Im Memoriam

Riitta

4.2.1943 - 31.1.2007

My mom passed away peacefully this morning after battling cancer for a year.

Just shy of her 64th birthday.

Meet the Bunny Family!

You can have a house tour by clicking here.
Have fun!

Whoa. Snow. Cold.

How'd that happen?
It finally looks and feels like winter.
Check out the temp in my little gadget there ----------->

I'm the only one in our household who does not have skis.
Not much for skiing me... nope.
But Niina got to try it out for the first time yesterday!


You can see how excited she was!

And here's my other snow girl.

Today I've been working my butt off on that dollhouse.

You can see some photos of my progress by clicking here.

Off to attach wires to plugs.

Yes, I'm now an electrician also.

Thank goodness these houses don't need plumbing!!!

Invites, porch railings and a bear

I've just spent a good hour+ making Niina's b-day invites.
The invitation turned out so cute!

I used digital elements from the 2Peas january free kit by rock star Tia :o)
Thanks Tia!!! Your stuff is always so FUN.
This is about as digital as I get.
I love my paper and scissors too much.

I've also spent considerable time yesterday and will have to put some time in today painting the porch railings and trim on Niina's dollhouse.
OY.
And while waiting for paint to dry I'm gluing on rows of shingles.
Double OY.
But I can't help but enjoying the whole process.
I'll try to get some photos up tomorrow.

The bear.
Proofed some photos today too and came across these taken on dec 26th.

This concrete bear used to live at my great aunt's apartment. When she passed away in 1982, the bear moved to our house. His former owner being my dad's god mother.
Us kids loved this bear.
He was just the perfect size to sit on.
Read.
Imagine.
Daydream.
Watch tv.
And sturdy enough too. This bear weighs A LOT.

He now resides at my dad's house.
But he's still very loved and fought over.

Busy, busy

It's a busy week.
Working on finishing the dollhouse finally.
I'll come up for air by the weekend.
I hope.

Have to show you the new lamp we got.

We love it.

Love it.

And here's a cute photo I took last week:

Niina's going through the awkward "growing out the bangs" phase.

She still manages to look cute.

I can't believe my baby will be SIX next week...

sigh.

Proof..

...that I've been scrapping again.

Villa d'Angleterre

journaling: There is one perfect summer villa in the city of Hanko. Lilac elegance on the beach boulevard. If this house ever is for sale, I better have just won the lottery. One can, of course, always dream.

supplies
patterned paper: Anna Griffin, KI
stickers: American Crafts, 7 Gypsies
other: Creative Imaginations journaler's notebook, KI round tag, 7 Gypsies {stamp} , Heidi Swapp chipboard frame.

These following Halloween pages are 6x6.



Lots of KI, a bunch of scraps, a little Heidi Swapp and Doodlebug.

Wish I could share the rest of the pages I've done, but you'll just have to wait a few weeks...sorry..

Food for thought

As I was nordic walking yesterday I was listening to Robbie Williams.
A piece of lyrics from a song struck me.(Don't ask me which song, I have three of his albums on my iPod shuffle)

Every president gets the country she deserves.

Think about that one for a minute.

How much would the world of today change if all leaders were women?
Instead of wars, would we have high power Stitch and Bitch clubs?
Think of what would get accomplished.
The thought kept me entertained for a long time.

I just don't get it...

The weather that is.

Raining today.
Again.
It's November all over again.

No.Wait.
We actually had snow the first days of November.
Yes. Real snow.
The white, cold and glittery kind.

Since then we've had two breaths of snow.
Not even dustings.
Breaths.
You know the amount, you have to go low to check if it's really there and then your breath melts it away.

Plenty of rain though.
And fog.
Mist.
Downpour.
Sprinkling.
Just wet and miserable.

It's January 8th!
Come on...
We have snowboots, skis and skates just wasting away.
Not to mention sleds and toboggans and down jackets.

But not this week.
Yet. (note the optimism)
I'm not holding my breath either. (never mind)
We had the warmest December in recorded history.
No lakes have ice coverage yet.
And by this time the sea is usually iced also.
All I'm saying is that the folk working on on the ice breakers are getting an easy year.

PS. My Colorado friends, send your weather here, please.
I'll happily take a blizzard or two.

Some progress

Upstairs is wallpapered.
Last night I painted the inside of the back roof piece and I can glue the roof on today.

Sadly I still have this pile of window trin to work through.
Ugh.

And for a few curious souls wondering how this house measures up to the one next on my list (the house I won)...

It's a bit bigger.
Niina's house measures 18"/46cmW x 13"/33cmD x 23"/58cmH.
Should be interesting alright...
Time for some tea now.
Then I'll go glue the roof on and vacuum the house.
Have a relaxing weekend!

--- breaking news ---

I have started scrapping again after taking about 6-7 weeks off.

