MY DIY FROM A BOOK by Laura Iisalo and Melanie Dower

HELSINKI - PEOPLE MAKE THE CITY

A very new book of the local life in Helsinki. There are lot of interesting places, people and their stories. I was interviewed in January among other makers and doers.

Laura asked me to make a DIY for the book and so I did this: a keep-safe for small metal things - that are always lost like scissors, needles, vintage wine bottle opener ( surely you have one) pins and what ever you can imagine - the keep-safe made from a traditional wooden distaff.

When people got married around 200 hundered years ago, grooms had to carve this kind of wooden precious item to demonstrate their skills to girl they wanted to marry. Well nowadays the meaning is purely decorational. But I guess they aren't so hip at all. That's why I got the idea. They look beautiful but still would you hang it on your wall? I thought these handmade beauties needed a second chance - or life. So I made my magnetic keep-safe DIY.

Before I go to the DIY I want to tell you a bit of the pic above and my January. There you can see a huge plant and it is from my mom's home. It just arrived few weeks ago to our workspace Työhuone ovi 10.  It's an orange tree she planted in the 1965. She had bought an orange from a grocery shop and thought why not to try to grow an orange tree from its seed and well, here it is - still after almost 50 years. It has always been at our childhood's home and now it will be with me. It's over 2 meters high and I hope I don't kill it. It's my mom's legacy and I really hope I can keep it alive at least another 50 years.

But why I have it?

My mom died suddenly in the beginning of the year and I'm still having a hard time but January was the hardest time ever for me. Unreal, sad, unbalanced and hopeless. So it was wonderful to have a short joyful photography moment with Laura. Most of these photos in this blog post are photographed by her (...and yes I've cropped them, sorry Laura ;) But you have to go and see the whole book - maybe even buy one! It's just lovely combination of interesting stories, places in Helsinki and great photography and it is in English! You can find it here. I can notice I've missed writing - so much to say ;) but now let's go to the DIY.

MAGNETIC KEEP-SAFE DIY

You need: 

a wooden distaff or other beautiful wooden item

a drill - a bit with the flat head with same diameter as your magnet

epoxy glue

piece of leather or thick fabric

something for hanging like metal hanger, hanger made of the leather - use your imagination

First drill the holes. Be careful - measure how deep you can drill without going through the wood. Holes should be quite close to each other.

Mix your epoxy glue.

Put some glue in the hole and put the magnet in it. It doesn't matter which side is up or down - negative or positive. They will try to stick together so take a piece of cardboard or something else to cover those that are drying in place. You have to be quite quick because epoxy is ready in five minutes. So plan first - then do.

After magnets are dried in their places glue a piece of leather or fabric on them because small magnets are dangerous for animals and small kids. Magnets stays under the leather if any of those magnets got loose.

Then the last task is to make hanger for your keep-safe. You can make one from metal wire, leather, strong cord or just buy one. Use epoxy to glue that also and after that keep-safe is ready. Time to have a good cup of coffee and let the piece of art dry.

I wanted to make this magnetic keep-safe for my favorite scissors because they are always lost. 

I hope you got a very good creative ideas from this. I love to see if you make one. You can find me in Instagram @kreettakreetta so it's easy to just tag me when you do this.

Let's enjoy the moments we have now. Have a creative weekend!

xoxo
Kreetta

EASY CHRISTMAS DECORATION DIY - SIMPLE WHITE ORNAMENTS

HO HO HO BAKING SODA DOUGH!

I saw this DIY in Facebook by Kodin Kuvalehti. It is really simple and easy. I don't know if you are a bit like me...I have always a bit hurry before Christmas when I start to get these crazy ideas what I like to do before and for the Christmas...this time I got plenty of time to make these because they are so easy. That is a very very good thing, I think. Photographing them today was the hardest part. We have sooo low light at the moment but luckily I have a tripod.

First you make the baking soda dough. This recipe is from Kodin Kuvalehti.

INGREDIENTS

1dl corn starch

2dl baking soda

1,25dl pure water

Combine ingredients in the pot. Boil over medium heat until the mixture starts to thicken into the smooth texture. Remove from the heat. Put the damp cloth over it. Let it cool for awhile. The important thing is to have enough moisture in dough. It's hard to make pretty ones when the dough is too dry. So keep your dough moistured. I kept mine in damp cloth and in a plastic bag waiting for baking. But this dough is the easiest ever to bake. Thickness of the dough should be about 5 mm and use spatula in lifting your pretty ornaments on to the baking sheet.

