Sun?

Is that really a sliver of blue sky? oh wow...
Haven't seen the sun all week. It's been grayer than gray here. Like living inside a cloud, hazy and wet. Slush everywhere.
I need that sun to melt it all. Then a refreshing rain to clean up all the dust.

But instead of being able to head outside for a nice long walk, I'm stuck inside with a sick kid. Just waiting for the spots to dry up.
Sigh.

I'll just go paint that floor in the basement and call it done.
Can't believe how long it took to paint that room.
But it's been so worth it.
I'll show it to you on Monday.

New pages

Follow the links to find journaling :o)

Cozy gift


Crayon art

What did the ghost see?

Love having a creative week!

duh

Well, looking back, it seems I didn't mention that Saara got a very mild case of chicken pox (she was sick for only 4 days) from her vaccination. She was among the unlucky 5% . I did how ever mention it cost an arm and a leg to buy.
So basically that means it only cost 30,50 euros per kid.
Great.
(can you hear the sarcasm?)

Things that make you go 'hmmmm'

-snow that isn't gently falling but rather landing with a thud. You know it's wet, but not quite wet enough to be rain.

-why do chicken pox spots have to pop up right next to the eye and on the bottom of your foot? I have a little girl here hopping around on one foot :o(

-how come the text on the paint can says it has a mild odor, when you can knock yourself out with the smell?

-It's march 29th. WHY is it still snowing?

-I see my Cuban friend Carlos outside with a hot pink backpack... oh, he was picking his daughter Yolanda from school, heh.

-how come I can ramble on here endlessly, but find it hard to journal on a layout?

-What is the secret ingredient Heidi Swapp adds to her products to make them so addictive?

-There isn't a thing such as too much ribbon is there?

We are seeing dots

Remember I mentioned a while back that Saara got chicken pox from her vaccination?
I got two kids sick for the price of one.
Only Niina's got it worse, poor thing.
So I'll be taking care of her this week.

I'm also backing up a bunch of stuff as I nearly lost it all on Saturday night when my hard drive crashed. I'm also finally printing out my blog entries.
Man, I've written a lot!

Treasures

As I took the newspaper to my mom this morning, I found her going through some old photo albums. Now I LOVE old photos. The older, the better. These albums once belonged to my great aunt, my grandmother's big sister.

That's her on the left, she must be about 18 in this photo.

I'm not sure I had ever even heard of her before.
But I looked through these albums with a smile on my face.

This is a woman who never married, a true life spinster.
I have a album with four pages of pictures of her gentleman friends.
*grin*
I think I would have liked her.
This was all happening in the 1920's and 1930's.
When it was customary for people to go to a studio to get their portraits taken.
All very serious business.

Aren't they handsome?
My only problem is that the photos are glued down. And I mean GLUED. With some 1950's rubber cement I think. STUCK FOR GOOD.
Does anyone know of a product that might help?

I also found these photos of my grandparents, my mom's parents, Eeva and Paavo.

In other news. We were all supposed to go to a 8th birthday party today, but instead only Mika and Saara went (I made the host promise to pack me a slice of cake... she was making a chocolate cake with mint sweets on top..aaahhh). Last night Niina woke up with ahigh fever. This morning it measured at 38,7C/101,6F. Poor baby. It came down with some medicine, but she's napping on the couch as I'm typing this, so I know she's sick. Hopefully it'll clear fast.

Happy SPRING???

Yeah right.

Photo taken through my dining room window today at 4ish pm. Nearly 15cm/3 inches of the white stuff.

It's a party for Elizabeth!!!

Put on your party hat and join in this party to celebrate my online buddy Elizabeth Dillow's HOF (that's Hall Of Fame, a HUGE scrapbooking contest) win!
We are all so very happy for you Elizabeth!
"All hail E! All hail E! All hail E!"
(ok, no more Toy Story for me...heheheee...)

Grab your noisemakers, bubble wands or tostitos and party down.

I have a new toy!

Mika brought home the new Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 2!!!!
Oh man.. I'll be learning this for months!
But most importantly...
I now can play with digital brushes!
That was the first thing I did
*grin*

Project basement is coming along, as you can see:

That is two coats of paint there. That gaping hole you see on the top right is my biggest problem. Have to do some thinking....

Yeah, enough with the dust...

Blech.
This "little project" of mine is taking way longer than I thought. I just keep telling myself it'll be worth it.

So while I have half a ceiling and two walls drying (not paint yet, just a proper wash) I decided to do a bit of remodeling here as well.
I found a better clock that also shows you the temperature here, in celcius and fahrenheit, no less.
I also added a cool little feature that allows you to get an email when I update my blog.

And while I was at it, I thought it was high time I learned to make a proper, nice-looking link.

So...

I made this fun paperbag book as a sample for my friend Suzie's scrapbookstore 'Scrapbooking Outside The Box' in Bend, OR.

If you want to see more, I posted all the pages at 2Peas.

See... a REAL link.
I feel so clever.

Dust..couchcough..everywhere...

That's me, taking apart the desk with a hammer.

Told you I was going to warm the sauna with it ROFL!

It's gone, it's gone, it's really really gone!

My own cheer squad on the windowsill...heheheee...

Behind door one...

No Laura, it's not my own scraproom... I only wish.
However I wouldn't mind sending Mika behind this door ROFL!

So...are you ready?
I can't believe I'm showing you all this.
Shield your eyes. Quick.
Then carefully peek through your fingers, OK?
'Cause it ain't pretty...
In fact it hasn't had much done for ..oh...about 50 years... except for odd furniture shoved in...

Welcome to my sauna dressing room/laundry room in my basement.
It needs a few things done. Really.

