Christmas hangover

I'm suffering from a serious Christmas hangover. I want to sleep until it's 2008. I've traveled too much, eaten too much, I even got too many gifts. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't manage to get back home without my dear husband. My bag is just too heavy for me.

These travel tissue pockets were given to my mom and a girl friend. Mom got the one with buttons. I made these from the velvet leftovers of the fox and lined them with soft brown cotton.

Right now I'm trying to stay as far away from the cat of my in-laws as I can. I have difficulties focusing on life.

Merry Christmas!

Hyvää Joulua! Merry Christmas to everyone!

I've had a rather sleepy but nice Christmas day so far. Flu is almost gone! In Finland we exchange gifts on Christmas eve and therefore it's now safe to blog about my handmade gifts. These little pouches were given to my friends and my brother's girlfriend. I made two orange pouches with a little birdy and one brown with a tree. Linen pouches are lined with very soft brown cotton, hand stenciled with fabric paint. Approx. 18x17cm.

I'd like to thank you all for your kindness, your comments and endless inspiration! Blogging has been a most wonderful experience so far, and I'm certainly going to carry on with this! Thank you again! May your holidays be peaceful and filled with kind thoughts!

Fiskars and some strangers

Thanks for all your get well -wishes! I'm definitely getting better, but the cough is still alive and kicking. I'll spare you from the details.

I've been making Christmas presents and I need to keep them secret for a few days more. I'll blog about some of them later, so that there's still something handmade in this blog every once in a while. I got my gocco and made my first prints, but I don't have proper pictures yet. This seems to be a "come back later" blog entry. In addition to that, there's something I want to show you: My scissors! (Well, the ones on top right are my husbands.)


I was inspired by all the spoons over at Skinny laMinx's blog, and of course also by her print Borrowed spoons. We have spoons too, but I like scissors. A lot. I think I could never have too many scissors. I don't know why would I need any more, but cutting is fun = new scissors are fun. Most of you will recognize that Fiskars orange, but also the teal and red ones are made by Fiskars. The red ones are for left handed. It took almost a decade to convince my Mom about it. Those were my first proper scissors, and they were just fine even though I'm right handed. The black ones are teflon coated. That's nice. I don't know if there's any difference to the similar non-coated scissors when it comes to cutting, but knowing that the teflon is there makes me feel better. What a scissor snob!

Tomorrow we're off to my home home, which is my parents' house, and from there we'll go to my husband's parents. We won't be back to Turku until next year. I'll keep updating even though I'm on the road. I don't want you to feel abandoned any more than you already feel.

I'm not dead...

although I'm really really sick. So that's why I'm not blogging, even though I sort of promised. I couldn't sleep until 7 am last night /this morning because of all the coughing. I can't take responsibility over words written in this state, so now I'm just going to focus on getting two books to their new owners and after the trip to the PO I'll try to just be. Maybe read, if I still can't sleep.

I'm so glad I'm home alone, I sound gross and I look gross. I got a pretty haircut yesterday, but the haircut can't rescue me now. I need to de-gross a little and pack my packages. Uh oh.

Kolinaa!

I'm very happy that I managed to get tickets for a very special gig in April. Einstürzende Neubauten is playing at Tavastia, Helsinki. It's their first gig in Finland since 1984 (that's when I was born) and I'm going there with my husband and Milla. I'm usually quite sensitive when it comes to noise, but this gig is something I'm not planning to miss. I hope I've recovered from my flu before it's April.

I'm sure my mom would've wanted me to be interested in some other kind of German culture. The only time she ever commented my music taste was when she said my new Mogwai album was "terrible noise" (that was back in 2000 or so). Einstürzende Neubauten is much worse :)

Stamping exercises

Last night I stamped many meters of wrapping paper. On the living room floor. You may be able to imagine how much my knees hurt. I'm planning to make some more tonight! It was such fun, but I think I need to come up with some sort of knee pads. After working three months in a women's clothing store last summer I had more muscles in my arms than ever before. That work was so much more than just standing behind the counter. Now I know that there's hardly nothing left of those muscles. Maybe they will come back if I start regular stamping exercises? I think it's worth a try...

I cut my stamp from fun foam (or at least I think it's what you call it in English, although I'm not sure how fun it is) and stamped with acrylic paints mixed with wheat paste. That white looking color is actually metallic champagne, and the magenta and phthalo green paints are slightly metallic, too. Browns are what they are. And the paper is just plain brown wrapping paper bought from the post office.

I've already cut another stamp but I still need to glue it together. And stamp!

Mince pies and rusty orange

A beautiful morning turned into a beautiful day. I started my morning by taking pictures of yesterday's creation and feeling happy about not having a tummy ache anymore. Obviously I haven't learned anything since last year, as there clearly is a limit to how many mince pies (or joulutorttu) one should eat.