MAKE YOUR ORNAMENTS WITH

rolling pin

cookie cutters

plastic or wooden board (you can use plastic wrap around the wooden board like I did)

stick to make holes

spatula

baking paper

texture from different kind of things (this part is my favorite!) like I used dried poppy seed pod and pearl necklace. Never ever use the most obvious - that is my motto, I admit.

There have to be also a reason why to make a DIY. I need these ornaments for the Christmas present tags. We have made some homemade preserved ginger pears. Some of you are going to get them - some not. This is our first year with these so either other way you might be lucky.

After you have baked your ornaments, they go to oven or you can also let them dry over night in a room temperature. But as I said I'm always a bit hurry (and impatient) to wait for the result so I baked them in oven in temperature 75 C degrees about one hour. Depends on how thick they are. I guess that's about it. Of course you can play with colors from spices or water colors or proper food coloring but I liked pure white. Simple.

So off you go and have fun with your family and friends! Make many beautiful ornaments. 

It's time to Wish You A Merry Christmas!

xoxo

Kreetta

ps. You will find me in Instagram @kreettakreetta

 

GLUTEN FREE AND DAIRY FREE PEAR CAKE

PEAR + ALMOND + WALNUT

How I adore these small pears! I've been telling everybody that now you can get Finnish pears - go and get them before they ran out or the season is over. 

  

I decided to bake a pear cake with same recipe I made a plum cake. I got the recipe from Nigel Slater's beautiful cooking book The Kitchen Diaries. It is my absolutely fave book as I told you in previous blog post where I told you about pork ribs we made with my husband from this very same book.

Gluten free and dairy free baking has been very challenging for me. It is always hard to get very good and moist result...until I found oat flour from grocery shop. It's only what it is called - oat. Nothing else added.

PEAR CAKE RECIPE BY KREETTA (changing/using recipe from Nigel Slater's plum cake/The Kitchen Diaries book)

6-7 small pears

butter 150g

indian sugar 150g

eggs 3

oat flour 75g (gluten free)

baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons

ground almond 100g

shelled walnuts 50g

You need a 20cm cake tin, about 6cm deep. Bake in 180 'C degrees about 35-45min.

Chop the walnuts and almonds. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Cut the pears at least in three but if you make them smaller they get more soft and that I recommend. Mine were too big so they could have been more softer...but in photograph they look very nice ;) Whip eggs lightly and add to the mixture. Mix flour+baking powder and add them gently into the mixture. Fold almonds and walnuts into the mixture. 

Scrape the mixture into the cake tin. Place the pear pieces on the cake mixture. They will sink so it might not be so precise how you do it. Bake the cake. It's quite big so it's for 10-12 people.

When you are photographing food, it is good to know when it should be done. This time it was the right moment to photograph the cake before it went to oven. After that it changed color to brown - even though it's it ok and pretty - I think I like the green pears more.

This cake is tasty and moist. You can serve it with vanilla ice cream or without. I think you can also serve it people without saying it's gluten and dairy free. One cake for all. Of course if there are people with peanut allergy or they are vegan - then you have to change the plan. My piece of cake is on my favorite plate by Arabia. Of course it's vintage and the design is called Maisema (Landscape).

Have a great and creative weekend!

xoxo
Kreetta

STYLING YOUR HOME WITH A FROZEN TREE

ART ON THE WALL

Autumn has arrived. When the weather turns a bit colder we stay more inside at our homes. We light up candels and spend cosy evenings in our living rooms. Then we look at our home with a bit different eye too. Maybe we want to change things, buy new things or change the order of furnitures. 

I use to have a very minimalistic decoration at my home but after I spent few months in Copenhagen my style changed. I fell in love with Danish style. Cosy and eclectic. You could see a person's history at his or her home and I think that was very interesting and I was very drawn to it. I'm sure if you are very minimalistic and you visit my home - you'd be overwhelmed, haha.

