ONE WEEK!

Within a week I'm already in Amsterdam, waiting patiently. Add couple more hours and I'll be on a plain that's about to take me to Tokyo! So exciting! But also so scary. I'm not a huge fan of flying. I can take it pretty easy, thanks to little help from a doctor. But still...I'm afraid I'll start to think about all the things that could go wrong and also the fact that I'm trapped inside that metal box for hours and hours doesn't comfort me at all. Trapped. No way out. Kind of like when you are getting a tattoo, you should not think about the skin cells breaking, and all the actions the cells are taking from preventing more damage. But the needle just does what ever the tattoo artist wants and your cells are screaming for help...One should not think about that when being tattooed...

Okay, I need to go! I have a fabric printing date at the city at 10am!

Pictures!

Take care!

xoxo,
Raisa

I love riding my bike!!

Boy, I had such a lovely day yesterday! I really haven't been feeling that great lately, but yesterday as I was riding my bike to the city, and stopping to take pictures of my sweet little Astrid I was so happy. The weather was perfect, I wasn't too cold or too hot, I was just perfect, the water I had brought to drink with me was the perfect temperature, my bike was light to pedal, the wind wasn't blowing too hard and even though there were other (annoyingly ignorant of the "walk on the right hand side of the road" -rule) people out there they didn't drive me crazy.

During my trip I got so much done, like picked up a fabric from courier company, bought some other fabric from fabric store, bought ribbon, sold gold chains and a bracelet (lol! I'm sure I got ripped off big time!) got some Japanese yens (again, not very good deal. Usually stuff like that bothers me a lot. And I mean a LOT! But I decided not to care! I got it done and that's all that matters! And don't tell me about withdrawing money on my bank account while there instead of transferring money here. Last time in Japan I couldn't find one single place where my card would've worked, and I had problems with my CC also, luckily I had enough cash! And also last time in the States I followed this advice and ended up borrowing money from my mother-in-law! Since I couldn't get money from my account. I feel safer when I have the money in my hand thank you very much. I'm old and old fashioned.) and also sold my old school books and got money to buy treats for my trip. I went to Ekolo and the first time ever I didn't like th eperson working there! So strange! Usually they are so nice and friendly, but this one was just distant and not "warm" at all. Also didn't like the person at the craft store I got the ribbon from. But I barely ever like the staff there, too young to understand anything about customer service. She was organizing some shelves and there was a line at the counter (me and somebody in front of me). We waited and she didn't show up, so I had to ask her to come to the register and I felt like saying sorry to bother you since she looked upset she had to serve us instead of organizing the shelves. Even that didn't bring me down!

My ride back home was nice, too! Even though I was getting tired and my backbag was so full I kept hitting my gigantic ponytail holder on it :)

I cooked and watched some of The memoirs of a geisha -movie. And went to bed. No sewing. Well, couple seams but thats' it. And I felt good about that, too :)

I really enjoyed the "quality time" with Astrid, I know this sounds silly. But I really enjoy the dolls and I haven't done anything with them for so long and yesterday I got to take pictures of them and even continued Molly's story! I have some great ideas for her!!

Look! Spring veggies!

Holly, the kleptomaniac.

Okay, must go working! But before I go I want to show you my food stash for my trip (that's in two weeks!!!)

 Have a superb Tuesday! I'm sure you deserve it! I do!

xoxo,
 Raisa

Spring!

Okay, spring is not here. Yet. Not even winter. If winter means freezing cold weather and tons of snow. But my mind is already set to spring. Some of you already know why, and for the ones who don't know yet let me tell you that I just booked a ticket to Tokyo! Also booked a tiny flat in Shinjuku! How exciting is that!?! 123 days till the trip :D

So let me warn you, I do get very annoyingly excited about super awesome stuff like this. I'm sure the never ending winter will bring me down a little, but from now on this will be my major topic on all of my post. Okay, I try not to drive you crazy. But no promises. ;)

Okay, so now I need to start saving money. I know how it's done in theory: you spend less than you get. And that mean no on-line shopping, no dolls or doll clothes, no fabrics, no letter sets, no washi tapes or glitter glues.
But what I don't know is how people do it. How can they be four months and two days without having any fun? I can't put my life "on ice" for that long and just wait for the trip. How can one be four months and two days without buying any dolls at all? How do you do it? What are you excited for?

My dolly friends here in Finland and I made a deal for not to buy any dolls for a month. I would tell you if my husband wasn't reading this, that I bought a doll on the last minute (okay, not really a minute, I had few hours left) of November. I had to. But I'm not telling you that, right. So it didn't really happen, right? But now I have FOUR months to take it easy. How am I supposed to do that?

