Vegas Vacation

I spent a long weekend in Vegas and came back home late on Monday. I really love Vegas. It's such and weird and surreal place, but I always have a great time. I mean, I did get married there, so I do have a special place in my heart for it.

I don't really gamble much (penny slots, anyone?), but I always enjoy wandering around, snapping photos. And eating. Oh, the food...


I'd happily go back right away.

I have plenty more photos and stories to share with you.

Mail on Tuesday

Hello, hello!

I know I missed the mail on Monday post, but in my defense I was on a plane for most of the day! I took a little vacation, of which I have a ton of photos of. I'll share some with you soon, but I will need some time to go through them all. I only got home late last night, so I need a little time to adjust back to regular life.

Vacation was awesome though!

While I figure out the photos, I'll share my incoming mail. I actually have some outgoing as well, but those will need to wait as well...

Incoming

I got two letters in the mail while I was away. The first one is from Laura (of LEP). I really like the creative use of washi tape. I think I'll need to try this out too...


The other one is from Susanne. I always love her penmanship (I don't know if any other term would do it justice). Thank you ladies!

So, what have you guys been up to?

Sunday reads

Happy Sunday! Here's a few more links from last week, I wanted to share with you guys.

Best of Tina Fey GIFs - There ain't no party like a Liz Lemon party, 'cuz Liz Lemon party is MANDATORY.

Social Media genius at Oreo - This is how a great social media presence is created and maintained. Tips on what you can learn from them.

Stars and the actors who played them - Interesting comparisons between stats and the actors who played them on screen.

Stars and the actors who played them - Part 2

Outfits inspired by Disney characters - Several outfits comprised of regular clothes and accessories inspired by Disney. Some are more costume-y, but a lot could be worn on a regular day.

Please feel free to share any interesting links in the comments!

Friday Inspiration - Tattoos

I'm sure I've mentioned before my love for tattoos. I have a couple myself and big plans for more. This Friday I wanted to share a few amazing ones I've seen recently.

Source: closetonthego.com via Closet on the go on Pinterest

Source: fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net via Ton Araujo on Pinterest

Source: pinupgirlstattoos.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: hideousstrength.tumblr.com via Ton Araujo on Pinterest

Source: stayg0ldkid.tumblr.com via Ton Araujo on Pinterest

Source: igotinked.com via IGotInked.com on Pinterest

Source: tattoostage.com via Tattoo Stage on Pinterest

This is one of my favorite topics and I could go on forever... I have so many plans... As you can see from the examples above, I love intricate details and play on light and shadows. I do love color as well. My first one is black and grey and the rest are in color. For some reason I expected to only get black and grey, but I think I'll stick with color.

Care to venture a guess as to why I am thinking of tattoos today?

Traveling mail art kit

I've been supposed to write this post a long while. Since my last trip to New York City in... well... February... Fair enough, it took me a while. Anyhow...

Travel kit for mail art or other snailmail-y activities.

I, of course, carry all my pens and such in this fantastically adult-like panda pencil case.I got it from my sister years ago and still carry it around with me everywhere. It has suffered a tad over the years, but honestly, who hasn't?

The whole idea is to carry enough supplies to be covered if you get a sudden spurt of creativity, but also not to carry too many things. I take pride in my mad packing skillz (It's the one thing I will openly brag about), but even though I might be able to fit a whole lot more, I try to always apply the 'less is more' approach. I mean, I am the one that needs to carry all this around, right?

Clockwise from the top left corner: glue roller, paper clips, small scissors, pencil, pen, washi tape, glue stick and markers.

Please remember that if you're flying, pack the scissors to your suitcase!

Additionally, I also usually bring a small notepad, a few envelopes, a few notecards, return address labels and regular address labels. I always try to use whatever I find along the way on my trip, but these things are often handy. Unfortunately I've found that many hotels don't offer stationery in their rooms any more. 

What is in your travel kit? Or do you carry one at all? I'd love to hear what you guys bring with you, if anything!

Mail on Monday

How was your weekend? Mine was filled with glitter! I worked on the custom wedding invites and then on Sunday enjoyed a lovely late lunch. After lunch I got some wonderful news from a dear friend. All in all, this was an awesome weekend! Today is still a day off, but I have a huge to-do list for the day. I'll go to work to relax tomorrow. (I'm kidding, looks like it's full-on mayhem over there. This is the busiest time of the year.)

On the mail-front, I might have gotten a little carried away again... I'll let you be the judge of that.

