The World's Most Useless Invention

It's the season of golden and bloodred leaves. A truly beautiful season, were it not for one thing. The leaf blowers.

I've been wondering how this thing ever made it to mass production. As I was trying in vain to get some sleep this morning with leaf blowers terrorizing the neighbourhood, I amused myself by imagining the inventor selling the idea to some big shots with lots of money.

Inventor: "I've got this great new idea. A leaf blower!"
Big Shots With Lots Of Money: "..."
Inventor: "You can blow leaves into a pile!"
BSWLOM: "And then...?"
Inventor: "Then you can blow them into another pile!"
BSWLOM: "..."
Inventor: "It's... It's a cool machine! And it makes lots of noise!"
BSWLOM: "Oh wow we'll make millions!"

And thus my mornings in autumn-time came to be ruined by air and sound polluting leaf blowers, voted as the most useless invention in the world some years back here in Finland.

Plus to make matters worse, we had run out of coffee this morning. On its own this is enough to start up homicidal tendencies, then double that up with the leaf blowers... Fortunately Mr Morrgan saw the danger and rushed off to buy coffee as soon as he knew the situation. Mr Morrgan saves the day!

(The photo shows the huge maple tree in my parents' back yard. A fantastic-looking tree which unfortunately produces an equally huge amount of fallen leaves every year. But who cares! It's so pretty! And completely unpolluted sound-wise!)

A new/old obsession

Hello, obsession. I'd missed you.

About a week ago I had a sudden idea that wouldn't leave me alone. I just had to make a pair of fingerless gloves with a snake across the back of the hand. I did and they turned out awesome. But that wasn't the end of it. I had to make another, slightly different pair. And then another, and then a couple with entwined twin snakes. So within a few days, I had a pile that you can see to your right here. The result of an obsessed mind.

All of these pairs are different in not only their colours but their pattern and materials as well.

I suspect I'll keep on making different ones each time, it's just more fun that way.

So, if you see one you like, be quick! I've already listed my favourite pair, in such a beautiful beautiful green, in my Etsy shop and will be listing all of these these eventually.

Officially Travelled Out. But there's photos!

Phew. It's been pretty much a whole month of Not Being At Home, with just a few days in between of frantically shipping orders and repacking for a new trip. Three trips in a month is pushing it, but then again only one of these was planned in advance.

On the plus side, I have some photos! Very belated ones, if you look at my previous post. These are from the week-long, totally unplanned emergency trip to Boston. Despite the unplanned emergency part, it was good.

I'm officially Travelled Out for now. Now I just have to try to figure out what a normal life is supposed to look like again.

The obligatory American bagel.

It looked fun. I should have joined them.

A pretty part of a park in downtown Boston.

Yum yum yum! Moments later I managed to knock Mr Morrgan's drink to the ground. Oops. I got him a new one though.

Enjoying the Harvard campus.

Tuesday Finds: Where have I been?

So, the travelling mentioned in the last Tuesday Finds did happen, so suddenly that I had no time to talk about it much here. As I never even mentioned where we needed to go, I thought I'd arrange a little game, just for fun. The finds this week all have some connection to the city we visited, some more obvious than others. Can you guess what place this is?

Bright and colourful, I'm sure this lobster apron from Snappy Shop makes all that tedious kitchen toil much more fun.
($41, snappyshop.etsy.com)

I'm long-time fan of Uppity Woman Designs' sock critters (as well as of the name of the shop), so little Foxy here has no trouble stealing my heart.
($30, uppitywomandesigns.etsy.com)

Last up this week is another cute puppy, adventuring in Akira Endo's original painting titled 'Hold On'. Let's hope he can!
($30, AkiraEndo.etsy.com)








(PS: I may post photos from the trip towards the end of the week, if I can manage to get around to it.)

Tuesday Finds: Travel

It seems we may have an emergency last minute trip ahead of us soon. As I'm panicking a bit at the moment, I'll get onto this week's travel-themed Tuesday Finds without further ado.

