Etsy Helsinki Meet-Up

Etsy Admins Matt & Benedikta arranged a meet-up in Helsinki on Thursday!
They have recently opened an Etsy office in Berlin. About 40 Finnish Etsy enthusiastics got together for Euro news and networking at Cafe Fanny. Can you believe there are nearly 500 Etsy sellers in Finland alone? I'm happy Etsy is making improvments on its geo-locator feature, this will help us to find each more efficiently. All in all it sounded nice that Etsy is now truly growing international. To serve its international buyers and sellers better Etsy will be introducing French and German language versions, multi language call center and a currency converter. These will come in action little by little.

Here are a few photos I snapped at the gathering. I apologize the blurriness on them, the light was pretty dim but everyone loved the warm atmosphere, no doubt!

Tuija of tuuni, Kajsa of syko & Minna of vietto

Ioulia and other Finnish Etsians

Matt from Etsy Berlin office & Aneri of toyboxarts

Vaisto girls: Hanni & Koshka

Anne of garbagebag & Benedikta

Thanks again for a wonderful evening Matt & Benedikta and everyone who was there. For sure we will be keeping in touch and arrange more Etsy events locally in a near future!

Weekend Wishlist

Welcome Friday!
Yesterday we had the Etsy meet-up in Helsinki, what a fun time we had together! I took some pictures there and even though they didn't turn out super great I'm going to post a few here this weekend. Come back by Sunday, ok!

We are truly in winter atmosphere here again. Snowing, snowing and H just climbed to the roof to shovel. There's about 40-80 cm deep snow up there, not good for the roof so better get it down before it starts to melt away.

My weekend wishlist looks like this:

- watching Olympics (Finland-USA hockey game tonight)
- sewing (need to finish a custom order of bridal clutches)
- shopping for a new printer (our printer refuses to print color any longer)
- making more visit cards and tags (see samples below I stamped just today)

How about your weekend, do you have any plans?

My Creative Space

Today is an exciting day, we have the Etsy meet-up in Helsinki tonight! So much fun to meet Admins Matt & Benedikta and a bunch of fellow Finnish Etsians.

As this is a short day to work today I just whipped up a custom pouch for a customer in Chicago. A sweet thing is, she has a family in Finland. I have met quite a few US people on Etsy who have their roots in Finland. Each time it's been so nice to have a little chat together. Oh, I have to tell you a cute story! One sweet lady wrote to me a little ago. Her grandma used to call her Karuski when she was a little girl. They have Polish family roots instead of Finnish ones but I still find it amazing how people meet and get connected in an online community. She found it great fun to come across my shop with the same name as her nick name. I loved to hear her story for sure!



This is my new packaging with a handmade thank you card. The packaging material is vintage paper Finnish households used to have on kitchen shelves. I don't think modern homes have these any longer but I remember seeing similar at my Granny's, maybe even my Mom had those when I was small. This roll was found from our attic so it's probably from the 60s.

More creative spaces on Kootoyoo's blog...

Poll Results & Giveaway Winner

It's about the time to announce the winner for my giveaway, yay!
The winning number out of 33 comments is... tadadaa... #21 which belongs to Fleurfatale. Congratulations! She will get to choose a pair of earrings of her choice from my Etsy.

In a poll you liked my double dahlia embellishment the best (63,9%), the second was a white dahlia with brown lace (31,1%) and the third place was left for the big white bow (4,9%). Altogether 61 votes were casted. All your comments are valuable to me, thanks for them. Chances are, big clutches with double adornments will appear in my shop pretty soon. Maybe a few will get a dahlia with a piece of lace too. Thanks again!

ps. If you really wished to win but didn't I would love to offer you -20% off on any earrings in my shoppe. Just contact me by Sunday Feb 28th.

edit: Just a little accident happened! Last five comments didn't appear in the comments section but for unknown reason they were awaiting for being moderated (the moderating hasn't been turned on so I wasn't aware of this until now). I'm so sorry you guys were not included in the drawing. To make this up I'll send a little surprise to you paperfection, babongo, roroism, annemiek & cupofsnowflakes_graphics. Will contact you personally on Thursday!

Weekend Wishlist

Brr, it's freezing over here again: almost -20 celsius. I'm sitting near the fire place while writing this post, it makes this cold day bearable!

Some of you might have visited my blog yesterday, sorry I didn't post the weekend wishlist until today. As I plan to take it easy this weekend I'm keeping it short and sweet again:

- sushi dinner is my wish number 1 (ingredients already purchased yesterday)
- sewing (custom clutches for a small local webshop opening soon)
- reading (shall continue what I have already started but I'm a slow reader)

I wont add the link widget but feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. I'll come to visit your blog, whether or not you have a weekend wishlist of your own. Enjoy your weekend!

ps. If you haven't yet, would you please take a minute to give your opinion about my new work here? Thanks!

My Creative Space + Poll

I have been wanting to create a bigger clutch and here is my new try. The design is based on my smaller clutches but instead of 15 x 25 cm this one measures 25 x 35 cm. Also there is an improvment on the structure: Besides my regular interfacing I added some padding between the outer and the lining. It gives this clutch a nice body.

Now, I would love to hear your opinion!
Would you please tell me what is your very favorite of these three accessories I have made so far? It would be extremely helpful for my further developments.

As a thank you I will give away the earrings of your choice in my Etsy shop! If you want to be included in a draw, please also leave your Etsy shop's name or your email in the comments section by 23rd February. Thanks again!

More creative spaces on Kootoyoo's blog...

Monday Moodboard

sweater by goodmorningmidnight
walldecoration by kraplap
ring by amandayudesign
mitts by tortillagirl

Hello Monday!
I'm posting my Monday Moodboard pretty late considering I woke up before 7 am today. This is absolutely something I don't do every morning thus I'm feeling quite exhausted now. It's almost absurb that my day has been so much longer than usual but I still feel I cannot accomplish everything I should. I'm soon going to have a mental break down or something.