Outgoing

 

A little black and white number to get us started. I do often use my own products. You can see the envelopes available HERE


The second one is a beige and tan piece of mail with some dashes of gold. I really like those starburst stickers. I just found some in another color, so I'm fairly sure you'll see more of these in the near future.


And finally a pink and black polkadot envelope. I just feel like polkadots make everything better. Wouldn't you agree? I carried on a photo theme, since that's what the topic of the stamp is. (Also, I just really, really like this camera tape)

Incoming

There's only one incoming this week, but what an awesome piece of mail it is! Just look at it! Love it! It's from Susanne who's in the UK right now. Thank you!

So, what do you have planned for the upcoming week?

Link Love on Sunday

I actually quite liked last weeks Link Love for your Sunday post. Did you enjoy it?

Since then, I've found some other quite interesting things to share with you. Please enjoy a few more below:

Sometimes Sweet - I found this blog a little while ago and enjoy myself tremendously every time I drop by. Danielle posts often and has an interesting writing style, so I'm always entertained. Even though I don't have kids and very rarely read so-called "mommy blogs", since I rarely find myself relating to things they talk about (well, quite obviously),  I just love hers. And I do have a weakness to girls with tattoos!

How to make friends when you're old - Who couldn't use a few more friends? Interesting read.

Treasure hunting with Freckled Nest - As you know I love rummaging through thrift stores, so I was excited to come by this post by the Freckled Nest. I like hearing what are other people looking for.


Craft Fail - I promise this site will make you feel much better when your creations won't look as good as the ones you saw on Pinterest.

So, what do you guys think; do you like these link-sharing posts? Is there something you'd like to share? Please leave links you love in the comments!

Friday Inspiration - Eating well

As the weather gets warmer (eventually) I think most people start thinking about eating lighter. Now, for me, eating lighter started well before the weather warmed up, but I am continuously looking for new things to cook that are good for you too.

You might have noticed the new badge on the left sidebar tracking my weight loss to date, but more on that another time. Let's just concentrate on tastiness for now.

I've been slowly gathering some interesting looking recipes on my "Tastyness" Pinboard. I've tried a few and others I'm very excited to test out.

Source: mynewroots.org via Katri on Pinterest

This looks absolutely incredible! I haven't tried it yet, but will for sure.

Source: mynewroots.org via Katri on Pinterest

This one I did try already. I like it, but I also feel it needs a bit of tweaking. Once I get it just right, I'll share my version with you guys.

Source: skinnytaste.com via Katri on Pinterest

I haven't tried this exact one, but I pinned it for new ideas for my quinoa salad.

Source: slenderkitchen.com via Katri on Pinterest

I'm continuously looking for some new breakfast recipes. I'm not one for toast or anything like that.

Do you have some awesome, healthy recipes you'd like to share? Do you have a go-to good-for-you yummyness? Please share your favorites in the comments!

It's so sparkly outside!

No, I mean literally... The patio is encrusted in glitter. See:


It's everywhere.

This is what's been going on:


I'm working on custom wedding invitations that require me to chop up a ton of glitter paper. So, I'm working on it outside. Well, was until it got so windy that I can't take paper outside. Until the next less blustery day, I'll need to come up with another solution to keep the glitter out of my home...

Mail Monday

Hello, hello! Did you have a good weekend?

Mine was quite lovely for the most part. On Saturday we attended a birthday party for a young man turning 1. It was nice to see the family, since they live a bit further from us and we haven't had a chance to see them very often.  Then later we attended another birthday party, this time for a young man turning 32. It wasn't quite the same kind of a party, but both were fun.

The reason why I said 'for the most part' was because, unfortunately, as we intended to continue the second birthday celebration with some cheesecake at the birthday celebrators home, we arrive to find his front door unlocked. Turns out someone had broken into his place while he was gone. Luckily, whoever did this was long gone and the only thing they managed to steal was a laptop! This naturally does not make things ok, but at least nothing was really broken and no major damage done, except, of course, to everyone's sense of security.

Well, all we can hope is that whoever did this gets caught.

After an eventful Saturday, Sunday was much calmer. I took full advantage of a free afternoon and caught up on my correspondence.

Outgoing

 

The first outgoing mail is a gold, black and white ensemble. It's mainly decorated with washi- and other decorative tapes, including the first time I'm using the flying pigs tape I got from my sister a little while back. She also sent me the awesome retro camera one. To add to the goldiness of it all are some starburst stickers. And I finally got a sheet of the Chinatown gates stamps, I talked about a little while back! How awesome are they!?

