Mission accomplished!

My decluttering/organizing/cleaning project is now DONE! Over the weekend I emptied the doll closet and took bunch of crap aside and oraganized everything else and put them back and here are the results:

Before

At one point I couldn't even get the door more open than this!

To get here I had to clear off the floor in front of the closet.

After

I still have too much stuff for that closet, so it's not perfectly organized, but so much better!! I have the same problem with my fabric storage. I simply have too much fabric for my storage space. Sometimes I love my problems! :D

In the dolly closet there's still plenty of items that should be organized better. Like now all food is in one box, and I'd like to have fruits and veggies serated from desserts and so on. So next time I'm super bored instead of coloring my Twin Peaks coloring book I'll sort those.

Once again I've been sewing a lot. (still not that much progress, I'm afraid). Couple days ago I started to wonder if I work too much. That sounds silly. Of course I don't. But still, I'm working all the time. Everything is related to Pinkkis somehow. Online searches, fabric shopping, designing new pouches, sewing, cutting, stamping, packing, emailing, ironing. Seven days a week, hours and hours a day. I love it, but should I force myself to take it easy? To avoid burning out? I thought about that, slowing down. But I can't do it. As a person I can't "pace my self" if you know what I mean. I know there's a better word for it, kind of like portioning, but not quite. I go full speed and then I crash. But this also gives me so much.

Okay, what I wanted to say is that on my To do -list, I wrote Play with dolls! So after I got everything else done (and some extra, too) I had time to play with my precious dolls! I honestly haven't played with them in ages. I just use them as my models for the pouches. Poor things! The dollhouse was a bit of a mess, so I started putting things back on their places. But I was so tired I just kept dropping things and I think I ended up making more mess :( . So I left. And now I need to go back sewing again.

I ordered hand-held luggage scale! And flight socks :D I', really happy about the scale. Even though I have an extra luggage I'm still afraid I have extra weight. This way I don't have to worry about it too much! I can weight my bags every day! Tehee!!

One more thing! My school stuff is all done now! I had my last two major tests last week, that's why I haven't written that much. Not because I've been studying, but because I've been at school working on those tests. I went there totally unprepaired, but I'm sure I'm smart enough to pass. And at this point that's all that matters. I'm so done with studying for now!

Okay, bye!!

xoxo,

Raisa

One Month Project, Organize Tehdas, Day 3

Howdy!

Yesterday was supposed to be the worst day of my sickness, after that I was planning to start feeling better. But then I forgot to rest and I still feel like shit :( I don't like being sick at all.This is quite bad start for my ambitious project. I know I can make it though. Just as long as I don't lose the excitement of it!

I still got quite a lot done yesterday! I even found my camera :) Except for two shelves all of my fabric is organized! Can you believe that! I'm most proud of my thick, bulky fabric closet. I think it looks really great, and what's the best part is that it actully works really well! Yay! The cotton closet doesn't look that great, there's still the two shelves I haven't organized yet, but also something else that makes it look messy. I really need to start sewing doll clothes more to get rid of some of the fabric ;)

I also attached the blue thing I got from the thrift store. Well, my hubby did it for me. I'm really getting a lot done, but everything is "in between" places, so it's still quite a mess. I'm getting a lot more space on my desk, which is awesome since I've been cutting fabrics on top of my narrow ironing board. But I'm afraid my desk is not high enough for cutting. We'll see.

Before I felt I was ready for bed I managed to sew two pouches that had been ordred long time ago. I even took pics of them and uploaded them on Etsy! Before I got all that done I think part of my body was a sleep already.

Now that my fabric is neatly organized (almost!) my biggest challenge is the doll closet. Not the doll house closet, but the "extras" closet. Where I keep doll clothes (two overflowing suitcases), extra furniture, male dolls (not Kevin!!), extra Re-ment, cars and also small pieces of thin wood to build stuff with. In that closet there's only three shelves and the floor, so everything is just huge mess. I also keep some of my scrapbook items in there. And I'm actually planning to put it all there, to have it all in one place. This means I really have to down-size a lot on my dolly stuff. I have tons of items "just in case". Some of them have to go. Maybe. To be honest I think it's justified for me to have tons of that stuff since I like to create scenes and temporary dioramas. And you'll never know what you might need. So I should keep it all :D

Mr C went to work meeting so I'll give you all the typos and grammar errors and all - Enjoy! Silly thing I want to share: A Finnish rock star said big tits and deep cleavage make him click and typos make him mad. It was about his online habits. I'm afraid my blog, either in Finnish or English would make him furious. Luckily I don't have rock stars reading my blog, or do I? Probably not, since there's no big breasts or deep cleavages to make them interested ;)

Must go! Bye!

xoxo,
Raisa

One Month Project, Organizing the Tehdas (Factory), Fabric

Wow! This really is a great start for this project, third post in a row! Good job Raisa! But still, don't get used to it. I can't keep up with stuff, I'm like that. I get excited and then the excitement dies and I no longer care. At all. But now I do care, so lets enjoy that! :D

So, yesterday was the first day. I paid my son 2,5 euros to move all my craft related things from downstairs to upstairs, to Tehdas. So now my room is even biger mess than what it was before I started...