I'm working on that laundry this week. While emptying the room and washing and painting the walls. Before I have to unplug and move the washer.

That desk is so out of there. In pieces... I'm thinking of warming that sauna with it *grin*

You know that couch is really quite beautiful. Unique, custom made. It's called Tunturi in fact :o)

The newspaper is filling in places in that door. Sigh....

Here's the new color scheme.
Cream for the walls and ceiling, the taupish color is the floor and the fabric will cover the couch. I wanted chenille, but apparently they don't import chenille to Finland. I kept getting 'oh, we haven't had it for years' answers...grrr... I was lucky to find this really super soft corduroy though.
The rest of the furnishings are coming from IKEA. As soon as I have that room painted I'm going shopping!

This shelf is about 120cm/4ft tall. It'll hold my detergents and towels.

The detergents are leaving their ugly boxes and live in nice simple glass containers like this one.

Odd bottles of fabric softener and schtuff go in these baskets on those shelves.

And I'm getting three of these pretty cans for my laundry. I like to separate it right away.

Pretty soft rugs for the floor to keep your toes warm.

And you noticed the bald bulbs? No more. Two of these will replace them. In fact I better call my electrician uncle that I have a job for him. Truly that wiring is from the 1950's!!!
I have no idea how long this project will take.
But I'm starting this today.
By hauling stuff out of there.
I'm so looking forward to seeing this room all prettied up.
Keep tuned for updates.

Oh yeah!

It's finally here!
The box I've been waiting for a while.
(Jill, maybe it took a tour of Greenland...what do you think? Hey, I've had that happen once ROFL!)
My stuff is here.

New Basic Grey. And Heidi Swapp.
I have a project I need to finish tonight.

And tomorrow, I'll tell you more about the project I'm starting behind this ugly yellow door.

It's a doozer.

Oh and did you notice I added a clock to the sidebar?
Now you'll see what time it is for me.
And my clock doesn't say am or pm. It'll look like military time for you US folk. So if it says 21.30 it means 9.30pm. We count our day in 24 hours.
I'm not sure that made sense as there is 24 hours in a day...
Right. I'm off... LOL!

6x6 me

Nicola sent me to this blog of Kirsty's to take part is a challenge to scrap a page of me, myself and I.

I had so much fun making this. I'm addicted now to cutting the tiny scraps I save to make these flowers. I don't know who to blame more.. Elsie the Great or Suziebeezie ;o)
The middle says "I am..."
And the petals (in no particular order): summer gardener, me, mother of two lovely girls, a creative being, faithful friend, wife to Mika, proud of myself.
You know what I like best about this 6x6 creation? It's made using ONLY scraps. Gotta love that!

I think I confused a few of you...

...LOL.. by trying to explain nordic walking.

I let Saara take a few pics before I did my walk just now.

Note the red shoes!

My creative space

I thought I'd show you my scrap space today. I actually cleaned it up!!

My absolute favorite thing right now is this jar full of sparkly stuff.

oh and the jar is just 10cm/4" tall ;o)

My SCHTUFF houses here in this desk/cupboard.

On the top is a basket of minialbums etc, one magazine holder filled with stickers etc and the other filled with alphabet stickers... ummm...yes...I might need an intervention...LOL! The IKEA jars have prima flowers, the sparklies and fabric flowers, the 'remember' box has alphabet stamps and rub ons. The small drawers house ribbon ends, tags, ephemera and the like.

Peek inside. It's pretty packed in there. Embellishments galore.
The cool corner stamps (circled) I just bought yesterday, love them!

Back in there are my ribbon containers. I haven't used much ribbon lately... maybe I need to move them up front?

The lower door hides my scrap collection. (sorry about the not quite sharp photo...) All organized by color, except the KI scraps which have a box ALL their own. Yes it's a disease.

Big mess in here... no need to look further.
Really.

Whole bunch of miscellaneous stuff in here... cd's, stamps, punches, small albums...

My patterned paper is organized mostly by company in this IKEA cube. Scraps waiting to be organized are in the big glass jar.

My small magnetic strip. Odds and ends. Happy stuff.

My half of the desk. I need new speakers and webcam...these are dead.

Essential stuff (like gum) at arm's reach. the litle tray has embellishments that need to be cleaned away.

And finally a layout I managed to mess up with pink ink last night.UUUGGGHHHH!!!!
How the heck do I get that off....

I finished cleaning and purging in Niina's room and now I'm needed to vacuum at my mom's.
Catch you later!

Total embarrassment...

I have lost my cool factor.
Gone.
Just like that.
sigh.

Have you ever heard of 'nordic walking'?
No?
That's what I thought.
Very uncool.

You know crosscountry skiing? Skis on your feet and poles in hand?
Forget the skis and add walking shoes.
Yes. Really.
I told you it is uncool.

Unfortunately it's doctor's orders for me.
It'll help my troubled neck and shoulders.
I bought the poles yesterday. Took them on a test drive today.
I have to say it adds a certain cardio-vascular element to walking, I was in fact sweating after 30 minutes of fast paced walking.
But this is something little old ladies do!
Not me! I refuse to be middle aged!
I'll fight against that one.

I'm hoping my hot red walking shoes help a bit.
And if nothing else, then Natasha Bedingfield on my iPod singing
"I'm a bomb, can you hear me tick? Beware if you turn me on, there is no safety switch. I'm a bomb, use only steady hands, to mess with me...you must be a brave man."
must add some cool back.
Right?

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

This was us yesterday. Perfect weather.

OK so this hill might not look like much from down here...

...but once you are on top it's a whole other story!

Then a little warning story... not to aim for the biggest bump...

...heheee...so glad I brought the camera!