After gold comes silver. Well, silver and pink. This is going to my grandma, so I felt you can't go wrong with a whole lot of pink. And some extra flowers, just for good measure. She'll like this. She's not too old school when it comes to decorating her mail either. She goes a little nuts with stickers, so maybe it's a genetic flaw quirk...

Talking of which... It's been like... what? a few weeks since the last time I went overboard with some airmail love?! Turns out there are, in fact, a few people still who haven't received one of these from me. This is my first letter to Jenni, so I figured I might as well show her what she got herself into when she agreed to see if we'll hit it off postally....

And finally something a little different. I played around with some paints a little while ago and tried out a few different approaches with it. I actually quite like this one, but turns out it's hard to take photos of. The envelope has interesting textures and two different pink paints. One of them with glitter. On top of the paint, I've added some other embellishments. I really like the feel of it, I think I'll need to explore this method a little further.

Incoming

The first flowery envelope is from Jenni. I love the spring feel of the envelope and really like how it was sewed together. (Wait. Sewn together? Sewed? "Sewn" sounds better, no?)

The second incoming letter, which, by the way, arrived the same day as the first one, is from Susanne. It's funny how it goes, you don't get any mail for a while and then things arrive at the same time. Not that I'm complaining! I think that's just one of the natural laws of mail delivery.

Thank you ladies!

Link Love for your Sunday

Needless to say, I spend a lot of time online. Besides my blog and my two online shops, I also read a ton of blogs, articles and tutorials. Somehow this week I've bumped into some really interesting things that I thought you guys might enjoy. I also saw some positivity inducing posts and videos that are added in the mix. Pick and choose the ones that you feel would hit home!

Gender and its Implications within Modern American Tattoo Culture - An excellent and informative paper about tattoos on women. I love tattoos and I love history and I love interesting research papers... So, I pretty much love everything about this. If the topic interests you, I urge you to read on. I might put in my two cents on the topic later.

Five Rules for life - A surefire dose of positivity your day. Just read a few posts and you start feeling the positive effects. "The premise is simple - people from all walks share what they believe are the most important rules to follow for a happy, successful, and fulfilling life."

Seeing Eye People - Another one from Improv Everywhere. If you're not familiar with the group, please take the time to go through some of their older events. You can't help but to smile!

Kicking people to the curb with Amy Poehler - She's awesome to begin with and this quote from her just adds to the general awesomeness.

If you've read or seen something you'd like to share, please leave a link in the comments!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Friday Inspiration - windows

I have a weakness for architectural details, such as windows, doors and fire escapes. I also go weak in the knees for beautiful, simplistic graphic design. You can only imagine how my heart fluttered when I found Windows of New York.

Source: windowsofnewyork.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: windowsofnewyork.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: windowsofnewyork.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: windowsofnewyork.com via Katri on Pinterest

Pure love for your Friday! I hope you have an awesome weekend!

Check-up time

I took the cats to the vet yesterday, it was time to get their yearly check-up dome and vaccines up to date. Let me tell you, they were not happy.

Source: snapwidget.com via Katri on Pinterest

George, obviously the clever one of the two, hid from the vet in this ingenious spot. Certainly if he can't see the vet, the vet can't see him, which then leads him to escape getting his shots and whatever other unpleasant things the vet would have in store for him...


Everything went well, with only a fair amount of hissing (from the cats, I was good), and we got back home in a reasonable time. Obviously I did have to deal with some hurt feelings and accusatory looks...

I am trying to be funny, but in all honesty, the vet is amazing! If you live in Montreal and are looking for a vet for your cat, you need to go to Clinique Vétérinaire Féline. They specialize and only treat cats and the entire staff is phenomenal. They are so nice and they all absolutely love cats. You know you're pet is in good hands there. I just can't express how amazing these ladies are! If you are looking for a vet, give them a call and ask for Dr. Farley. I'm not sure if Dr. Trudel is still there, but she's lovely as well. You can't go wrong here.

Tell them George and Gossamer sent you!

One last letter

I completely forgot this tropical little guy from yesterday's mail post! I don't quite know how that happened, but I just noticed that there it was, at the very top of my 'May 2013' photo folder.

I've started organizing my photos in monthly folders. I have so many photos that I had to come up with a better way to organize. So far this monthly thing seems to be working. The only exception to this rule is if I'm traveling. Then I usually create another folder under the monthly one and label it with the name and time of the trip.

I realize I need to do a major overhaul with all the photo folders... I have a ton of photos and not all of them are needed. This might sound a bit odd, but keep in mind that I've ran the shop for over 3 years now... There's about a million and a half product photos, some of items I don't carry any longer. I think it's time to let some of those go.