So, I decided to allow myself to use the money Pinkkis makes to buy dolly stuff or more needed things for Pinkkis. Like Pinkkis can't spend more than it makes. And if there's any left, then that money is for me to spend on dollies. Sounds like a good idea? I like it a lot, but not really sure how to stick to it. I thought by telling it to as many people as possible would make it more difficult for me to break my "promise". So I'm telling you now; keep an eye on me!

I still have quite good stock of fabrics, so no need to buy more. Other than the furry material for the sleepsacks, but I just ordered tons of that. And zippers, too. So I should be okay for quite a while. And when I get to Japan, I'll buy enough cute fabrics to cover a small country! To be well stocked for the super exciting Blythecon EU 2014! Did I tell you I got chosen to be one of the vendors!

I have a Xmas Fair coming, and I'm not done sewing yet so I better get working! There will be one new sleepsack added at the store today, a very cute fireman for all the little dollies who need to be protected.

xoxo,
Raisa

ps. Sorry for all the typos, misspellings, weird/wrong words I might've used, I didn't ask my hubby to proofread  it :) So this is the "real" me writing ;)

Dolls, dolls, dolls

Hey you!

I'd like to share some of my dolly news with you! Little by little I'm getting the dream dolls I've always (or at least for the last six months) wanted, and some that I didn't even know I wanted but once I saw them knew they were meant for me. I told you about the Tiina custom I managed to get, right? My Holy Grail girl. There was one on Ebay this week and it sold for over 1,300 euros!!! I'm not going to say what I think about that...but if you have that kind of money to spend on a doll then why not. I didn't pay anywhere near that much for my doll.

I don't know if I can ever have a doll family I of which I can say "This is it, no more for me," but honestly as soon as one special little dolly arrives from Canada, I think I might just settle down and enjoy the ones I already have. So, there's still one more...Okay, there's still Goldie which I've been looking for for a long time now (lost her twice already). So there's still room for one dark haired drinker (there's this amazing photographer on Flickr who takes the funniest pictures of Goldie, and he always makes her a drinker). But at the moment I'm not even actively looking for her. I need to get my financial stuff organized and under control first. So, maybe next year...

I have been re-doing the dollhouse once again. I was never really satisfied with the penthouse bedroom, the room that two dolls (sisters, Alex and Nana, MUG and OKM) shared. It was somehow way too busy for the eye, too crowded. Too something. So something had to be done. And while I was working on that I also redid the rooftop balcony, which came out great!! The bedroom's nice, too. I also rearranged the house's occupants, like who lives where. Feel free to laugh but it was really hard to decide to let Bambi, my first doll, move into the "Glass Palace" and let the new girl from Canada take over her apartment. Also Bunny had to move. :( So Alex could move and the "little girls" Nana and Phoenix (Tiina custom) could share a room.

All this has to be very interesting to you...sorry. It's just that that's all the happy things that's going on in my life. Okay, not true. But there has just been so much stress over the studies and I've been sick and it's sucks to be sick if you're unemployed. But I'm better now and the school stress is over for now, have been having some huge tests and I'm so close to being done with it all, but there's still stuff to do and I still don't have a clue about what I'd like to do.

A few nights ago we were watching a movie and in it a man got one of those cool-looking silver trailers and traveled around the States, and I asked my hubby if that's something we could do after the kids move on their own. To sell the house and just travel. I'd like that :) Hahah! Who wouldn't? What if we could both work for a year or two and then do it again, just over and over again. Work and then quit and go see the world. I dunno, maybe we'd get bored with that too. I just don't like this stability of everything. I want something *more*, some action. And yet I don't want things to change.

Now you see me!

I've been sewing again. This time I have something really interesting I'm working on! A Protective Blythe Tote!! We had a small Blythe meet with few of my dolly friends and sold one of my creations to each participants. :D Yay! And they all really liked the idea. Now I'm working on more and I should be posting them on Etsy today or tomorrow! Wohoo!!

Oh! Did you hear that? That was the sound of my sewing machine calling for me. Gotta go!

Enjoy the autumn weather!!

Now you don't!

xoxo,
Raisa

Me, my dolls and Julia from at our meet

Just wanted to share this with you -- Pinkkis products packed and ready to be shipped :) Cute, eh?

Noriko, AZ

What you looking at? (Phoenix)

Glass Palace

Update -- Shopping!

Hello all!

I'm still alive! Sorry for the long break!

We went to Martha's Vineyard for a week and then to Amsterdam for a day, and now we're back home. I loved being away, but I also loved coming back! Our trip was very relaxing and it did good for all of us. By us I mean the whole family, kids included.

My mom took care of the animals, which was really nice of her. We stayed at my mother-in-law's, and visited all of the relatives who live on the island. And some of my hubby's friends. And of course a lot of other places as well.

