Rag Pets

love, love, love

It's Valentine's Day (or Ystävänpäivä, "Friend's Day" as it's called here) and to celebrate this day filed with love and kindness and all things nice, I made a special Valentine's Rag Pet.

This is Fancy the rag-deer.
Fancy is a very dear deer indeed. She loves chocolate bon-bons, love letters and all her dear friends.

(There's lots more photos of Fancy in my Flickr, just click on any of the photos here to go there.)

Fancy is made from chocolate brown wool and she has a white wool applique mark on her face and spots on her bum. She has a dark chocolate plastic button for a belly button, safety eyes and a perky little deer tail.
Fancy is wearing a pink and yellow seersucker dress with a linen Bambi-heart applique, Peter Pan collar with a red satin bow and ric-rac and lace on the hem. She's also got a red & white spotted cotton ear-bow.

♡♡♡

Wishing you all a really lovely and very happy Valentine's Day!

Wintry guest blogging

Just popping by to tell you that along with a bunch of wonderfully talented bloggers, I did a guest post on Meg Spaeth's very inspirational blog Elsie Marley, while Meg herself is on holiday. I wrote about a walk I took in the little forest across the street to enjoy the gorgeous winter weather we've been graced with today.

I hope all of you are enjoying blue skies full of sunshine too. :)

New things

A new year always brings with it new things and new beginnings.

I started a 365 Pictures Project this month, I'm going to try and take a photo every day for a whole year. It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision this, but since I now have an iPhone with a rather nice camera and growing love for brilliant and fun photography apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, I think I have a fair chance of seeing this through! It's nice to challenge myself, to see if I can stick to this and if I can come up with 365 photos that aren't all of the cat!
You can follow my progress of taking 365 pictures over on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitty_vane/sets/72157625827674961/

Another new thing I've started is a Tumblr blog. All the cool kids seem to have one, and I'd like to be a little bit cool so I thought I'd make one too. I also have a whole lot of pretty pictures and things that I've collected and I thought it'd be nice to share them with others to be inspired by too instead of just stuffing them into a folder.

You can find my Tumblr here: http://passengerpigeon.tumblr.com/
I thought long and hard about the name for my Tumblr, and I settled on Passenger Pigeon, because the "passenger" in passenger pigeon comes from the French word passager, meaning "to pass by", which is apt since my Tumblr will be a collection of bits and bobs I've come by while surfing about and that have caught my fancy. And of course, because pigeons are most awesome!

The last new thing is actually old news now, but since I'm a little bit behind on my feeds, it's still somewhat new to me: I was featured on the Absolutely Small blog! :)
Contrary to the answers I gave in the interview which I did at the end of last year, I just finished "Garden Spells" by Sarah Addison Allen which was magical and whimsical and I'm now reading "Driving Sideways" by Jess Riley which is wonderfully funny. The teddy bear making course I mentioned is over, but I'm still working on my Storybook Rag Pets. The "flu buster"-tea recipe is still current, with spring's flu season ahead of us and all. :)
Claire, the person behind Absolutely Small, and the ever brilliant utterly fantastic Chickenpants, is a really great person, super funny and so creative she makes people (she's currently on maternity leave) and if you haven't already, go acquaint yourself with her and her work!

Yay! Happy Twin Day!

My brother and me, at about age 2 or so, having the time of our lives!

Today is National Twin Day, and as a twin myself I'm happy to have a day dedicated to being a twin. :)
I have a twin brother, and asides from being born on the same day (I'm all of 7 minutes older than my brother), I don't think we differ much from any other siblings. Then again, I have no experience of being anything other than a twin, so I can't really say for sure. As kids we were close, we were a unit, more a "we" than "me", but as we got older we grew more apart -as I suspect all siblings do. We don't look any more alike than any other brother-sister pair, and we have different and distinct personalities. Still, I really value being one half of an extraordinary (twins make up less than 2% of the world's population) pair and even though being a twin isn't all roses and rainbows and special connections, I wouldn't change it for the world!

Happy Twin Day dear brother! :)

Winter Wednesday

Sometimes others have said all you want to say much better and more eloquently than you ever could, and this is one of those times for me. So, here is a poem by William Bronk (whose surname makes me giggle) that perfectly puts into words the oddly melancholy yet tremendous beauty of winter as it is right now.

Broken sky mirror,

blue-shadowed snow,

June is far now,

hold while you can; show

bare of branch

stark of stalk:

ache us to know.

- Winter Vocative by William Bronk

Happy 2011!