But that's a good start. Now I have everything in almost one place. At least I have everything upstairs! In the attic,in the bunny room, inthe kid's room, in a small foyer, but hey! I do have a lot of stuff!

Okay, so I was supposed to start with the fabric storage. I did a lot yesterday, shipping and finishing orders and so on, but I kind of forgot or maybe it was me running out of time? I didn't get to do any organizing, until late at night. Hubby, who wanted to watch True Detective, gave me 15 minutes. So I ran upstairs, emptied the top shelf of my main fabric storage closet. I decided to dedicate that shelf  to lining fabrics. In my case that's thrifted kid's bed clothing (is that the correct term for sheets and stuff?). So now I have one shelf all nice and organized. And then the timer went off. I had to leave.

Today I have to do some more packing and shipping, and sewing, too. To get some action going on in Tehdas I really have to clear my desk off the junk that's on it. I also want to get at least two more shelves organized.
I also have two boxes set aside, one for items I want to keep, but stored away. Like keepsakes. And the other box for donations. I gave away my thread spool collection! I've been collecting empty spools forever, thinkin one day they'll be used on some amazing project. I think now is good time to give them away, since I can't think of anything to do with them, other than this.

So off they go! Along with some fabrics I definately won't use, or shouldn't use since they are not my, or Pinkkis style at all. So bye bye clutter, welcome room and space for more important stuff! Did I mention I'm going to Japan in one month and 21 days? With one extra luggage ;) No more space to spare after that :D

To make life more complicated I'm getting sick. Being sick sucks if you work at home. If you work for somebody you don't like it's sometimes fun. But when you are supposed to get shitload of stuff done...no fun at all.

Must go now. Be good!

xoxo,
Raisa

One Month Project: Organize Tehdas (Factory) Day 1, FABRIC

Not that I'm able to write this every day, but here's a good start anyway. Day One.

This is silly, and so like me. I took tons of pictures yesterday and now that I'm uploading them I can see that I didn't have the autofocus on and most of them are really blurry. I switched it on after taking few pics of the bunny that I noticed were really unfocused. But I thought the Tehdas pictures were okay. Until now. Now I know they were not okay. And I don't like doing things twice...so I have the blurry pictures to share. Maybe that's for the best ;) The room is quite messy at the moment...

So, I took the pictures yesterday and tried to make some sort of a plan. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out the plan. I just don't know how to do it. I do have this book called "Inside The Creative Studio," but so far it's been more like inspiration and not really helpful ideas. But there are still few good articles for organizing, too. The first one was about fabric.

And fabric will be my starting point! I think it's the most difficult part of this whole project, the most time consuming, and funnily - also the one I'm looking forward the most. I love fabric! And it's always fun to learn about all of the fabric you actually own! There must be many I've totally forgotten about. Yay! So exciting! But uh! So much work!!

Should I have all of my stashes at the same place? One closet won't be enough, so should I have less-used fabrics somewhere else? Should I bring my Elna Press iron upstairs, and bring all fabrics from downstairs to upstairs? So far I've been doing the pressing (attaching interfacing to small pouches) while watching movies. But then we have to have the lights on and sometimes I don't get to focus on the movie if I'm working at the same time. Should I stop doing this and focus on relaxing while I'm supposed to relax? But working relaxes me. I think. I enjoy getting things done. If I brought it upstairs then what should I do while working on the interface? Maybe I could focus on my Japanese lessons. I listen to a Japanese Language Course on CD while I work, and when sewing I miss most of it. Maybe I should start listening to music again and leave the language studies for when I can actually hear it?

I'm going to start with just one shelf, and continue from there. I can't have all of them piled in the middle of the room. Even though I kind of like the idea of Mount Fabric. :) I'd be the first one to counquer it. :) And I could make my own flag to declare it's mine! All mine!!!!

I guess the most challenging task will be parting with the less appealing pieces. I have many of those, too. It's fabric, and I just can't throw it away. Don't worry, I'm not actually throwing anything away, but donating it. But what about the old, torn apart clothes I've saved for project X? Gosh! This will be hard!!

To get it done, and also tons of other stuff, like mailing my first order to Brazil (yay!) and finishing five Sleepsacks, I should get started!

