Recycled Crafts - Gift Containers

This post was first published in Finland Handcrafters Team blog, but I assumed not all of my readers read it. So I post it here as well. Since I think it's a great idea :D

 

It's always nice to bring small presents when we're invited to a party or event. But it's not always nice trying to figure out what to bring, especially if we're not into buying something useless, such as a decorative item that will end up in the trash, or if our host already has just about everything. Something edible is always a good choice -- everybody likes to eat! But we might not feel comfortable bringing food, as it might look silly. But! If you place the gift you are bringing into a nice container it's a totally new ball game!

What will you need:

Empty and clean cylinder shaped food containers

Old gift wrap and/or newspaper

Glue, brush and small container

Scissors and craft knife (optional)

Paper ribbon or twine

First you need to cut the paper to match the container size. It doesn't have to be exactly the same size, as you'll trim it later on. But make sure the bottom line is straight and that your piece is big enough!

Then we're going to glue it on. There are two methods to do this, depending on the look you want. If you want it to be smooth (good for smooth wrapping paper) use a glue stick. Spread glue on the seam of the container, and then around the top and bottom edge. Make sure you get all the edges covered, but don't spread the glue all over, since it will make the paper wrinkle.

Starting from the seam, wrap the paper around the container. Make sure you get the bottom part straight. Let the paper overlap a bit and secure with glue.

If you're after the more rustic look, use liquid glue and an old paint brush. Spread glue all over the container.

When wrapping the paper around the container, don't pull it too smooth. It's supposed to wrinkle a bit!

After the glue has dried, you can trim the edges with a craft knife. You can use scissors too.

Tie the ribbon/twine around the container. Now it's ready to go! Fill it with candy, nuts, muesli...just about anything you can fit inside. :)

 Happy Crafting!!

Rooms full of FUN!

I belong to this Etsy Team called Finnish Handcrafters Team, FHT. I met some of these talented girls (gosh, did I talk about this here already? Having two blogs does not make your life easy!) couple weeks ago and ever since I've been really active with all things Etsy and networking and all that. (Sometimes I feel it's all out there just to keep you occupied, to give you some sort of [false?] hope, like the stuff they do at the unemployed office - all these classes and courses and meetings. And then again I love the energy it gives me. I do get the feeling that "I can do it!". And I like that feeling :D )

As one of my dreams is to be the fly on the wall, just to see other peoples homes, the way they live and most of all to see where they do their magic. So I asked my group members to share their craft rooms with me and well, you :) Here we go!

 Dimitra, from LooneyDimitraCrafts. This is what she says about her craft space:
Living in a small apartment in Helsinki may create problems in keeping up a small crafting business, but good storage solutions help.
My yarns are stored in bags in the closet, other supplies are kept in drawers and boxes and the coffe table is covered with colorful creations every evening.

 I am using the coffee table as my work space while Iraklis (our black cat) is taking naps or observes me carefully.

I photograph my products on sunny days by the window.












Here's Alba, from  MadeOfSundays! Alba makes very cute wall decals and stickers.

"I combine Made of Sundays work with my projects as a graphic design freelancer.

What I like the most about my “office” are the outside views (I can see squirrels jumping around that tree!) and my green mint wall. It is really important for my creative process to be surrounded by color and cute stuff. 

Gary Cooper takes care of the Quality Assurance department and my good friend Totoro makes sure that I do no miss any deadline :-)"

 Here's Yini, from Kotona. This is where she creates her handmade bath acessories and home decor.

Firstly I do my crocheting and computer stuff on the couch as my husband has completely taken over the dining table. Also I found I work better this way. In the day I'll me on my comp and at night my comp is used to watch movies so I will crochet then.

Next is my sewing and cutting station. I only cut small amounts here and do the bigger stuff on the floor. It is actually suppose to be a breakfast table but we eat breakfast somewhere else. It's a bit uncomfortable as only my toes reach the paddle when I'm sitting on the stool, but it works.

Last is the make shift photo area. It is a small kitchen caddy which I pull closer to the window when I need to take pictures. This window is southwest facing so it doesn't get hit by direct sun in the day time.