But this photo isn't from our home. It's from our friend's home. They moved to a new house and they have been decorating it very stylishly. As you can see they also like vintage style but modern too. I was very happy when I was asked to make a photo for them. This photo on the wall is taken few years ago during the very cold winter in Helsinki. It was a weird weather on that day. Actually the weather lasted few days. It was cold, crispy and thick frost on everywhere. Like a macig winterworld. How lucky I was because during that time I had a photoshoooting with meteorologist. Funny coincidence. We were photographing near the sea in one park. There I saw these beautiful trees. They were so perfect and simple. They bring to my mind a bit of Japanese wood drawing. I think after that winter we have had the same kind of weather only once or twice so this pic is quite special. Like my friends too.

xoxo

Kreetta

MAGNOLIA + CERAMICS

"IMPERFECT THURSDAY" THOUGHTS OF THE MAKER

Nothing is perfect. I think. And if things were perfect, nothing interesting would happen.

As a creative it is awful to admit that without special reason some days are just more difficult than others. You know...that...block. And how to overcome it? 

SPRING SPIRIT

BEGINNING

Fresh green.Who can resist it? I am so in love with this spring color. I had to cut a branch from our plum tree and make a photo of it because those cute and delicate flowers doesn''t last long. Today I'm going back to forest and continue the project that I started on this week's Thursday. I found so charming creatures from the forest that I have to photograph them again and this time with real camera. I took iPhone photo of them and you'll find it in my Instagram feed. I think pic of these creatures would be very nice on the wall. What do you think?

Yesterday I was testing also new paints. I painted a cut board. Beautiful paint and what a matt texture! I have a feeling that I will use these painting colors in our workspace kitchen.

Have a happy Sunday!

xo,

Kreetta

SPRING SOUP

ASPARAGUS+FENNEL+NETTLE

If you have seen my Instagram feed, you know that I've chosen to be a cook for a whole weekend. My husband had a birthday on Friday so one part of his present is to let him just enjoy of eating - not making it. He likes to cook a lot but you know who wouldn't like to just sit at the readymade table?

I found great inspiration from Green Kitchen Stories blog. You can find the original recipe there.  Actually I saw their delicious pic in IG. Surprise! It really looked very tempting. 

So I made it. But I made some changes to the recipe. I changed spinach to nettle, because you can find it almost right next to our door this time of the year (yay!...and it's free ;) and it is also very healthy. Second change was replacing lemon with buckthorn juice. I can't eat citrus fruits so I used very scandinavian choise that is quite similar or at least a bit close ;) and garnishing with goutweed. That you can also find from garden (too) easily.

What can I say. It tasted heavenly. Very good and the toppings! I haven't thought it well before that you really can do amazing things with toppings. You don't have to eat so much bread (expecially if it have to be gluten free) you can eat some really nice things with your soup like here: lentils, asparagus, parsley, green chili, pumkin seeds and cashew cream. So this recipe is also totally vegan too.

One big nod to David and Luise for this beautiful and tasteful recipe. I had to write it down to my vintage (straight from the seventies - it has only plastic artifical food things in it's cover) recipe book and that is a book where we only write the best ones.

Have a tasty Sunday!

xo

Kreetta

ps. I took this photo with my husband's camera because I was too lazy to take my camera home and yesterday when I made the soup I just had to photograph it. He has smaller and older Canon and the lens was Voightländer 90mm and with cropped sensor it's really tele...and only manual focusing...it's always a bit uncomfortable when you don't have your own gear and well, you have to work a bit more with making one pic, I say.

LAZY DAY GOOD FRIDAY WITH AVOCADO SOUP

Have you waited eagerly the Easter vacation? I have. Lazy Friday is the best what you can have. I hope you have a lovely long weekend ahead of you. I have had a very interesting week. So many things has happened. Or maybe not yet happened but many ideas were born and I can't wait to get making them! We also have a small kitchen facelift at our workspace going on so I can't wait to see it ready!

This week I had a guest from Berlin. Pauliina is a journalist and blogger behind the food blog Boiling Under. We decided to try cold avocado soup while having very interesting conversations - so interesting that time just ran out and we had to hurry to airport :) and the rest of her travelling is history. Awful storm in Berlin brought the plane back to Finland after 2 aborted landings. People was sick of fear. But they are safe now. 

