Party Season's Over!

After celebrating my son's birthday yesterday, I can happily announce that party season is over for now! Oh, no! It's not! Mothers Day has yet to be celebrated :/. Well, at least the birthdays for this spring are now in the past and I can focus on other things.

Don't get me wrong, I love parties. I love planning them, I love having people over and I love gifts :). But it's just so much work and it's also quite expensive.

My son's birthday was actually last Thursday, but he was at his father's then and when he came home there was just too much stuff going on (soccer tournament and my Blythe meet), so we decided to dedicate Sunday for celebrating. My hubby brought this very special birthday tradition to our family. It means we cook all of the meals based on what ever the bd boy/girl wants. And we are super nice to that person, too. If he/she wants to watch a movie, then the whole family watches a movie. Same thing with games and such. So much fun! I wish it was my birthday every day!

So my 14 year old son wanted to have scrambled tofu and fried spicy tofu and bread + juice for breakfast, tofu-noodles for lunch (this didn't work out because he went to the movies and ate crap there) and for dinner he chose to have seitan steaks, creamy sauce and fries + Coke. And for his guests he wanted to have pb+jelly bars, which he helped me bake. We didn't have a party for his friends; instead he took one of his friends to the movies, but my dad, brother and his girlfriend and my son's godmother paid him a visit. It was fun! And he seemed happy :) even though he didn't like the movie we watched: The Royal Tenenbaums. He said it was too weird.

On Saturday I went over a friend's for a Blythe meet there :). It was so much fun, not so much because of the dolls (I guess we are having a bit of a break from the dolls right now), but the company and my friend's toys! You don't often get to go over a friend's house and go through their toys, but we did! I love having toy crazy friends. I even got one set of Re-ments for my dollhouse!! Yay!!

But seriously, it's funny how many of my "new" friends are into toys, like the people whom I've met over the last two years. More than half of them are crazy about toys. Usually it's vintage toys or Blythe, but I do have one friend who likes pretty much all toys. Well, not all, but her range of likeable toys is a lot wider from all of the others. And we also like stickers and stationery, and pens and erasers. So silly, but oh so much fun! And the great thing is, that I'm not alone with this silliness! At my bithday party few weeks ago the majority still wasn't into toys and stickers, but us silly people were only one or two behind!

There was one other great thing about meeting my dolly friends on Saturday -- I got sewing inspiration from her kitchen placemats! And now I've cut pretty much all of my fabrics into placemats! Unfortunately I ran out of thick interfacing that would've been great for them :( but I had enough for few. I've already made a really cute hot pad and now I can't wait to make more!

Oh, well! I have some sewing to do!

Have a sunny and amazing Monday!

xoxo,
Raisa

Greetings from Jäähalli Fleamarket!

A few weeks ago I noticed that Jäähalli Fleamarket was still active. I used to go there every weekend more than ten years ago. I don't know if they've been there the whole time or not, but it doesn't really matter. So week ago I took hubby with me, and we went to see if it's any good.

And it was! Well, not really good, but pretty ok. Lot of sellers, but the set up was a bit confusing. We had to walk back and forth to see everything. And occationally we ended up on the wrong side of the tables. Like we were among the sellers, and that was a bit confusing ;).

The first The first time, I got this pink car and exercise bike for my dolls. I love them! Especially the car. It's missing a windshield, but I was wondering if a glass shop (window glasses kind of place) could make me one out of acrylic. Hubby got himself a purse ;). I'd say it was a good trip, not compared to some of the greatest fleamarket days, but overall it was worth the trip.

I love fleamarkets, btw. Most of all, I like the weird and unusual stuff they have. Or might have. I guess it's the chance of finding something special that's most thrilling. And on top of that it's a lot more ecologically friendly than buying a new things from the store. And a lot cheaper, too! Well, not always. Sometimes the seller doesn't realize that they are at fleamarket -- they seem to think they are at antique store or that they are selling stuff that's somehow pimped to be even more expensive than the exact same thing at Ikea... I hate that.

Most of the time I look for toys. And I know pretty well, just by looking at the seller and her/his merchandize, if it's going to be ridiculously overprized. Eight euros for a messy-haired barbie? No thanks. Five euros for new-generation My Little Pony? No thanks.

It's kind of funny how I'm at my strictest at fleamarkets. Sometimes when I'm having "too much fun" on ebay, I try to think about whether I'd be willing to pay the same amount of money on something similar at a fleamarket. And the answer is always no. Like 20 to 25 euros for Blythe-sized typewriter. No effing way! And on ebay that wasn't a consideration at all.

Kind of funny.

Anyway, yesterday we went there again. There was some of the same sellers as last week, which to me is always a sign to avoid them. "Professionals" who are there to make money, not to get rid of their unwanted things. This time I wasn't that lucky with toys. I got something, but nothing worth mentioning. But I got some clothes! I usually don't look for clothes that actively. I don't have any kind of problem with second hand clothes, not at all. But I don't like to go through of piles after piles of clothing. But this time there were few tables that said small clothes, so I got interested. I got something black -- I have no idea what it would be called. Kind of like a dress and cardigan mix. Also got bright green top from the same person. I think I paid 2,50 euros for those. :) A few meters further, a white top with french bulldog on it was on display. To me it looked really expensive. I was trying to keep myself from getting too interested. But I really liked it. I couldn't find the size tag, and the seller wasn't sure. And it looked like you'd had to have big breasts to fill it. And to be honest, I even asked if that was the case. And she said no. Then I asked for the price. Fifty cents!! Whoa!! As you can see ----> it wasn't too expensive ;) That's a very special treat, since I'm really photo-shy. I even asked hubby to take a headless pic of me, but as always, he didn't listen and did whatever he wanted ;).

Thanks to that top, I was really happy with the trip.

Last summer I had probably one of the best days at a fleamarket. I rode my bike (alone, hubby didn't want to ride almost 20 K's to the other side of the city - lazy ass bastard!) through the city, to Hietsu Fleamarket. Within a few lovely (actually it's quite annoying place with all the masses of people) found all this --> Sindy kitchen units!!! Sindy arm chair!! Beauty, Barbie's dog!! My Little Pony trinket box!!! Super great! And I managed to get it all home piled on top of my bike.

I hope your weekend was filled with great finds, too!

xoxo,

Pinkkis