Lucky my husband doesn't mind my mess, but it becomes a problem sometimes.

Here we have Sasha, from PaperPlaneStationery. 

Sasha makes very beautiful notebooks and other paper goods.

"I work from a room in a tiny student apartment I share with my husband and our cat.

The extra room we have is a combination of a guest room, a storage room for our small record label and my craft space.

The long white table is my favorite piece of furniture as it works as a working surface, supply storage space and photography studio at the same time.

 I also use a vintage table-type Singer sewing machine I got from my mother-in-law (not shown in the pictures unfortunately).

It's not a big space, but I'm really happy to have it as it inspires me to create.

Last, but not least we have Simona. Simona has two shops,  ColorfulSimone and SEscarves.

"Here is my studio! I paint my scarves on one high table in the kitchen :) And that`s it.

We live in a really small apartment, so this is my only place to paint during winter. During summer I paint on the balcony! :)

 Since I just got a new doll and I want to show her off here's the most recent picture of my favorite work place.Virginia, the new girl in the one on the right.

 I hope you enjoyed this little tour on some of my most favorite crafters' magical places!!

xoxo,
Raisa

I will conquer the world!

Well, maybe not during this lifetime, but maybe the next one. Anyway, I've had such a great week so far. Actually it has started last Saturday, if not even before that. On Saturday I took my hubby out on a date. This is something that amazes my son, who doesn't understand why we go on dates since we are already married. We do it for fun, to keep our relationship fun. :)

But that's not what I'm writing about. I'm writing about my business, my passion, my funtime. So, before meeting my spouse in the city I went craft supply shopping. I got some miniature wood for my dreamhouse (it'll be awesome once it's finished - dunno when that's going to happen though), ribbon and fabric for my sleepsacks. And I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. Even the cold weather and other Saturday shoppers.

The rest of the day was very pleasant as well, with nice dinner in a nice restaurant and then to see my daughter's band performing for the very first time! So awesome!

Sunday I sewed. I had to stop occasionally to cook, since weekends are my turn to feed the family. But since I made a list earlier during the week, even the shopping list was done according to what I planned to cook, which makes it much more pleasant. My daughter made muffins, I made macaroni cassarole and a huge loaf of bread. And then back to sewing.

All pictures courtesy of Nelli

At the moment I have such amazing fabrics it's been difficult not to sew! I had eight sleepsack I was working on, and finally a couple days ago I got them finished. Then we took pics of them and uploaded them on the store and enjoyed the sound my hubby's mini computer makes everytime I sell something. :D It's like an old fashioned cash register. :) I sold everything in less than 24 hours! Except for one that was reserved for somebody who can't buy it just yet. And now there are three people on the line for new pouches.

The whole week has been like this. Not that I've sold like a pro, but I've had this weird sense of confidence or something. Like I can make it. Even though I know I can't with Pinkkis. It's just not possible in Finland, with the products I have. But still. Maybe if I combine all I make and know and use that?

The main reason for this post is still yet to come - Etsy Meet! I'm a member of Etsy Team called Finland

Handcrafters Team. I used to be quite active on it, but then I got really busy with school stuff and all. So I became less active. And then I felt so left behind I stopped checking the new stuff all together. But maybe a week ago or so I got an invitation to this meet and I felt like going. Now that I don't go to my Spanish class anymore I even had a chance to do something else during evenings!

I met 8 other Etsians in the City. I was late, as always. I was supposed to be early to go to the fabric store (= my fave hangout), but life happend and I ended up running and sweating. Everyone else were there already. But I wasn't too late to miss the introduction or anything really. All the girls seemed so nice and so talented and so ready for success. :)

Big Goals!

I missed almost half of what was said, thanks to my lousy hearing and the noisy location, but what I heard was very inspiring. We made all sorts of open plans, nothing too strict yet, but discussed some ideas for workshops and so on. But the best part was really meeting all these amazing people. I also got my first "Pay it Forward" present. :) Very nice soap from Paloni. Thank you Nelli!! I will pay it forward!