The main fabric storage

New shelves, stuffed with "everything"

Messy cabines above the sink

Less messy cabinets below the sink

Side view of the sink counter

It doesn't help to have a bunny eating the walls...

Sorry for the awful pictures! I'll take better ones along the way. In a month I should be able to show really nice pictures!!

Have an awesome Monday!

xoxo,
Raisa

One Month Project: Organize Tehdas (Factory)

As some of you know I have my very own craft space -- a whole room dedicated  to my crafts. It's a luxury, I know. I used to dream of my own space, where I could leave my unfinished projects safely, knowing they'd be there when I get back to them. But what I didn't dream about was the constant mess, the lack of space (how can that happen when you have tons of closets  and shelves??!) and the endless piles of just about everything.

I know I'm not the cool minimalist with white walls and three super awesome pieces of art on my desk. I'm messy, loud (but only around people I know and trust), chaotic, and most of all, I'm the opposite of minimalist. I'm hoarder. I love stuff. Having a lot of stuff around me makes me feel safe. And beautiful things are, you know -- beautiful things and the more the merrier.

I've gone through phases where I want to get rid of stuff and I still think that's very important, even though in my case it always ends with me buying even more stuff to replace the things I gave away. But at least I go through my closets and then have better knowledge of what I have and what I don't have.

As a crafter it's okay to have big stashes of everything. You'll never know what you'll get excited about the next day! It could be something totally different from what you've been working on for weeks. So it's vital you have all the right tools and supplies ready.

I think all this is okay. It's part of my nature to be hoarder. But what's not okay is to have fabric around the house (mostly in my room, but I have stashes downstairs as well). Actually I think I have fabric scattered in six different places. And that's at least four too many. I don't have closets big enough to store them all in one place, but six is too many!

I have packaging material (bubble wrap, padded envelopes and so on) in four places, ribbons in four I think, doll stuff all over the place, beads and stickers everywhere, jewelry parts here and there... I might look like I'm well organized, since the room is quite small and I have so many drawers, some even labels on them (but the labels don't make any sense anymore). But what friends and visitors don't see is how everything is everywhere. Like I said, fabrics in six different locations.

I pretty much know where to find what ever I'm looking for, but to save time and to be more efficient and to get more space I have decided to organize the whole room all over! Everything! Hubby said I should take some of my toys away and use the space for my craft stuff, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to go to such extreme measures. But we'll see! I might even do that! Not all, but some. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. Most likely not, but I'm not saying definately not. Not yet. :)

I don't have any pictures just yet, but when I go upstairs I will photograph every single closet and drawers and everything. The way they are now, so you'll now what I'm talking about. Let me warn you, it won't be a pretty sight! I have at least dozen (ha! Who am I kidding! At least two dozen!) projects going on over there and everything is just scattered around my room. I had to do some cleaning before my hubby came in to help me with some cutting, but there's really not that much I can do in just few minutes.

So, my goal is to organize all my storage space, desks, cut down on toys, get rid of unused stuff and clean up the whole dusty room (even my Hello Kitty plush toy collection!,

Here's some old pictures to give you an idea of the hoarder I am.

Have a great and organized Sunday! It's Ravintolapäivä (Restaurant Day) here in Finland and I'm in charge of Vegan Restaurant Tour, so I can't really start organizing today. Or I could, but I HAVE to sew. Seriously. Don't know what's happend but I haven't gotten anything done lately. I've sewed a lot, I think, but I can't seem to finish anything.

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

Cupcakes!!

Howdy! (I guess that's my favourite way to say hello!)

I've been obsessed with building up a life on-line, which is really annoying. I mean it's fun, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it, but I hate to spend hours and hours attached to my laptop. I have a life, don't I? And when ever I see something nice, something inspiring I feel like going upstairs, to the Pinkkis Factory (to check on my sweaty workers ;) and try to create something equally as wonderful. But no, my days are spent on-line. And at school. That sucks! I want to be doing something with my hands! And I don't mean typing new web addresses over and over again, commenting on stuff and so on. I want to create!

My newest obsession is Etsy. I mean it's not really that new, but now it has become an obsession. To get views, to get something going on. Just a day ago I learned about the treasuries. And already I've made three. Check them out. I think I'm brilliant. Which is of course something that should not be said out loud. But my doctor said I might need medication, so I guess that means I'm a bit cuckoo, so I might say something inappropriate ;) My Pink Treasury, my Craft Treasury and the latest, Magical Forest. Click click!