So, travel. Well, one needs a passport (oh crap I need to get a new passport too *panics some more*). Passports aren't very pretty things, really, so a passport case would be a fun idea. This cute little one is made from cotton and linen by fellow Finn and Etsy seller Revontulitikku.
($14, revontulitikku.etsy.com)

One always ends up with so many tiny things one has to bring along. A travel pouch, such as this stylish one would be perfect. This pouch is available from chicken pox designs, another fellow Finn and Etsy seller.
($15, chickenpox.etsy.com)

Hmm, I wonder if I could bring a knitting project on the plane... On second thought, I suspect I'd probably get locked up somewhere as a terrorist, so maybe not this time. But! If that weren't a problem, then this funny travel-sized knitting needle case by ZigZagStitches would be my first choice.
($8, zigzagstitches.etsy.com)

Hannibal makes some new friends

Remember those new house plants I mentioned last week? Well, Hannibal the man-eating plant decided it was about time to get to know his new friends, so he grabbed a pot and sat down for a chat. I can only hope he isn't giving them any new recipe ideas.

Tuesday Finds: Recyclable Geekery

Last week was full of computer-related panic, as my hard drive decided it was time to die. It's happened many times before (they just die on me out of spite, I swear), at semi-regular intervals even, which is why I'm still kicking myself for not being smart enough to make backups of EVERYTHING. In the end however, after days of many nervous moments copying files while waiting for the next crash, all was saved. Also, the hard drive is still under warranty so this turned out as mostly a nuisance, fortunately, and not a real disaster.

I had seen clocks made out of old hard drives on Etsy before and while poking around a bit more now, I found lots of other ways to recycle computer bits. So, inspired by my poor dead hard drive, here's a few of them for this week's Tuesday Finds.

Starting things off is the hard drive clock I mentioned earlier, made from an old network server hard drive and available from Geek Gear. Rather stylish, don't you think?
($34.99, GeekGear.etsy.com)

Olden computery parts can also be worn, it seems. This blue resistor necklace is one of many jewelry designs found at digiBling, along with other accessories made from electronic components.
($16, digiBling.etsy.com)

For some reason I still have floppy disks lying around, just taking up space, even though it's been years since I actually had a floppy drive. Contexto puts them to much better use by making them into floppy books.
($7, contexto.etsy.com)

Tuesday Finds: On a Quest for Greenery

Last week I took a good look at the few plants we have in the house. These must be the toughest, hardest house plants the world has ever seen, for they have endured years of my neglectul "care".

I felt sorry for the poor things and decided to make life better for them. I dug out my plant book (for I do have such a thing, just haven't read it much) and read up on not only how to better care for the ones I have but also checked if there are plants out there which might actually thrive on my forgetful watering. There are, actually, so I got a few of them and will do my best from now on to keep them alive. In honour of my long-suffering super plants, this week's Tuesday Finds is all about plants.

This grouchy pot by JMN Pottery would be a good match for one of the aloes I got. It's just as green and spiky. Then again, it's quite possible the planter would run away on those legs together with the aloe, to find a better place somewhere far, far away from me.
($100, JMNPOTTERY.etsy.com)

Ahhhh, moss. So soft and green and pretty. And normally such a bad choice for someone like me, who waters once or maybe twice a month, but a handy moss terrarium from Made by Mavis sounds like a solution to the problem. According to the description, it "will take care of itself". Perfect!
($28, madebymavis.etsy.com)

If I fail at my quest to make my plants happy, there are still ways to keep some kind of greenery around. Greenery that doesn't need watering. Perhaps something one can wear, like this lovely felted flower necklace by Lana de Flor.
($54, lanadeflor.etsy.com)

Ähtäri Zoo, part 2

As promised, here are the rest of the Ähtäri Zoo trip photos, taken by my brother. For more photos and some info about the zoo, check out my previous blog post. Thanks again for the photos, bro!

Cranes are rather stylish birds, aren't they?

The wolves were moving almost constantly, making it very tricky to get good photos of them.

And look, they had pups! Little furry things with paws that seemed just a little too big for them to use properly. Adorable!