Well, back to the avocado soup. Recipe was from here. It is in Finnish and it's a very very basic recipe so we changed and added some ingredients. I think you can do the soup without recipe only by knowing the ingredients. We made dairy free version of it so we used oat iMat fraishe from Oatly. We tested the soup with soy yogurt too but we liked the oat better. I also changed the lemon to sea-buckthorn juice because I can't eat lemon or other citrus fruits. So we made two versions of the soup :)

Ingredients you need:

avocado
cucumber
garlic
some water
lemon or sea-buckthorn
Turkish Yogurt or oat iMat fraishe
salt and pepper

...we added fresh coriander and I think that was a very good choise. If we have had time a bit more I would have toasted seeds like sunflower or pumpkin. You just blend all together with hand blender. Very easy and of course you have to taste when the soup is ready. I also think one should try this soup with adding a bit chili there...

And yes we had to photograph it :) It was cold already so it was ok to shoot some time. Of course fresh coriander start to wilt.

Later that evening I made tea and ate delicious cookies I got from Pauliina. She had bought them from Cafe Suvanto...I think. Evening light was beautiful too.

On Wednesday we were working in the workspace's kitchen and yesterday we started to paint it and I also made something I had planned for awhile. I visited great vintage/antique shop in Hyvinkää. I have this thing calle vintage madness or something like that ;) I found some treasures as you can see. Props for food and lifestyle pics. Now I also have the official espresso cup, haha. It is the blue and white mocha cup and the plate in picture. Actually it is very old and it's  made by Arabia. Design is called Maisema - Landscape. It is made in 1930-1940's - my newest treasure. You can't find these very easily. I also bought some old fabrics and yesterday evening I went through Pinterest to get some ideas to make something.

So here we are back in this Friday. I wish you a very calm and beautiful Easter days! Let's hope we see the sun too :)

xoxo

Kreetta

NEW BLOG'S HEADER DESIGN - BOILING UNDER BLOG

Today I will tell you about photographing a header picture to food and lifestyle blog. I was asked to photograph a blog's header for new cool blog Boiling Under by Pauliina Siniauer. Her blog is about food stories and good recipes. I was very happy about this assignment because I could photograph my favorite things - food and lifestyle. I usually love the word editing but this time I will show you many photos that you see the process.

Because she lives in Berlin at the moment we planned the project only writing each other. We went through her favorite ideas, ingredients and made a Pinterest board together. That is very useful tool. There were things she liked and ideas I wanted to show her. Important was that we speak same language. But still I got quite free hands to photograph what and how I thought things would work. I started to get images in my head. I love that moment. Boiling Under name gave me thoughts quite generously. Finally it took one day to go and get the ingredients - most of them are Pauliinas's favorite ones, style, photograph and send the photos to Pauliina. 

I tried different kind of compositions and changed order and ingredients. I made simple compositions and more complex compositions.

My love for vintage items is quite obvious - I admit :)

It's a great feeling when you feel that there is a flow going in your brain and things makes sense and looks good.

Just changing little things you make the difference.

But at the end of the day I usually have to say that less is more. But if you don't try different kind of things you don't find the right one if you know what I mean... 

I was designing the blog's header to blog about food and good recipes. It gave me a lot of possibilities. But I happen to know the person and the name Boiling Under is - to me - something not so obvious, a bit hidden and trending. This person has an excellent sense of humour and she is greatly skilled in writing and she is very good speaker. But still the less is more is better than too much and way too many thoughts. 

We both agreed the same picture. We like more about a hint of something than obvious things even though they look good and are pretty. Back to square one. The first idea I had in my mind was simple and I got it when I saw this charming little casserole that my workspace friend Meri-Tuuli  have full of salt :) 

That's our beloved Boiling Under.



xoxo Kreetta 

ps. I wonder what should I do with all those photos. They might be quite nice pics on the kitchen wall or what you think?

IT'S HERE - MY BLOG'S NEW DESIGN!

How many times I have said that I will make THE new design in near future? Well, it's here! Done. I did it, yay! There are small things that I will change still but from now on my blog's design looks like this. It's been wonderful and productive days and I'm happy about it!

I got bored with the older one  - I had it for two years like the previous one too. I started blogging in Jan 2012. I have this thing you know - I want to make new things.

I also want to tell you a short story behind the new header. I was in Venice in the beginning of the Jan 2015 and it was a great journey. I took part in Local Milk's Food Photography Workshop and met so many wonderful people and saw the magic happen in front of camera. Everything was so beautiful. Very talented people like Beth Kirby and Ginny Branch - what else you need to get inspiration? 

