Astubutiikkiin.fi portal for small finnish design and craft companies

Astubutiikkiin.fi is a new portal that will be launched this autumn: At the moment they're collecting interesting companies to work with and making the design for the webpage. There are over 70 small businesses taking part in it already!

I decided to join, because I think it is a good way to get my items on the right target market: people who are interested in finnish design and crafts. Being a part of the portal costs 60 euros + vat per month and they're actually going to advertise it to get it out there in a loud way! After I joined, I got invited to a hidden facebook group full with other business owners who joined the portal. We are chatting and getting to know each other and giving our ideas about the portal to Mari Moilanen, who is the owner and maker of astubutiikkiin.fi -portal.

Here is the basic idea of the portal (sorry for it being in finnish)

The basic idea is that the businesses load their items on the astubutiikkiin.fi -portal and when a customer wants to buy an item they are redirected to a website where it is possible. For example, I would redirect the customer to buy the item from nellinshoppi.etsy.com or to contact me trough e-mail. So actual selling doesn't happen in the portal, but it collects all the small finnish design companies in one place, making them easier to access and market.

After I sent the e-mail saying that I would love to be a part of this, Mari contacted me and told me how to proceed. She answered all my questions very fast and was helpful and excited in many ways! It really shows how much she wants to get this portal up and running. The whole idea of this portal came to her when she was trying to find high quality handmade presents for her family. I think astubutiikkiin.fi -portal has all the possibilities to become big in Finland and I haven't seen anything like this done here before. It's all very exciting!

Mari makes a welcoming blog post on each company joining the site. Yesterday she made a blog post about Nellin Shoppi; you can read it here. You can also read about other businesses she wrote about here.

Anyone who would love to be a part of the portal can contact Mari easily trough her e-mail

marihilja.moilanen(a)gmail.com

Astu Butiikkiin in Facebook
Astu Butiikkiin blog 
Astubutiikkiin.fi

Check out this list of businesses taking part in Astu Butiikkiin! 

20 cats necklace, custom anniversary jewelry

I just love taking custom orders! 

I think it is so much fun to poke my brain around and wonder how to design something based on the customers needs. Usually I make 2-3 designs to get the end result that I end up with.  This spring has been good for me in the sense that quite many people have asked custom works from me. Usually the contacts come trough my Facebook page. 

A man contacted me about a custom design necklace for his wife. They have been together for 20 years, so he wanted to remember the wife with something unique. He has ordered things from me before, so he also knows my style pretty well. I suggested to make him a necklace with 20 different flowers (kind of like bouquet) made from polymer clay. His wife LOVES cats so he asked me to change the flowers into cats. So I needed to make a necklace with twenty different cats - one for each year they've been together. Absolutely  lovely idea, but proved more challenging than I first imagined!

I actually redid the idea three times before I got to the result I was happy with!

The necklace has twenty different color cat beads.
All in the shades of black, white and gray.

Life isn't straightforward, so I mixed the different
color beads and cats...

It's so much fun how the cats go up on
the other side and down on the other...

Restaurant day 18.5.2013

Cafe TriiNelli was a great experience! it was our first time to arrange a cafe on restaurant day and it was so much fun! We had quite many (50+?) people coming over for coffee and food. We will have another cafe on the next Restaurant day 18.8.2013. My overcooked pork sandwich was really loved, but we sold it for less than costs. Next time we can manage our budget better I know! Here's some pictures. 

Delicious salmon pie! Grandmas recipe.

My grandma always makes the most delicious salmon pie. It just happens I got the recipe! Today I made some because we're going to serve it during Restaurant day 18.5.2013. I needed some pictures and test it out... It's just so good I want to share it with you!

the bottom:

1,5dl wheat flour

4,5dl oats flakes

200g melted butter

mix all ingredients and spread it on a pie pan.

filling:

200g salmon

2dl cream

2,5 dl milk

3 eggs

1 bag of grated cheese

Lay the salmon on top of the bottom of the pie. Mix milk, cream and egs together, pour in the pan. Spread grated cheese on the top. Put in oven for 30 minutes in 200 degrees celcius until golden brown. Enjoy with some salad!

I also made some delicious breads with overcooked pork inside.

Custom dog necklace

I have made my first custom dog necklace! I think it turned out great.

I got given instructions, that the race is lagotto. They also sent me this picture for reference and told me the body is white and ears are orange.

If you want to order a custom dog/cat necklace from your own pet, just contact me! I mail anywhere. Here is my white and orange result!

Restaurant day happening; Cafe TriiNelli

Restaurant day 18.5.2013 is a big happening where anyone can create their own restaurant for one day. Usually I just go and eat in other peoples places but this time is different! I am making my own restaurant with my good friend Triin. We are going to sell home cooked food in her lovely home in Espoo.

Anyone can register a restaurant at the Restaurant Day homepage. I was so happy to realize that making my own event is so easy! Over 300 restaurants have already signed for the event. Most of my time is going to planning the menu with my friend Triin. So far we have come up with:

Creamy salmon soup
Spicy chicken soup
Overcooked pork sandwich
Shrimp sandwich
Croissant
Salmon pie
Feta-spinach pie

Milkshake (blueberry, vanilla, chokolate)
Chokolate cookie
Chokolate muffin
Lemon muffin
Date cake

Drinks: Tea, coffee, juice

We made a happening in Facebook for our restaurant! Were stocking up for 100 customers so I really hope were gonna get just as many. I am looking forward to cooking and having lots of fun around new people. It's going to be great!

Here is also the happening on Restaurant day pages!

I hope to see you there :)
Sorry for the lack of pictures, i hope to be taking some next week! :D

Restaurant day homepage
Restaurant day in Facebook

Free template maker for boxes and envelopes

Create your own boxes and envelopes easily!

I was surfing in the internet yesterday and found this really handy template maker. You can easily create any size box or envelope template! Just put your measurements on the webpage and press CREATE. So easy! There are three different templates, two for boxes and one for envelopes. So easy to just print out and use :)

Check it out and have fun creating your own boxes!



BOXMAKER



This is what Ideogram says about this boxmaker:

This generator simply creates a custom sized paper model for a box or an envelope. It does the math and all the drawing-work for you.Some of the uses for a paper-box:

• A nice gift-wrap for a present with an irregular shape, for example a sphere or a jar.

• Profesional-looking package.

• Storage, for example: create card boxes to store all the assets from a board game.

The template will have the exact size you enter, but you need to turn of scaling when printing.When you're printing from Adobe Acrobat reader, set page scaling to none in the print options dialogue box (example).Boxes need quite a lot of paper. Using an standard printer, the biggest you can print is a 6 cm x 6 cm x cm box. (6 cm is appr. 2.5 inch). The first things that will fall of the page are the 'tapers' and glue-strips. That's okay, these don't need to be exact.

• Use heavy paper for folding: the heaviest my printer can still manage is 180 grams. (Normal office paper is 80 grams)

• Use a scissors and a ruler to cut halfway through the dotted lines (scoring). This will give very sharp folds.

The template creates just a blank template. If you want a nice pattern you can either:

• Print on the same sheet twice. The first time you print the pattern, the second time you print the template om the backside.

• Print directly on paper with a pattern, for example paper used for scrap-books.

• Glue the template onto a piece of gift-wrap. This creates nice, thick paper.

• Profesionals: open the PDF in Inkscape or Illustrator and edit it.