Finnish What You Start

Hi All! IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS! I hope you all have finished your Christmas shopping, creating, decorating, crafting, baking and anything else that could fit in that list! For us Christmas is already happening. Seeing some people here and there and on this day and that day. Gifts here, laughter and fun over there. For those of you who are pumping out the last few things, in these last few moments or the last day. Here’s some last-minute gift-wrapping tricks and ideas I’ve got. Hopefully throughout the year you may have collected some cereal boxes. These are great for other crafts too – and not just with kids! (New year’s resolution idea maybe? Keep cereal boxes for future craft and gift-wrapping ideas!) I remove the tabs off the top of the cereal box so there is an opening, then wrap the box up with Christmas Paper. Next for a finishing touch using washi tape around the edges of the opening. Then using a hole puncher, press two holes for each side where you can use a match...

Hi All! Finnish Independence is marked the 6 th of December. Although I am an Australian, much of my heritage and background is from Finland. Many of my family members live in Finland and one of my closest and dearest friends relocated there this year! Last year I had made some Finland shaped cookies with blue icing and I was happy to see many people seemingly enjoyed this post. This time, well time wasn’t on my side as my son shared his flu with me. While I wanted to bake a new type of treat with incorporation of the Finnish flag instead, I needed to resort to a quick batch of cookies. Now I’ll let you know, this recipe I’m about to share is 3 INGREDIENTS for the base of the cookie, extra ingredients for the flavours – whatever you choose. The method is also very quick! This is a super handy recipe to have on hand for anyone who is in a pinch with time! CHECKERBOARD Cookies (Finnish recipe often called “small tiger cakes”) *Note these are made using the decilitre...

Hi All, It has been such a long time since I have last posted, and I am terribly sorry for that. In review of my last post at least it could hopefully be viewed that I pressed on to busily do things before the end of this decade! *giggles* I have indeed been busy I will try to recap as much of possible events with pictures included and new creative inspirations. During October I was trying to do the ‘Inktober challenge’ not that I have much to show for that.   I did some of the drawings or random scribblings. Then on other days realising I need to find inspiration for the passed 4 days was not ideal. As I prefer to write over draw, I began to turn the Inktober prompt list into an ideas board for writing. Some were just sweet small verses of a poem to expand on later, while others turned into a short story. Participating in Inktober this way was far more exciting, with the occasional drawing. With the idea of a prompt list I dug out some of the game cards ...

Hi Everyone, Lately my mind has been filled with the presence of time. It can be so capturing and consuming when you think about it. Take a young couple in love. Time feels to revolve around them. It ticks quickly by when they are together, but when they are apart it drifts slowly from one minute to the next. Then a person on deaths door, time feels like it is quickly coming in on them (that’s at least how I would imagine it). There has been much grief happening in my life recently, I won’t go into it all here, but it continues to leave this longing feeling of ‘what am I really doing with my time.’ A friend on Facebook posted a quote by Toby Mac saying, “There are three months left in this decade. IN. THIS. DECADE. Take that risk. Give it a try.” Okay sure.. there’s no longer 3 months left. THERE IS LESS THAN 3 MONTHS! There is still many things I want to complete and establish before the next decade comes. What about you? I always have craft projects stuck in limbo...

Hi Everyone! I’ve never had much luck in the field of gardening. When I was younger, the act of gardening would put me in a bad mood. (Possibly didn’t help that I was generally on weed duty.) I have this one memory of my parents asking me to get the dead looking fronds out of the palm lower palm trees. I had looked at the trees and thought “great since the fronds are dead, this will be easy.” Well! After some minutes of pulling and yanking I found myself laying in the garden bed and the Palm Tree had won! Thankfully at this age I did find the situation humorous. After those teenage years I really didn’t want to get into gardening. But oddly enough found something sweet hearing about trips my Mum and Mummu had made to get new plants for their gardens. I’m not sure what has happened, but now I have tried my hand at gardening AND IT HAS YIELDED RESULTS! I’m sooo happy!! Hubby and I have mostly wanted a vege or herb garden, but the occasional flower is FUN also. ...

Greetings! One of my favourite pass times is to find what other people have come up in terms of creativity and who are happy to share it, so others can attempt it! Please refer to this site: https://yumuniverse.com/natural-dye-fabric/ It is there I found how to dye fabric naturally. This is something I had been wanting to do for AGES. Ironically, I had in the same month as discovering this webpage, picked up a copy of Better Homes & Gardens where Tara shows you how to dye fabrics naturally. I had looked at the options in the magazine but didn’t have any of the natural green dying methods in my fridge/kitchen, which resulted in my search for something different. At Yumuniverse she uses TUMERIC POWDER as an option to dye the fabric! (Of course, the fabric does need to be 100% pure.) Please refer to the link above for how to use Tumeric Powder as a dye. I found the process super fun and even my toddler enjoyed it! We dyed it together occasionally he I picked him up t...

  Hi All! Another new week and an ‘off’ week. Not a bad week, a week where I am back again to share more exciting stories of success! But there have been a few recent weeks of agony and overall ‘offness’ as I had an abscess followed by tooth extraction! OUCH – to say the least. I’m just SOOOO happy to be back to finding crafts and innovative things to do, to make life easier. And one of those ways is through the use of placemats! I love placemats! They seem so fun and girly to me. There are fabric types, hessian types, paper, laminated, cardboard, crochet, knitted, so much variety! I guess here is where I disclose the many various sets I already have? I have some bought ones, which were gifts and more specifically gifts of placemats found in a specific colour tone. As I have mentioned previously our home is decorated with a beach type theme. The gifted placemats were a gorgeous mint tone! Then I have a calico set I constructed many years ago. I do like a natural look,...