I've finished 3 layouts and one minialbum in four days.
On a roll here folks...
I'm saving a bunch for next month's gallery at AMLT. I might treat you to something before that.

Tomorrow however I'll get moving on that dollhouse again. Had to take a day off.

Today, we have guests coming for some lasagna in just a while, so I better get my butt moving here!

The Arthur in the works

OK, I had promised to show you the progress yesterday already, but my girls hogged the computer for most of the day.
Really. They did.

Does look interesting, doesn't it?
Just waiting for the glue to dry... LOL. Good thing I have these big heavy animal encyclopedias to weigh it all down with!

This is what the house looked like sitting upright.

Niina chose a really cheery wallpaper for the kitchen.

The Bunny family kids dropped by with some of the furniture to see how it would look.
They let me know the kitchen shelf unit and the bathroom furniture need to be white...
Oh yay, more painting...

They did really love the house color!
So do I. Niina chose well.
I glued siding to the walls, to make it look a bit nicer.
The bricks are printed out and will be glued down eventually.

Now the entire house is painted.
I will be wallpapering upstairs before glueing on the roof.
But before that...
I'm doing the most tedious and mind numbing bit of dollhouse building.
Sanding and painting all the million, or possibly two million, tiny pieces of door and window trim.

This is just the door trim. There are five windows with 8 pieces to them and two with 6 pieces.
I just can't wait until I get to do the same for the porch railing.
(now that comment oooooooozed sarcasm!)
Hey, even glueing roof shingles is more fun.

And this entire process isn't being helped by a nearly 6 year old asking daily, if it will be finished tomorrow.
Sigh.
The concept of "the glue needs to dry" isn't sinking in.

New banner

Now I wish this photo had been taken by me.

It's from Australia.
A classmate of mine was there a year ago and I edited some of her photos. I simply love this one.
So all credit on the photo go to Marja H.

Tomorrow I'll show you the progress on Niina's dollhouse.

HAPPY 2007!!!

Our Christmas in pictures

Plenty of candy out to be devoured.

My favorite photo of our livingroom, taken on the 23rd.
So inviting...

On Christmas Eve we drove up to my in-law's.


The girls decorated the tree, we snacked, relaxed, snacked some more, ate dinner and waited for Santa.


He brought quite a load. He was a bit sneaky... he had left the presents in the dining room instead of under the tree and it took a while for the girls to notice...

Quite a lot of exitement here.
Saara got a Play Station Portable and Niina a dollhouse from Santa.

I got a cool painting from Cuba, where my brother and his fiance Petra just vacationed.

Saara reads directions while Janne tries out Monkeyball.
Niina was a bit tired as the exitement wore down.

Seriously...this is how Kobi usually has his paws.
So we got a little silly..
Could have been the red wine.

Maybe.

Are you all ready for 2007?

Almost time

Tomorrow is Christmas.

I've just visited the graveyard and lit candles with my mom.

Decided to make the last batch of cookies on Christmas Day, rather than stress about them tonight.

Still have some wrapping to do. Planning to that while eating goodies and watching the two episodes of Sopranos we recorded.

The kids are wondering what they'll find in their stockings in the morning.
(our stockings are filled in the morning of Christmas Eve, as Santa visits us that night. The stockings are not a finnish tradition at all, but ours were adopted during our years in Michigan)

I'll come by here tomorrow morning to change the banner.
It might take me until Christmas Day to upload my last photo of the day (today's is really cute!), but I'll get it up there.

I wish you all a very peaceful Christmas.

Rauhallista Joulua.

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Now go eat something good.
Chocolates await!

Gracing our livingroom

Here it is.

In all its glory.

And glimmer.

And shine.

And twinkle.

It's so pretty.

I feel a little like Gollum:

"Myyyy preeeciouuussss..."

Thursday? Really?

Where did yesterday go?
I didn't have time to even come change the banner, LOL.

Today was Saara's Christmas Party.
A big musical production called "A Moose on the Loose".
Oh was it ever good.

The storyline:
One of Santa's reindeer is kidnapped by The Bad Guys (aka Jeti, Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman). As ransom, they want all of Santa's toys. Morris the Moose leaves the petting zoo to go help. On the way he meets up with some geese, wolves and polarbears who help him defeat The Bad Guys and free Dancer.
And Christmas is saved.
Hurray.

The make-up and costumes were fabulous.

Here are the geese, wolves and polarbears.

And here, The Bad Guys.

Second from the left is Saara.
Yes, really.
I did not recognize her when she got on stage.
She was Bigfoot with the accent of a New Jersey made man.
It was awesome.
And soooooooooooooooooooooooo funny.

Real mobster attitude.

My arm itches.
I had some acupuncture treatment on it...

See all the red dots?
That's what happens when you rig lights to a very nice Christmas tree.

It waits for the decorations.
In just a bit.
I need to go eat a cookie first.

Ummm... I meant an apple...yeah...that's it... two apples in fact..
;o)