I picked light grays to my moodboard, partly because I don't feel very cheerful but also because I do find them soothing in their own way. And isn't there a nice light on goodmorningmidnight's photo, I really like it!

By the way, if you have a moment pay a visit to Indie Icing where I got a chance to curate a Mini Monday today. There's more soft light for all of us. Wishing a calm week to you & me!

More moodboards soon on Fleurfatale's...

Weekend Wishlist

It's Friday again, how come!
How was your week? Mine was rather excited, partly because of Etsy's Voter I was honoured being included (my clutch purse got 14th place in the end, thanks everyone who voted for me). Also, I started listing new linen pouches into my shop, the feedback on my new photos was positive which makes me happy, of course. I wanted to experiment a bit with the pictures. I hope it pays off at some point.

Sad news was that a batch of stud earrings I sent to one of my resellers resulted in several broken pairs. I still need to find a way how to pack them so carefully so that all of them will survive the shipping. None of my customers never complained about broken earrings so I'm pretty sure they make it ok when there's just a pair or two in a box (I wrap tissue paper around them and place in a rigid gift box). But when there're 10 pairs or more it makes things challenging. Maybe I need to start packing them individually, that could help. Any advice is welcome!

How about the weekend...

- I might cook something delicious, it's the 9th anniversary with H (if I counted right)!
- Some outdoor activity would be nice if the weather allows
- Custom work is on my to do list. I try to find suitable materials by visiting a couple of flea markets and fabric shops in town this weekend

Feel free to share your plans and drop a link to your post. I love reading them. Happy weekend!

Soap Inspiration

This is something I have wanted to try forever, to make homemade soap. I got a book about handmade soaps a year ago, but didn' t get started until now. I guess the reason to procrastinate this project was that to make cold process soap you need to buy sodium hydroxide aka lye. Even though I have handled lye in my textile design studies I still felt a bit unsecure about it, after all it's a chemical you need to handle with care.

This book "Käsin tehtyä saippuaa" by Saara Kuha is in Finnish and I'm not sure how many of my blog readers read Finnish but if you do, I warmly recommed this one. Of course Internet is full of great sites for help in any language. I used this very basic recipe from Saara's book:

coconut oil 150 g
olive oil 350 g
cold water 150 g
natrium hydroxide (NaOH) 71 g

I added dried mint grown in our garden for a faint scent and interest in soap's look

Now after 2 1/2 weeks I made this batch the soap I have already tried it and it works fine. They recommed to leave the soap to mature at least for 4 weeks so I'm still keeping them in cool, dark and airy place. I can't wait to make lovely packages to give these pieces as presents for friends and family then. There are so many lovely shops on Etsy and elsewhere selling handmade soap so you can easily find beautiful eco-friendly soaps I'm sure. But if you like trying out new things, making a batch of homemade soap can be one project amongst others. Just make sure you read and follow the instructions with care. Have fun!

Monday Moodboard

hoops by roroism
minty earrings by amarshall
necklace by katheyl
daylight bracelet by carmenesque

It is snowing so thick here again but I'm dreaming of sunny spring days already. Well, one can dream, right! It's entirely a jewelry theme today and I chose fresh mints and greens to my moodboard, I hope you enjoy them too.

Just reminding of the Voter, the voting for Valentine's gifts ends on the 11th so if you have an Etsy account you can still cast your for your favorite (Karuski's 'country love' clutch purse is there too). Thanks for your support!

More moodboards on Fleurfatale's blog...

Weekend Wishlist

Today I woke up really tired. I don't have any spesific reason for that, maybe it just means I'm ready welcome the weekend. I try not to plan too much but a couple of things popped into my mind just now. I would like to:

- browse this inspiring site with lots of delicious recipes (mainly vegetarian dishes, natural, whole food with beautiful pictures)
- concentrate on reading a book (I had this on my wish list a week ago, got started with it)
- get the pictures taken of my newest work

That's about it. Too much planning can cause stress so I'm keeping it short. How about your plans? Please share the link to your post and I'll come for a visit. Anyone can join. Happy weekend!

edit: I just discovered my 'country love' linen clutch got into Etsy's Voter and Etsy Finds newsletter today. If you like my work, please cast your vote for me here. Thanks for your support!

My Creative Space

Just lately I've been making those dahlia flowers, embellishments for my purses and pouches. I figured, I might be adding more of them on my newest work. I have had them on my necklaces/chokers and smaller versions on rings before. Before Christmas I came up with a new purse design which got a flower added, I liked those a lot and several were sold too. So I was thinking maybe these flowers could look nice on these linen pouches I started to develop last week. I'm giving the finishing touches for the first batch so they will be ready being photographed and listed in my shop any day soon. Yippee!

More creative spaces linked on Kootoyoos's blog...

Monday Moodboard

blue ring by kosmika
bunny pocket mirror by matilou
wrist cuff by thebroochboutique
earrings by mistyaurora

The weekend was truly a nice one, I wish I had birthday every week! Thanks for all wishes and congratulations you sent through my blog and facebook, it was a delight to receive them.

This is a button themed moodboard. Who wouldn't get inspired by buttons? Of course there's a bit of lace involved too. Talking about the lace, we visited a nice flea market yesterday, a place which is open on Saturday and Sunday only. I found an old basket to store bits and bobs, two heart shaped tins and four (!) meters of vintage lace. One friendly lady had such an inviting corner there, I loved watching all old stuff she had brought to sell. I will definitely visit this place again.

More Monday Moodboards on Fleurfatale's... Enjoy your week!