ON THE ISLAND

Last weekend we went out to my family's place in the archipelago just east of Helsinki. I used ti spend the whole summer there when I was a kid, my dad would take the boat and go to work back in the days. Now I usually only make it out for a day or two per year, you know, work, the farm and so on takes it's time...

Luckily for us, it was the sunniest and hottest weekend of the summer so far. (Pretty much the only really sunny weekend so far also...)

My parent's and sister's fiancé (status changed into that from boyfriend a couple of weeks ago :) are building a new little guest house in the back of the garden.

 It will turn out pretty nice when ready, all hidden among the plants and bushes.

When the big house was built in the 1920's they had a landscape architect plan the garden. My grandfather and his brother had to cut the grass with small scissors when they were kids in the 30's.

But that was a long time ago and nature has since had it's own way with the garden too.

RETRO BABY

This little baby here is dressed in mommy's old clothing and heading out to the islands!
Not the Bahamas though, but the Finnish archipelago. Ta-ta!

THE PLAN B-PONYTAIL

I have a ponytail! A clip-on one, obviously. I got it in case my hair will go bad (me being a milk-central nowadays, you know) and for when I won't have time to fix my my locks properly (mommy issues). A plan B, that is. Plus I've always wanted one for that sixties look, but have been stressing about not finding the right colour when bought online. I decided to finally just go for it and that I probably am a strawberry blonde - which was pretty close to jackpot!

For a more retro feel I clip it on with the claws sideways, to get a broader 'do. But I still want it to look somewhat natural - this hairpiece is not over the top in size but the length kind of gives it away. However, I actually got it with the intention to roll it into a big bun, and not wear hanging loose like this, which will make it more hard to tell. (But to be honest, it will so far it seems I will need a bit of practice for it to be a quick fixer like I thought; it was not just to clip in and go and look good at the same time...)

A FEW FAVORITES

I've often been asked to write about what make up or beauty products I use. A post promised but that seems to take me forever to get done. Maybe because I for a long time really was not enthusiastic about beauty products, just went for the same ones that I found alright year after year; mostly pharmacy products, some natural oils and some of the basic brand's stuff when it came to skin care, and quite the basic make up ones too. But during the past year I have been updating the contents of my bathroom and make up bag to mainly all-natural and all- eco (for many reasons) and have been really interested and enthusiastic in finding and trying out new ranges (can you read: shopping sprees, yes, in plural, here? Oh yes!).
Here are some favorites of mine, both old and new:

From the left-right:
Dr.Bronners 18-in-1 hemp oil pure castile soap - I totally love love love this multi use soap! My favorite is the peppermint one, which I keep in the city apartment, but the one with almond oil (pictured) also smells so good! I also have this on in lemon and lavender for my kitchens, heh, talk about addiction :)
I took a small bottle of the peppermint soap with me to the hospital when I went to give birth as it works for as well the face, hair and body. You can also dilute it with water for cleaning.

Cocovi cold pressed virgin coconut oil - we'll I've already mentioned how great coconut oil is before. I use a lot of natural oils, but coconut is my favorite. It's firm when the temperature is under +25c, and now in summer it's in between melting, so the texture is heavenly. Dag's skin is sensitive like mine, and he got a severe rash in his face. I tried different baby oils and regular brand baby lotions and finally tried soothing the rash with coconut oil and it worked wonders!

Balm Balm's baby balm - I really love this one too. It consists mostly of shea butter, has a gret texture  and as well as the coconut oil  it has been good for Dag's skin. But also on mine; I put it on my lips at night for example.

Melvita extraordinary rose water - a serum to put on after cleaning and before moisturizing. It's a creamy fresh-and softeness boost. Serums or special lotions are of such kind that I seldom think of buying them myself, but every now and then it's nice with some minor extra everyday luxury.

Vapour Organic Beauty blush stain - I blot this on my lips and cheeks with my fingertips and sometimes a little in the outer corner of my eyes too. It's a perfect red that gives "snowhite lips"" (as in lips that look like they were a perfect super red by nature) when I blot it on without a liner, and works as lipstick applied from the stick or with a brush when I have lined my lips. This one is seriously addictive! Vapour has a lot of other sticks and creams I've tried out in sample size that I'm eager to get too!

RETROFYING DRAWERS

We retro-pimped a pair of small IKEA-drawer units to put in the kitchen.

Everyone knows these small multi purpose plywood drawers from ikea!  (You can apparently also get similar from Bauhaus for example.)  I've painted a lot of these for different purposes earlier but the idea to this one came from a Finnish interor blog. You should treat the drawer with oil for wood or wood stain for a sort of vintage look -we treated ours with Roslagen Mahogany (linseed oil tar, a poison free wood preserver. It dries in about a day but we had the units stand for around a week, as I did not want the scent of tar, although otherwise nice and traditional, in out kitchen.) The inside of the drawers were treated with cold pressed linseed oil only, as we'll store food in them. Linseed oils are pretty multi-purpose; we used linseed products from Eddi's and his brother's farm.  (I've done the packing for those.)  The drawer units looks pretty neat just like that already but turning the drawers around adding handles or knobs gives the drawer a more 'old' look. I tried to find some handles at home but they were all too big so we bought suitable ones from Byggnadsapoteket.
And then voilà, pimped drawers are done!