After the "official" part of the meet we went to a cafe. I had quite a nice cup of Fair Trade Jasmine tea. I hate being fussy about my food and drinks, since I think I'm very easy to please, but I guess in the real world I'm a nightmare.  Being vegan and only liking Japanese green tea, preferably organic and fair trade... But this tea was really nice. We were at Coffee House on Sokos.

From there I had to leave early to go to the fabric store. Once again I had to run. Eww. I don't like running with all the heavy clothes and shoes and the air being so goddamn cold and dry. I found a piece of fur I liked but not the one I was actually looking for :( I had a piece of it with me so I was able to ask for help, but even the two women I asked from didn't know what it was called or where to get more... great!

Oh well! I must go. I have some biology to read and pouches to sew.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend with full of nice surprises and magical moments!!

xoxo,
Raisa

Where the magic happens

I know I'm kind of an underdog here, with my incredibly cluttered and colorful style. If you even can call that a style. I know that the incredibly beautiful houses that are presented in magazines are all very minimalistic, very white, very clean, airy and very much not like me at all. Even the Etsy frontpage is always very sterile (except for today! At least in Europe it had some touch of color in it! Woohoo!) and I never like it. And I know for sure I'd never ever get my treasuries on it. Mine are always very colorful and messy. :)

 I have tried to declutter, and I've done pretty darn well at it! I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff, but then at some point it starts to get very difficult. For a long time I got rid of one item per day, until recently. Now it's more like one item per week. The question I ask myself is: Would I buy this again? Like if I didn't already have it, would I buy it from the store. It's funny how often the answer is no. But not anymore. My craft supplies are kind of sacred. I mean I don't need to justify them - I use them to make my crafts and even if I have something I haven't used for a year (another thing to ask yourself, if you haven't used it within a year, you should get rid of it) I still might need it eventually. And I almost always do! I love that feeling, when I use up something I've had for years and never thought I'd end up using. 

But what about the silly stuff that I "collect"? What about all the little trinkets and toys that I just can't

stop buying. The stuff that fill my closets and most of all - my wall space. Occasionally I go through some of them and decide I'll only keep the really cool ones, but still I have hundreds of small items in numerous wall display shelves, mostly in my craft room, but some on the stairway and in my bedroom as well. And in a way they make the already wonky house look even more like a toystore. And not necessary in a good way. 

Sometimes I dream of a elegant white house, with white airy drapes, just few pieces of white furnitures,

tranquility, the sound of whales singing (from a CD), spotless walls, spotless everything. And then I realise I'd get an allergic reaction from all that space and would shiver from the lack of colors. Guess what! No matter how unfashionable it might be, how uncool, how against Etsy's policies -- I like my silly, non-matching colors, broken and dirty toys (actually only few of them are broken or dirty, it just sounds better if I say it like that ;) and my cluttered craft room. My desk (and the whole room when I get really good/bad) works as a indicator for how creative I feel: When I'm just working on something less exciting the desk stays in pretty good shape, but when I'm feeling super creative and super amazing, the desk and the whole room, from floors to the walls, is really cluttered and filled with piles of fabric and beads and papers and what not. And that is great! Sometimes it gets so bad I have actual layers of projects on my desk. And then I usually end up making some horrible things, like cutting through something I really shouldn't be cutting etc.

At the moment I'm working on Blythe Sleepsacks. They are so much fun to make! They take a lot of time, but I'm learning how to work faster. Like just few days ago I started gluing the ends of a string I use for zipper pulls, to make it sturdier for the beads. It used to take me forever to get the small beads on the string, but not anymore! And for this project I was able to use fleece that I had tons of just laying around, left from some previous project I didn't feel like finishing... Last Saturday I had to buy more, though. I've made over 30 sacks already, so it was predictable that I would run out of it. 

The sleepsacks get the room only mildly messy, so I've managed to keep it pretty clean. So I felt comfortable enough to take pictures. And I actually cleaned it up after that. And made some more mess with fabric spray paints, but that's another story.