It was so beautiful place - Venice - you could walk everywhere. I found beautiful old treasures like cardboard letters I've used in my blog's header. It was one very small antique shop were they were in a rusty metal box. There were many of them and I guess they use to be part of some kind of word game like Scrabble (handmade!) but I only collected what I had in my mind. I've been planning my blog's new design for awhile and when I saw those cute and decayed letters...and I'm quite sure they whispered to me...we are coming with you ;) I also decided to make handwriting in old-fashioned way. Don't ask how many times I wrote those link letters and still they aren't perfect because they are handmade :) And who wants perfect? I know I go quite a long way when I'm doing something but it's always good to keep in mind when to stop.

My blog will still be about creative spirit and inspiration but now it also has a real touch of vintage or even antique - literally.

Today I photographed beautiful gifts we got in Local Milk's workshop. You can follow the IG links if you want to know more about makers of these treasures. There will be at least one Venice post still coming up...

snake spoon @_sandwichshop_ 
bath salts @ederleshop 
perfume @naninstudio 
aprons @icemilkaprons 
tea @marbleandmilkweed 
paper recipe cards @signoraemare
Pastiglie Leone @pastiglieleone 
 
How about you - do you like my new design? Have you had thoughts of changing things lately?

Happy weekend!

xo
Kreetta

PS. It would be very cool to hear who made that game and how old those letters are....only if they only could speak ;)

FLOWER POWER - EASY PHOTOGRAPHING WITH iPHONE

I've noticed that I have started to photograph even more with my iPhone. It's easier and faster and you get your photos in no time to Instagram. I've been in Instagram now for a one year and I have no regrets. I use to think that there are way too many photographs in the world and that is a great excuse to avoid IG. But...well no. It's a place with people. It's a place of community.

I use VSCOcam to photograph my pics. I've just use to it, so I don't use camera's own app to do it. I don't know which one is better but I've my habits and quite happy with them. You know the size of the photograph taken with phone is huge. You can get almost A4 sized pic with 300dpi so nothing stop you making a nice photograph print from your phone photos. I think that is amazing. Technology is here to stay and it is speeding forward and I just don't know where we are after next ten years. 

I surely believe that if you want to have a job and live good life, you can't step back and avoid all the technology. You have to go along but you can choose your way. Appearance in internet and social media can't beat the true value of friendship and family so there are moments that you just have to forget the whole world around you and concentrate to your real life. It's sometimes hard because it is so easy to just push buttons on your phone and make a digital foodprints one after another. 

What do you think?

Here's 3 IG accounts I love to follow: 

Cabinlove

Here you can find your perfect hideaway

Cannellevanille 

You can eat with your eyes and enjoy of beautiful photography

Indigo_mint 

Vintage vintage vintage - I love it!

...and my IG you can find kreettakreetta.

Have a lovely weekend!

xo

Kreetta 

ps. If you haven't seen my very first Steller stories, you can find it here. It's a story of Venice.

Scilla, me and spring

Few days I've been feeling a little bit tired and feeling not so creative. It's just have been too much work and too many things in my head. I have forgotten way too many things too. I think I have to give my brains a bit vacation. How you make your mind calm and balanced? What is your secret? ..or just habit to win this ugly feeling of numb?

I tried anyway. I took my camera and finally made the effort and picked up some scillas from our yard. They have so lovely scent. I took few photos and this one - I think - is the best one.  What do you think? Would it be nice card or picture on the wall?

xo

Kreetta 

ps.Gardening has begun. It's time to pin pinterest garden board.

Vintage love Paris

If you love vintage, antique - old things, this is the place to be in Paris. Marché aux puces de Paris/ Saint Ouen is a place where you can find anything!

Metal. Font.

Design. Circus. Black and white.

Color. Raw. Garden.

Surface. Pattern. Table.

Wooden cutting board. Country. Copper.

Ceramic. Old glass.

Sea shell. Decoration. Prop.

Striped underskirt. Vintage clothing. Adorable! 7 and 9 rue Jules Vallès, Marché Jules Vallès you can find a diamond. A vintage shop where you can find a lot of old ribbons, buttons, lace, threads, fabric, clothing.

Wow, what a place. So much to see and touch! We didn't have time to look everywhere. One more reason to go back to Paris! Totally loved the place. Next post will be about streets and places in Paris, where we enjoyed the spring. 

Have a lovely Saturday evening!

xo

Kreetta