Coptic bound journal/guest book: rusty orange linen covers, hand stenciled flowers, 96 nice and sturdy white pages sewn with heavily waxed dark brown linen thread. 5.9"x9.2"x0.8" (15,1x23,3x2cm)

This one will be for sale in Paperiaarre Etsy shop later today. The large guest book from yesterday's blog entry is already in there, too!


Despite of feeling even more ill today I went for a little trip to the city and couldn't leave these crows alone once I spotted them. As if it were somehow hard to spot crows... they seem to be everywhere.

I heart bookbinding

I did finish a book yesterday! This is a slightly larger book, that would work great as a guest book or journal. I'm having trouble with making new, larger stencils, so for now I'm using the ones I already have. I'm good at making small new stencils, but whenever I need something bigger I'm completely lost. That's one of the reasons why my books are usually quite small. Another reason is shipping costs. How boring. I'll make some gigantic books once I've got a studio of my own and a lot of money.




Coptic bound guest book / journal: 9"x8.5"0,6" (22,8x21,7x1,6cm), 80 white pages with a slight watermark texture. Covered with dark natural linen, pastedowns on the reverse side of covers are lovely light robin's egg blue, which matches great with the deep green on the cover. As always, stenciled with acrylic paint, hand-cut stencil.

My flu is very persistent and it's gotten worse for a change. I'm surprised if I get well before next year. I hope that the future brings less bad hair days and more outdoorsy days. But for now, I settle with what I've got and make more books since I'm not going to step out the door on a day like this.

Not books

Every night when going to bed I think, tomorrow I'll make some books. And I end up making brooches, necklaces, stationery, foxes and stamps for decorating wrapping paper. Well, today I listed a small part of all the new botanical brooches and necklaces I've finished this week. I will be listing more in near future, too. But for a while, I'll try to focus on making only books.


Yesterday was a nice day to go to the Christmas market. We didn't find anything to buy from there, but I bought a nice little white and brown kamusi linen purse. Kamusi could be translated as your buddy or your friend. Of course I forgot to take a picture while there was still light, but maybe some other day... Instead of purse photos, some festive lighting above the pedestrian street in the city center. (And yes, it's the pedestrian street.) Yesterday was a good but very tiring day.


And Friday... Oh my. It was pouring rain when I did my shipping & shopping and I held on to my umbrella with both hands. I was afraid of being flown to the muddy river Aura, but somehow managed to keep my feet on the ground. (Aura is a plow/plough in Finnish, so there's nothing new agey about Turku quite the contrary.)

Oh, guess what I bought? I bought a gocco printer!! I can't wait for it to arrive from Japan...

Books of good things in the shop!

Well, they're finally here! I currently have them in eight different colors, but more colors and new combinations will be listed to Paperiaarre Etsy shop sooner or later. Tomorrow is the independence day and we're having sleepover guests. That means I've got some cleaning to do! My workshop isn't the tidiest one.

Lumi, kettu ja ananas

The minute I get back home from my shopping & shipping, it snows light little flakes instead of those heavy wet dishcloths that kept slapping me in the face while walking to the city center and back. Some snow seems to actually stay on the ground. That'd be really nice. Here's a living room window view with the not-so-dishclothy flakes.


Then there's the animal guest! I hope Baamshad's mom won't spoil the surprise. This fox needs bigger eyes and a name. Any suggestions? I can handle the eyes myself, but a little help with the name? The fox is made of cotton velvet and details are hand embroidered. It's machine washable, and double stitched to prevent accidental gutting. 13.8" (35cm) long.


And then there's the pineapple! (no picture, you know what pineapples look like)
I bought a pineapple for my husband from the market place. Yesterday I bought him two fresh dates. On Sunday I bought enough oranges for many days to come. So I clearly have a plan to keep buying him fruit, although I suck at buying them. I'm allergic to almost all fruit and I have absolutely no clue when a fruit is ripe (or raw) enough to buy or eat or whatever. I buy the ones that look nice. Who cares how they taste? And by the way, I really hate pineapples.

Weather rant & flowery journal

You'd think that winter would add some grace and femininity to my walking when forcing me to take tiny steps on slippery streets instead of my normal striding along. But no, unless you use the words graceful and feminine to describe some hunchback granny. I'm so used to taking huge steps that this non-snowy winter drives me nuts. I used to walk fast so that people would leave me alone. Nowadays I have to walk fast as my significant other is a lot taller than I am. Together we fly down the road...

I think the rain is taking care of what is left of the snow we had. What a moody weather.

Today's book is a custom order journal for my mother-in-law. Pictures could be better if taken more than ten minutes after waking up. This book had to hurry to its car ride.



This is a large binding covered with orange and dark brown linen. Hand stenciled flowers on front cover. Approx. 8.5"x12"x0.6" (21,5x30,5x1,5cm) and many vanilla colored pages. Too late to count them now as this book is already far away.

I'm hoping to get an animal guest featured in the blog later this week. Books of good things are on their way in English, too. Little gluing and little sewing is still to be done.