IN VINTAGE BLUE & A TINY SAILOR

 Hello there!

Here we are on our way to a party!

My dress is vintage (once again relying on a shirt dress) and Dag's sailor hat is so big it actually makes him look more like a miniature chef.

SUNDAY BAKING pt.5 - BERRIES & BUTTER

Cake time!

This is one of those yummier-than-you'd-thinkcakes. I remember my mom making something similar to this a lot at our summer cottage in the archipelago when I was a kid; it's easy to make and you can do it out of basically any fruit or berries. I personally think the best result comes from using something sour, at least partly. I basically just make a basic sockerkaka (sponge cake) ; the version with no butter (or oil), add the fruit and then put thin slices of butter and sprinkle sugar on top. You can do it in a regular cake mold; I did mine here in a rather small but deep pan.

I use a bit less sugar for the batter than what the regular sponge cakes usually have, and as usual blend regular white flour with spelt flour.

This cake consisted of:
4 ecological eggs, fluffed with- 3 dl sugar, blended with - 4 dl of mixed flours - about 1dl of milk - 2 large teaspoons of baking powder and a hint of vanilla sugar.

I sliced three peaches and added a coffee cup  of red wineberries and black currants that I picked in the garden. They are not ready yet, but I really wanted some, so I scanned the bushes for those few berries that were ripe - got just enough!


And, cold butter sliced in thin pieces over the cake. This is easily done with a cheese slicer. I sprinkle brown sugar over it, perhaps two tablespoons all together, depending on thee size of your mold of course (my brown sugar had gone hard so I used the slicer for that too - works well!). Then it's overn time until the cake looks ready. As I did mine in a pan it was thus rather thin and was done in about 25 minutes.


Alright, off to make your cake now and serve it with something white! Ice cream is always a good choice.

HOW TO HELP YOUR SCARF STAY PUT ALL DAY

From the series first world problems: don't you hate it when your scarf/headband/bandana slips off your head and you have to correct it all the time? 

It actually gives me an headache, wearing something on my head (or a loose hair do) that needs to be constantly adjusted, concentrating and worrying about it sliding back. You know, as in an actual aching heda, maybe because I then tie it too tight, or make my head tense thinking about it. Or something.
But - I have a little trick to help a scarf stay put well. May not be anything new to many but I know it will help some of you out there:



Take your scarf and place the middle in your neck.



Make a knot in front of your forehead -



-and push back, it in place where you want  it. Of course, this is when you want your hair pulled back. If you have a fringe, or if you made some sort of a roll or swirl in the front, just tie the knot in place on top of your head.



Now here's that little trick: place two bobbypins attaching the scarf to your hair, one from each direction, crossing each other.



Do the same on the other side. If you wish, you can also do one of these sets in the middle of your neck, or on each side below the ear. For me this is enough.



Pull the ends of the scarf back and tie in the neck.



Ta-da, done!

When I want a bigger knot on top of my head, or if I am sporting an up-do, I tie the scarf the other way around, as in starting and finishing off on top of my head. The cross-pinning works just the same.
When I wear a bandana; as in a square scarf folded first to a triangle and then slim, I wear the smooth side towards my face and the folded part towards my hair - that way I can stick pins in attaching one layer (the lowest one) of the scarf to my head, without the pins showing.

Not that it is the end of the world would the pins show. (But then again there would be less of a point with this post then.  Zip-a-de-doo-dah.)

LEMONS & CHAMOMILE

Tea time?
Noup, it may be five o clock, but what I'm about with these is to refresh the shade of my hair!

Lemons can dry your hair out but since mine has been in a little too good shape (=harder to style) since I stopped bleaching it about two years ago I would not mind a little dryness. Also, I put some argan oil in the ends afterwards. But let's see what happens to my locks after a few months of full breast feeding... my mother had waist length hair and had to cut it after feeding me, since it thinned out. Also, for the moment I'm thinking I might start to grow out my hair again -we'll see if I'm able to. Or if I have to go pixie :D

PASTELS, MIXED PATTERNS AND THE SIXTIES

Today's outfit on chair.

 And here on me. Yey.

The dress is 1960's vintage (from Love Miss Daisy), vintage style (mint green-ish!!!! Whoah!) cardigan from Pull & Bear, shoes from Clark and the accessories old.

IT TAKES A RAINY DAY (OR TWO)

It's been a real deluge over here lately, with water pouring down like never before. For days. But bad weather does bring a little good with it too;  we're getting some things at home off the 'to do'-list in the countryside house.

We changed the knobs on the ikea-drawer to porcelain ones. It's an easy way to update or personalize a piece of furniture.


I put bigger more decorative ones on the small drawers on top, and plain, smaller ones on the rest.
Halfway trough I noticed it would look pretty fun with different knobs on all levels, like here, but it wouldn't really suit the over-all style of the room so I changed them all the way trough. But perhaps somewhere else?

In the background you can see some traces of our other project...


... Which was putting wallpaper on the closet door. This wallpaper used to be on one of the walls in the room.  I like it, but it did not really suit the room (the floor and the wood of the window, which would have needed to be painted in order to go along with the wallpaper), so after we painted it over I thought it'd be nice to still use it as a detail. I will put it inside the linen cabinet too, once we get one up here.

I also changed the knobs on the bedside tables to the same ones as in the drawer, for a unison feel in the bedroom.