Since I don't have any pictures yet I don't feel like telling about the island, but I'll tell you about something almost as interesting. And that is: shopping!

The island itself doesn't have great opportunities for shopping, so we had to take the ferry to get to the mainland. That took about one hour. Then we'd have to drive for an hour or so, depending on the destination, to get to the shops. And then more driving to get to other shops. And then the whole thing again to get to home. Quite a lot of transportation.

Our first destination was Target. We all had gift cards, so it was kind of obvious choice. I didn't like it that much, but the kids enjoyed it. I still managed to buy a lot of stuff, junk food mostly. I don't think American candy is that good, but quite many of it is vegan. They rarely use natural coloring, which they do in Finland, so the use of insect-based colors is very rare. And for some reason they don't use that much gelatin, either. Dunno why.

Few items from yard sales, most from heaven.

I don't know where my fellow travelers went after that, but I know where I went: to heaven. In America they call heaven "Michaels." I think it's funny. I'd name it Angelina or Angelica. I had an hour, and $175 worth of gift cards to spend. The amount of time was good, but I had to use some cash as well. :) It was a lot of fun! I couldn't find everything on my list, but I got it even by buying a lot of stuff that wasn't on my list. Among all of the things I bought was a Smash Book for my daughter. I really didn't know what it was. I had actually heard the word the day before we left, and didn't know what the people were talking about then. But it looked very interesting. I also bought some Smash stuff for myself, but not the book. Just some embellishments for my scrapbook.

After landing from heaven, some of us went to Paper Store. It wasn't as fun as it sounded. Mostly crap and cards. But I do have to admit the Americans sure make the best cards. Or they make the Chinese to make the best cards.

Only the robot fabric is organic.

And that brings me to something that was really bothering me while walking down the isles of heaven. The unfairness of all of the items there. Everything, and I mean everything, was made in China. Or somewhere like that, where the rules and regulations, human rights and all that are not so important. 

Some time ago we had scrapbook papers made from (partially?) recycled materials. Some cotton fabrics are organic and from abroad (meaning not from Finland). You can order fleece and synthetic felt made from recycled plastic. But that's about it. No fair trade items, no paying attention to the excess packaging (quite a lot of craft items are way too over packaged!), no more than just a couple supplies made from recycled materials. Dear manufactures! We demand Fair Trade craft supplies! We demand items made from recycled materials! We demand more organic fabric!

After Paper Store we went back home, tired but happy!

The second shopping trip happend a few days later. We headed towards Whole Foods. Before that we stopped at another Michaels -- I had to get my own Smash Book! They gave me fifteen minutes, and went somewhere else. As this was a new store I couldn't find the Smash items, so I was forced to walk down all the aisles. And of course I found a lot more to buy. Eventually I found the thing I went there for, plus some more things I didn't know I needed before seeing them. I spent around a hundred dollars. Expensive Smash Book... even though I got it 40% off, thanks to a coupon I had. I love cupons.

Food/kitchen related stuff

Whole Foods was another kind of heaven. A lot more nicer, actually. Gentler. Tastier. And mostly organic, Fair Trade and vegan friendly as well. :) And expensive!! I had a gift card for there as well. I spent that and a lot more. We ate super yummy lunch there too. The cashier was the first not super friendly person I met in the States.

From Whole Foods to Trader Joe's, because we had cards for there, too! Mine was worth $30, and I couldn't use it all. Whole foods was too much! Finally hubby, who wasn't able to use his card either, combined ours and bought some cashew nuts.

More food/kitchen related stuff

On the island we went to all of the possible thrift stores and yard sales there were. Dind't find any treasures, but some nice stuff anyways. Something useful and something fun. I also spent quite a lot of time at the local grocery store. I love grocery stores! I could skip all clothing and cosmetics and jewelry stores, just take me to a grocery store and I'm happy. :) I found vegan chicken and beef stock powder. Very interesting! I also found freezer paper. For crafts. Don't know how to use it yet, but I have a book saying I will need it. :)

I liked doing some shopping on the island as well. Mostly just to support the locals. I heard their rent is really high and a lot of stores go out of business, so I felt bad for them. But the selection was a lot smaller, a lot more tourist oriented and everything was quite expensive. But I did my best. :) For example I bought these fancy cookies for the dogs.

Here's the other than food or craft related items I bought.

I've already put 99.9% of everything where it belongs. I think that's one of my favorite things to do. Unless it gets too overwhelming. With candy and snacks it almost got out of hand, and now I have yummy stuff everywhere. Which is not good since I'm determinate to lose 6 pounds.

That's about it! Take care!!

xoxo,
Raisa