Happy new year everyone! 2011 is the year of the rabbit, and I hope this year will be as wonderful as fluffy little bunnies are cute! :)

I posted about my Creativity Chart before, and here it is all done and filled:

It was really nice to colour in those little squares every day I did something creative and leaving one blank does feel a bit bad. So I can happily say that the Creativity Chart worked! I made myself a new one today, and I hope this one will be a lot more colourful than the one before. I don't usually make any new year's resolutions, but I've decided that this year I'll try to do more, make more and simply live more.

With 2010 being gone and 2011 freshly arrived, it's that exciting time when you have a brand new shiny year just waiting to be lived. All those days to do things, for stuff to happen and for experiences to be experienced. It's quite heady to think of all that time unfolding ahead of you really. Now all that's left to do is, well, to get on with it!

Very Merry Christmas!

little tree little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see          i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look          the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

"little tree", by e. e. cummings

One of my most favourite things about Christmas is the tree. I love the way a real fir tree smells, it's one of those smells that instantly bring up a whole flood of memories of childhood and happiness. I spend hours and hours putting the lights and all my ornaments on the tree, and then begins what I call The Ornament Shuffle: endlessly moving the ornaments about to find just the right place for each one. I buy a new ornament or two each year, mostly bird-themed ones since the tree seems to have become a sparkly, glittery aviary over the years!

Any ways, I'd like to wish you all -and your trees too!- a very merry Christmas filled with happiness and joy! :)

And the winner is...

...lucky number 117, Deborah, who lives in the desert where there's no snow at all! I hope Frosty will bring a bit of snowiness with him for you and your toddler. :)

Thank you ever so much to all of you who took part, you're what makes Giveaway Day so much fun!
It's been super reading all your comments, and I've found a whole lot of great new Christmas music to listen to. I'd like to especially thank all of you who mentioned "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas", I hadn't heard of it before, and I'm glad I have now; it's such a hilarious and adorable song! :)

Hooray it's Giveaway Day!

This is Frosty the little rag-cat snowman. He's made out of soft, snowy white velvet and stuffed with rags and polyfill. His eyes are little buttons, his nose is made with carrot orange thread and he has three coal black buttons down his front. Frosty wears a plaid flannel scarf around his neck to keep him warm.
Frosty is about 32cm from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and is smaller than regular Rag Pets, but he makes up for his diminutive size with oodles of personality!
(You can see more photos of Frosty over at my flickr, just click on any of the photos here and you'll be transported there.)

To celebrate the spirit of Christmas and the joy of giving I'm taking part in Giveaway Day, and I'm giving Frosty away to one lucky person who leaves a comment about what their favourite Christmas or winter time song is, or about anything Christmassy or wintery really, on this entry between today and the 17th of December. Each commenter will get a number, with the first to comment being number 1 and the second number 2 and so on, and then come the 17th, I'll randomly draw a number to see who Frosty will go home to (I'm happy to ship anywhere in the world, so it doesn't matter where you're from).
Be sure to check out the whole, long list of wonderful crafters taking part in giveaway Day over at the Sew Mama Sew blog as well!

I listen to Christmas music a whole lot come December, so I have many a favourite holiday song. I really like "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" and "White Christmas" and the whole of Tori Amos' "Midwinter Graces" album, especially "Winter's Carol", a video for which I wanted to post here but said video doesn't allow embedding so you get a link to it instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqc4HRIXCmo
The video features scenes from an American production of "Snow Queen", which is a wonderful story and perfect for this season, although I prefer the Finnish version of the movie from 1986 better (which can be found in it's entirety on Youtube, starting from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2Y4k1t2LA).

17.12. Edit: Commenting is now closed, and I'll be announcing the winner shortly. Thank ever so much to all who took part!

The 1st of December

For me the 1st of December marks the beginning of Christmas. Today I hang our Christmas lights, start to listen to Christmas music in abundance, fill my belly with all sorts of Christmas time treats and feel tremendously happy and thankful.
I love Christmas time, it's a bright spot during what I find to be a rather tiring and hard season, since I don't cope well with cold and darkness. Christmas brings with it shining lights, happy songs, yummy food, beautiful decorations and warm wishes and it all makes me feel inordinately jolly! It's the perfect distraction from the winter blues.

I opened the first hatch of my Christmas calendar, which this year features Christmas elves, cute little animals and glitter, today. Consequently, our apartment is also festively covered in glitter now. :)

Happy beginning of Christmas to you all, may this holiday season be filled with wonder and joy!