These two weeks before Christmas you have been able to get a cup of hot coffee or glogg (Scandinavian Chrsitmas time drink) and gingerbread coookies when you go shopping. Today they had gingerbread decorating for kids (no age limit heheheee) plus tonight the doorbell rang and I was given a bag with a Christmas card and bread as a present.

I said it was impressing.
wow.
All this just a 300 meter (about the same in yards) walk away.
Gotta love that.

About the 'Journal Your Christmas' class I'm taking:
I signed up for the class here http://www.shimelle.com/ . Check out some of the classes starting, there are some interesting ones!
I get a daily email prompting me to journal about something specific that day. Also included is an artistic challenge, some days I'm able to incorporate it, others not. I'm just glad that isn't a big deal, after all it is an art journal and there are no rules.

And TA-DAA!!!
I'm caught up!!!! Here are days 17 to 20.

The journaling is about giving out the perfect gifts, as in the recipient is 'getting' it too. I have a tradition with my dear friend that every year I make a new ornament for their tree. And every year they speculate what I'll think of this year.

Christmas dinner. OK, I wasn't able to do the artistic challenge, but I did include a photo of the bread I baked... does that count? And I had to edit that Shakespeare quote just a bit :oP

My letter to Santa. Yes, I've been extra good this year :o)
That Santa ding is one of my faves.

mail. *grin* I had saved that moomin stamp for something special. This was it.

Our tree is up!

I let the girls have free range this year, they said they liked the pink ornaments (surprise). Mika does not like the results, but I've told him to shut up and just live with it. He's more of a monochromatic guy LOL!

I've still got lots to do this week, still haven't figured what to get my in-laws...

Aaahhh... the mailman is here, looks like he'll be running a good three hours late this week!

I've also been working on my xmas journal, I'm hoping to actually get caught up this week. Here are days 13 to 16.

Handing out presents rituals. I painted the Santa transparency from the back.

Favorite Christmas song (It Must Have Been Ol' Santa Claus), I blame my sister for this LOL!

OK, so I didn't use the words visitors, or company...or keep it simple.. so sue me heheheeee...

Kiitos= thank you. Among the things I am grateful for are a working oven, the mailman, hugs, candles and love.

Almost caught up, yay!

Just a couple days and I'm there :o)

It's all about the squares, right?

OK, so I admit... the envelope still waits for the journaling. But I have thought about it if that counts LOL!

The striped and shiny red are two of my wrapping papers this year. I like to do my wrapping alone.

My Christmas tree isn't going up until Friday, but I do have my ornaments out. These are this years colors. Took a photo of them, although the hot pink printed out as red on the transparency, hmmpph. You can't really see my ornament hanger too clearly since I use transparent fishing line. There's a bit tied between the top two brads.

Onni= happiness. I used a piece of mica I had hanging around for the longest time! Added a rub on to it.

Happy Lucia Day!

Today, Dec 13th is Lucia Day , the festival of light, in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Lucia is the bringer of light with her crown of candles. We crave for that light here in the dark. The original Lucia was a young Christian girl from the town of Syracuse, on the Italian island of Sicily. She was beheaded by sword on the 13th of December in 304 A.D. during the persecutions of Christians that occurred in the late Roman empire.The most typical Lucia celebration is the Lucia Procession, which consists of a group of young girls and boys singing traditional songs. Every town elects a Lucia, and she will go on a parade through the streets dressed in white with a red ribbon round her waist and wearing a chandelier on her head.

I have the girls back home with me. They took a cruise with my dad. Boy was it quiet here while they were gone. I'm ready to go dig out some earplugs now LOL!

We visited my girlfriend today to see her two week old baby boy. Aaaahhhh...baby therapy. He was just adorable. And I can't believe I forgot to take my camera with me [slapping forehead].

I tell you, it pays off to have a geek in the house. I am the proud owner of a brand new flat 20" widescreen monitor! Wooo hooo! I love it.

What else... let me think. Oh, I finally took photos of a couple projects. They are both presents, so I'm not mentioning names ;o)

The purse is just too cute. Saara is now whining for one.