How do you keep your photos organized? I would appreciate any tips!

Mail Monday

Hello everybody! [Hello, Dr. Nick!]

Happy mail day!

How has your week started off? So far, I'm happy to have a slower morning for a change, which allows me to enjoy my coffee and plan the day ahead.

The weekend was pretty damn awesome! The weather was ridiculously warm, at +26C/78F it felt like a full-blown summer. It's supposed to stay that way all week, so not having a freelance project this week is a good thing after all. I am, however, working on the custom wedding invitations most of the week. I need to prep a hundred invitations, so that should keep me busy and glitter-covered for a while. All in all, I am looking forward to this week!

Let's take a look at last weeks mail...

Outgoing

 

First outgoing for the week is a pale colored, delicate little letter. I like how all the stamps worked out and felt I didn't want to go overboard (for once) with all the decorations. A few different tapes did the trick.


The more colorful outgoing mail is actually a small package. The red and white striped paper is gift wrap I bought a little while ago. I really like how it looks!


And finally we have the follow-up for the Batman mail from a little while ago. I felt that it was only appropriate to mail out the sequel with Batman's enemies... There's the Joker and the Riddler on the cover and the Penguin is hiding inside.

Incoming

This weeks incoming was postcard from London. I have to say that the queen is looking a tad creepy here... Just compare the photo on the card to the photo on the stamp... Perhaps she was a bit tired for the postcard photo. I'd have to assume that being a queen and all might tire you out a bit.

Anyhow, I was very happy to get it in the mail. Thank you Susanne!

So, how's the weather where you are? Is it spring?

M.I.A.

For the first time since I started posting the feature, I missed Friday inspiration two days ago. I sat down on the computer late on Thursday night and absolutely nothing came to me. It was like my head drew a complete blank. If I were to say that nothing inspired me at that moment, it would be true, but rather bleak. It's not like I was sitting here, miserable or sad. Quite the contrary. I was happy. Extremely tired, but happy.

I've been thinking about writing a post like this for a while, but couldn't really bring myself to do it. I don't go into my personal life much, nor do I talk much about other things than crafts, decorating, mail and occasionally my cats. When I started over a year and a half ago, I had no real idea what I would do with this blog. I didn't have huge plans, nor many expectations. I like writing and that's about all it took to get started.

Source: tumblr.com via lynn on Pinterest

Soon after I started my blog, I lost my job. It really, really sucked. I immediately started looking for new challenges. I worked on my business, my blog and on putting together a killer resume. It was all slow going, but eventually things started picking up. I got a pretty awesome freelance gig. It wasn't a steady 9-to-5 job, but fun when there were projects for me. I got more training to get better at this job. Which then lead to more projects. Last week, for example, was exhausting, but so much fun. And now I have a longer, full time contract waiting for me in a few weeks.

To add to this, I recently started doing wedding planning almost accidentally. I'm also designing custom invitations. And I am still working on my true passion, making new things out of old things.

Source: google.ca via Ann on Pinterest

All this is not said in order to make excuses. I'm trying to figure out my new 'every day'. I'm not quite sure how these pieces all fit together. All of these new things have required me to rearrange all the old things. I needed to stand up for myself. Not all of that was easy, but absolutely necessary. There's still work to be done, but things are starting to line up nicely.

So, I guess I'm saying that I'm working out a way to keep doing all the things that I love. I'm not quitting this blog, but it needs to be restructured. I want to write about more varied topics and still keep the things that brought you all here! I want to write as often and I did before, but still make sure I have time to do other things as well. I just need a new way of doing things. Which, come to think of it, is probably exactly what I need right now.

For right now, I'll leave you with this; Yay for Spring!! Stay tuned for regular snailmail post tomorrow!

May 1st!

Hauskaa Vappua!

May 1st is a pretty big celebration in Finland! It's considered the start of spring, although universally it tends to be really, really cold then. It has even known to snow on May 1st.

When I was a little kid, I remember waiting for May because I would get a balloon. That was a huge deal, since they weren't really a common party decoration like it seems to be now at least in North America. As I grew a little older, I started anticipating the fact that I could wear spring clothes. I realized I'd probably freeze, but still would be excited to getting rid of my winter gear. After graduating high school, you would wear your graduation cap, once a year, on May 1st.

I haven't celebrated in years, but I obviously reminisce a tad, not even sure why, since I was never a huge fan of vappu... I think it was the general festivity going and how everyone was in a good mood. Here's what I had to say about it last year.

We don't celebrate vappu here, yet the weather forecast makes me happy!

Does it feel like spring where you are?