I also like to organize, it's just that it won't stay that way for long :)

Oh! Before I go, I'd like to say that no matter how messy and cluttered it might seem, I still know pretty well where everything is. 

 “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”Albert Einstein.

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

xoxo, 

Raisa

One Crafty Bitch!

I haven't done anything "serious" this week, so I'm going to share with you my less serious crafts, which I've enjoyed a lot!

I've had many smaller projects this week, and didn't feel (well, do I ever??) like staring time-consuming project. So all that I've done I've been able to do from start to finish in about 15 minutes. All of my projects have been not just time-friendly, but also environment friendly too! Which is such a big thing for me.

First I started with teeny tiny scraps of fabric so small that they were about to end up in the bunny litter box. But I saved them for this silly project. :) Other than that all you need is piece of string (I've saved some short strips that aren't good for anything really), some filling (I used filling from soft baby books that I've bought from thrift stores for my other projects). To be honest, I don't even know what to do with these, but they look cute and they were fun to make. :)

The next project was somehow pretty similar, or at least the supplies were quite the same. Small pieces of fabric, some more fabric (solid colors) or some acrylic felt and double-sided sticker sheet. I have sheets and sheets of felt, so it was good to use some of it. It's one of those things that I end up hoarding in my closets, because you never know, and short strips of ribbon, of which I have a lot thanks to scrapbooking (and I've saved those, too). And double-sided sticker sheet and/or brooch pins, depending what you want to do with your ornament.

And the last one. It's something I've done before, but now I made them a bit different. The original idea was from a book whose title I can't remember. Sorry. Something about miniature crafts. Wonderful book, though! All you need is wooden beads, empty thread spools (I have plenty), strips of old magnet (mine's from a memo pad that had two strips of magnet at the back), fabric, small beads and some sharpies. Once again, there's really not that much to do with these, but they were fun to make and they look cute.

Sorry about the quality of the pictures -- Flickr refuses to work properly -- so they are straight from my camera.

Any ideas what to do with these things I made? I've sent the stickers with Pinkkis orders, as a thank yous, but what about the others?

I hope you all have sunny and beautiful weekend!!

xoxo,
Raisa

The Beauty of Unfinished Things

I have decided to start liking unfinished things. To start looking for the beauty in them. I fucking hate unfinished things! In a way I carry them with me, all the work that needs to be done in/outside of the house, all my unfinished craft projects (PLENTY!), homework, plans for the future -- all that, I can feel it. But from now on I'll cherish them, or at least I'll do my best to ignore the weight of unfinished things on my shoulders.

I do have a tendency of leaving one thing behind and hopping to the next one and not even knowing where I left that thing. They kind of just fall out of my hands and land wherever. And I've always thought it's a bad, bad thing! Not anymore. I'll try to think of it as something to come back to. If I still feel like it. And I usually don't.

Life shouldn't be complete. Like if you collected something, maybe a series of something. You like doing that as long as there's something to search for. But after you've completed your collection, it's done. There's nothing more to do except for the occasional dusting. So you need to look for something else to keep you occupied. But if you never buy that final piece you can keep collecting forever. Beautiful!!

So yesterday, when I was about to finish a project I started maybe a year ago (you know, one of those things you keep pushing deeper and deeper into the closet, because you don't feel like doing it and seeing it would remind you of what a no-good person you are for not finishing what you've started. I had the work with me at school (uh, I know. Doesn't sound good, but it really helps me get through the boring classes and actually helps me to stay focused) and I was about to finish it. You know, the last stitch. And then I felt sad about it. So I left it like that -- waiting for the last stitch.

I've heard one group of crafters here in Finland even arranged a craft exhibition for its members unfinished crafts. And guess what? It was a huge success! So it's not just me!

Oh, well! I should go start something to leave unfinished!

Have a sunny and amazing weekend! I have so many things coming up I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and can't keep track of everything. But I'm sure everything will be left undone on time. ;) And I'll end up being in the wrong place at the correct time no matter what! So I'm just going to relax about it.

Oh, we were finally able to order the damn flight tickets to the States! Yay!! Now it feels real and worth celebrating!

xoxo,
Raisa