The scarf is crocheted of mohair thread, it's light as a feather, I weaved organza, sequin and velvet ribbons in it.

I'm off to make more Christmas cards and to try to catch up on my journal. The problem is I fall behind more every day ROFL!

More journal pages

Catching up slowly

Journaling is about a childhood Christmas where I helped my uncle as he did his rounds as Santa. I trailed along as an elf. (Here in Finland Santa actually shows up at people's houses on Christmas Eve bringing presents and singing with the kids) The other side is about a Christmas when we had a small fire.

My take on Christmas shopping. The chipboard tag is from a shirt to DH.

Christmas journal progress

After watching a few people doing Shimelle's online Journal Your Christmas class, I decided to treat myself to an early present :o)

As I jumped in on day 6, I am desperately trying to catch up. I've finished my first 5 pages, hoping to catch up more tonight and tomorrow.

My album is 7½ x 7½, and since it is spiral bound I'm trying to keep my pages as flat as possible. This is the cover.

And a closeup of the hearts, I covered them with diamond glaze and dropped tiny beads in them.

My dedication page. I decided to make my pages the same format, just changing colors and other design elements.

Day 2. I made the snowflake with tiny tags.

Day 3. The image is one of my alltime favorite Christmas card pictures.

Day 4. Christmas at home. Drew the house... can you tell?

Day 5. My girls' advent calendar this year.

I just cannot...

...function properly without the use of my computer. It's time to admit that addiction.
I guess not an addiction, but just the fact that all the info I need these days is on my hard drive. Addresslists, photos, emails.

***breaking news***
DH just sent me a textmessage to drop by the office and pick up an extra monitor they have!!! I get to borrow a flat 17" monitor. Woooo hooo!

Off to go get it
*BIG GRIN*

I'm cursed.

First the phone. Then the oven. Now my monitor!!!
Excuse me for a minute while I SCREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM!

So as it stands, it might take a while for me to get a new one, I'm stuck on using DH's lap top when he lets me have it or my mother's computer with an insanely bad monitor that gives me a headache.

Hence...I won't be able to share photos for a while.

This is truly the moment when I realize I cannot be without my computer.
I'm afraid I won't necessarily be here every day.

At least my oven is being fixed tomorrow.
Sigh.

I'll be back on Tuesday

Tomorrow afternoon we leave for a two day cruise to Stockholm, Sweden and back. We are celebrating my MIL Mirja's 70th birthday. We'll be dressed up fancy for dinner tomorrow, and yes, I'll haul my camera along LOL!
But now I'll go tie a few bows to my Christmas wreaths, change the wall quilt to a wintery one and scrap. I think I have my mojo back. I've been in a funk with this flu. It's still bugging me...

The new banner shows you what colors my Christmas tree will wear this year.

She's so grown up, sniff.

Today the kids performed the dances they have practiced for the Mayor's reception.

Wow. They were dressed up and very nervous. You could see them counting the steps in their heads :o) Towards the end they were loosening up a little and you started seeing smiles.

Next week Wednesday is the reception at Finlandia Hall. Imagine 5000 ten year olds... And silly me just volunteered to help. I think I might be certifiable. I mean 5000 kids?!? What was I thinking?

But they do look cute don't they? Saara and Joakim.

And I was already told off... "Mom! You took a zillion photos, that was sooooo embarrassing!" Naaah, not a zillion, just 110 :oP

Happy December!

Hmm.. I need to make a festive banner. Better get my ornaments out so I can take a photo!

I woke up early this morning, wrapped myself under the covers and thought I'd stay there warm for a bit more as I didn't have to get up for another 45 minutes. Five minutes later I hear Saara asking her Dad if it was December 1st. Then it hit me... I had forgotten to set out the girls' advent calendar! The thought did cross my mind the previous night but had disappeared fast. So I told Saara to stay in bed, it was still early and I pulled on woollen socks and tiptoed to the basement to haul it out. Luckily the girls in their enthusiasm didn't notice I had a few presents missing (I took care of those this afternoon).

Wish someone made me a advent calendar like this. With scrapping goodies naturally :o)