I also was invited to a Finnish Handcrafters Team, I joined right away and have been addicted right from the start. I need to be somebody at least somewhere! I need people to know I exist! I enjoy the group a lot. It's very active and it's still small enough to have that cozy feeling. It's not just promotepromotepromote. It's more than that. But it takes up a lot of time. I've already "liked" many stores on Facebook (oh! btw, Pinkkis has fb fanpage as well, so if you are not my number-one fan just yet, maybe you'd like to do something about it... I'm sorry I'm feeling a bit silly today!) and also started to follow many blogs. And I noticed I have a new reader! Welcome! I hope you like it here!!

I'm not that active on Flickr, but still try to keep up with my contacts there. I still enjoy pretty pictures and most of the Blythe stuff  :) But what is getting more and more of my attention again is shopping. Bad, bad, BAD! I've tried to be reasonable, like only ordering stuff for Pinkkis, and just teeny tiny amount of silly billy stuff. And every now and then I've asked my hubby's opinion. Which is always very grown up and responsible thing to do. He always says no to everything, and then I order them anyways. At the moment I'm waiting for some fabric (did I tell about that yet? The Barbapapa, Lego and Mario Bros. fabrics? I guess not). I think they were the most expensive fabrics I've ever bought. But they were wonderful and I couldn't find them anywhere else (I really checked!). And also some washi tape, address labels for Pinkkis, stamps for Pinkkis, shopping bags for Pinkkis (yellow and pink, they look like bunnies and bears - super cute!) and what else. Little knick nacks. I really should not be ordering anything for a while. Maybe I wont. I'll do my best! (It's part of my illness, so I can't really help it ;)

Oh boy! To the topic. It is related to all this! Trust me! So now you know I've been online a lot -- way too much! And not really doing anything that makes me happy (except for shopping!), but yesterday I had to get off of the computer and do something real. It was my daughter's BD party, so I had to bake. And bake I did! For the first time I made rainbow cupcakes. I had no idea how they were done, but I thought it would be pretty easy thing to do. And in a way it was, just a lot of slow work. And they came out great!!! What do you think?

I'm glad I was "forced" to bake! My daughter helped with "mokkapalat," mocha flavoured thin cake with glaze. We also had some vegan candy and other treats. (I will make that food post soon!!)

I've been sewing sanitary napkin pockets, they are so much fun to do!

 Have a sunny and awesome weekend! Hubby's taking me to the movies, maybe I'll even wear a dress!!

xoxo,

Raisa

Pinkkis Factory

We've had quite a lot of renovation going on in our house recently. We've redecorated the kids room walls and all of our old floors, except for one room. And that one room is my Pinkkis Factory. I think our house is starting to look the way it's supposed to and it feels really nice. Of course all of the walls downstairs are really crappy, but we're so used to it so it doesn't bother us that much.

But back to the Factory. Now that everything else is starting to look a lot nicer, and after my husband moved his computer downstairs (we used to share a room), and after I gave his old desk to my son, my room started to look really awful. I'd post pictures if I wasn't so embarrased.

I didn't even feel like doing anything in there, 'cuz it was such a sad, messy place. But then few days ago I decided to do something about it! Hubby helped me to move the heavy furniture back and forth (I just couldn't decide! So many options!). Finally  I got it all settled so I could start the annoying/lovely part - putting everything in its place. I'm still kind of working on that. But I got a really good start. I'd say 90% of everything is in their own place now and I got a lot sorted out as well.

So now I just can't wait to go upstairs to either sew, cut some Barbie dolls into pieces or play with my lovely dolls!

Here are pictures of the new, improved Factory!

Crafting desk, now facing the window. I'll definitely get a new mat (pink from Fiskars) for the desk.

Details

Sewing desk

Sewing corner. Will add some pictures or something to the wall.

Details. Above craft desk.

Framed postcard from the amazing Mab Graves. If I just could find more of these frames I could frame the two other postcards I have from the Dolly Collector series.

Old Lego animals that I collect.

Just some misc. toys and stuff.

My Hello Kitty plush collection

Some of my collections (I collect pretty much everything)

Hello Kitty and some other plush toys I also like, plus my one and only Monster High doll. I do NOT collect other dolls other than Blythe. So I do not collect MH's, Barbies or anything else. Sometimes I forget and buy them anyways : / .

I've sewn a lot of the new fabrics I got before Xmas, and I have some pictures to show you!  I've also made some new earrings and have plans for new stuff so I guess I could say I'm having a very good phase with Pinkkis right now. I've also asked that main squeeze guy if we could re-open my Pinkkis store on Etsy. Madeby, where I have a small store is completely dead, has been for ages. So I'd be more than happy to move back to Etsy. It's just that the competition is so hard there! But at least it's not dead!

Okay, here are some more pictures and then I want to go create something!

I hope you enjoyed them!

xoxo,

Pinkkis