There's a Crayon in my coffee: 2013

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Here are some X-mas cards I crafted. Have a wonderful Christmas!

Remember to rest and enjoy the holidays <3

Love, Anu

Friday 6 December 2013

December 3rd + some jewelry + a surprise for all the crazy cat-ladies in the end!

Teemu's parents babysitted Ruu for the whole day, I had a doctor appointment and spend the rest of the day at home. Didn't get much done. Though I added some of my jewelry for sale to Facebook and Etsy. That is always the most boring thing to do. I have loads of jewelry waiting for photographing and adding for sale.. Recently I have made some "lovers" earrings and more skeletons and other stuff of shrink plastic.

Custom-made piece of jewelry for a new-born baby-girl. I drew the fox by myself.

Custom-made jewel for a Sister-fan-girl. This is the logo of the band.

The Frankenstein's monster and his lovely bride. Drew the original pictures by myself.

Scarlett and Rhett.
Once again; originals drawn by me.

Ken and Barbie.
Drawn by me.

Skeleton pendant, drawn by me.

December 3rd

"Ring the bell"

I got a hilarious Christmas card, with colorful confetti from Emma!

There was a rabbit-badge too!

Bath-time!

And lastly a cat-bonus for all the cat-lovers. Featuring Twiggy and the Actionman! Meow! =^..^=

The Week of Life - project

I red about an interesting project from a camera-magazine. It is an old one, but I heard from it for the very first time. It is called Week of Life. The idea is taking 9 photos every day for a week (or longer time). The photos should show bits from one's everyday life and they should be horizontal.

The whole project was founded by Czech photographer Adolf Zika, who got Leica D-Lux 3 compact camera in 2006 and decided to start taking documentary photos from his own life every day for an year. The compact camera followed him 24 hours a day, into all of his daily activities. The founding idea behind Week of Life is to contribute to a “world photo archive of humanity”.

There is a website, where anyone can post their own weeks of life. Check it out here: http://weekoflife.com And to read more about the project, see the following link: http://weekoflife.com/en/aboutproject.aspx

So, I got very excited about this, and am joining the project. I will be posting some photos here too!

December 2nd

We saw Teemu at work; he came to sand the playpark with the yellow tractor. It was icy there. Ruu probably wants to be a tractor-driver when he grows up...

Piece of Mulled wine-ginger bread-cheesecake I baked, with mulled wine syrup.

Lately I've been baking way too much. I should really control myself or soon my clothes won't fit me anymore. :F It is this dark and cold, depressing season which forces me to bake cakes and eat sugar more than necessary!! It is 3 p.m. and it's already getting dark! UGH!

Late Halloween / Kekri post

I should really had posted these photos like over a month ago, when they still were current.. Haha.

Oh well, here they are anyway. Halloween is quite a new thing in Finland and isn't such a big holiday like in the U.K. or United States. But I think it is nice to have some decorations and stuff. I carved a pumpkin and baked a pumpkin pie. Mmmmmm, that was yummy!!

However Halloween contains many elements in common with traditional Finnish late autumn festival called Kekri. It is the ancient, almost forgotten Finnish celebration of the end of the harvest season, and was still commonly celebrated in rural Finland 100 years ago. In Finland the turn of the year occurred at around Kekri time, and at about the same time, Finns observed an interim period of about two weeks, when the months, calculated according to the phases of the moon, were adjusted to the solar year.

People looked for omens in the weather for the next harvest season, and guidance was also sought on matters of love. The spirits of the dead were said to wander in this world especially during the Kekri period.

At harvest time, stores of food were bulging, and there was no stinginess when celebrating the autumn feast. Once the work of the year was done, it was time to eat, drink, and dance.

The "Köyri goats", dressed in a mask and fur (precursors of the present Finnish Father Christmas) went from house to house begging for drinks of the fermented drink sahti, and amusing the people in the house.

To read more about Kekri see the link below:
http://www.hs.fi/english/print/1135222832346

Piece of the pumpkin pie I baked.

We also visited two Kekri-parties. The other one was at Children's museum and the other was organized by some local residents' associations and the association of the useful plants. It's wonderful that some of the old traditions are revived.

Sunday 27 October 2013

Finally!

Long time no hear from me.. I'm a BAD blogger! But I'm trying to shape up..!
Here are some deco-entries I've made recently (read: during past months..)

My entry to a bicycles-themed deco

Entry to a Soviet Union themed deco

Some chilis... Drawn by me.

"Moods"-entry

Entry into vintage-themed deco

Some more vintage-themes...

Entry into "Striped"-deco

Last summer I also started to make jewelry. I have my own Etsy-shop for them now and also Facebook pages. Check them out here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/tralaladesignfinland

www.facebook.com/tralalafinland

Below you can see some of the jewelry I've made. I have plenty of jewelry I should photograph and even more unfinished projects... Lately I've interested also in semiprecious stones and crystals and would like to use them more in my jewelry. As much as I love the beauty of them I am also very interested in their healing qualities.

I have an awesome French dictionary from the early 20th century, which my friend Martta has dumbster dived from somewhere and given to me <3 I should really make a special jewel for her as I have had so many cool crafting materials from her! And to get back to that old book, I have found some really great stuff from it to use in my jewels.