My parents have several pheasants living in their garden, along with squirrels, (strawberry-stealing) hedgehogs, a (rose-eating meanie) rabbit and more species of little birds than I've been able to count. They've just showed up from who knows where and decided to stay. Who needs a zoo, really.

Say hello to Mr and Mrs Bear again.

The sun came out towards the evening, giving this kind of lovely light.

All four eagle owls we could see were sitting together in the middle of their area in pairs, with each pair surveying their own half with their backs to the other pair. I suspect very little goes unnoticed under their close scrutiny.

Wikipedia gives the English name ermine or stoat for these little guys. They'd been orphaned early and had to be raised by an employee of the park, feeding the large litter every 1-2 hours for the first few weeks (when did this employee sleep??). These were still young and playful and didn't stay still for more than a few seconds at a time.

Awww, it's Bambi! Or, uh, Bambi's mom? These white-tailed deer actually had a few little bambis, but the mothers kept them so far away from the public we could only see their ears and tails in the long grass. These aren't a native species, although they have nowadays been introduced to parts of Finland.

The zoo also has a section for domestic animals, like alpacas. I guess this guy is hinting that it's late and he's had enough of visitors for the day.

These little piggies were my brother's favourite. He thought they were very polite, as they replied to him every time he oinked, even while they were eating. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up with a pet pig one of these days.

Ähtäri Zoo, part 1

Well, we're home again. Our vacation ended up a few days longer than we had planned, but that's alright. It was the most relaxing vacation I've had in years, despite rather crappy weather.

(If you're here for Tuesday Finds, sorry, but I haven't had much chance to settle in yet after the trip. They'll be back next week!)

Us entering Ähtäri Zoo, which is spread out in 60 hectares of forest. We're further away from the camera, I have no idea who the guy in the foreground is.

Halfway through the holiday we went on a one-day trip to the Ähtäri Zoo with my parents and my brother. I'd been there a couple of times before as a kid, but it was a first for Mr Morrgan and my brother. They seemed to enjoy it, especially my brother who since this trip has suddenly started to notice animals. Nowadays he mentions animals he's seen on the way to and at work, like squirrels and swans. Awesome. :D

Swans, pretty as can be. These were occupying the beavers' pond while the beavers were asleep.

He also took lots and lots of photos and I want to show off a few of them, because it turns out he has hidden talents as a nature photographer!

A couple of lazy-looking wild boars. It's a shame we didn't see any piglets, they're just too adorable. But these guys aren't too bad either. ;)

The park was established in 1973 and now houses over 60 animal species and many many plant species, most of them native to Finland. It's open to the public every day of the year.

Aren't they sweet? A couple of fallow deer having a snack.

Before going on this trip I read a book called 'Eläintarinoita Ähtäristä' by Jukka Lahtinen, who was the zoo's manager for decades. In the book he describes how the park got started and evolved to what it is now, a bit about how things work behind the scenes and of course tells many stories about the zoo's inhabitants over the years. It was interesting to go into the park with all that in mind and at the same time see how things look from a visitor's point of view.

The zoo's first animal was Köpi the moose. I wonder if this little one is a descendant?

It was a fun day for all and we spent about three hours wandering around. Well, I think it's time to let the photos speak for themselves, so enjoy! There's so many I want to show that I'll divide them for two blog posts, so come back towards the end of the week for photos of wolves, some of the domestic animals they also have at the zoo and more bears and birds. Thanks for the photos, bro!

The bears were really cool. There's just something about them I can relate to.

There were two bears together, this is the smaller one. The lady teddy, I presume?

The snow leopards were one of the non-native animal species. There's not many left of them in the wild, sadly.

The wisent, or European bison. Quite an impressive sight, even when lying down peacefully like this. These almost went extinct in the early 1900s, with only a few dozen individuals left in zoos, but are making a comeback now and have been reintroduced to parts of their original habitat.

Holiday Mode

If you've been to my shop recently, you may have noticed a message saying I'll be on holiday until July 10th. Well, due to some unforeseen events, we're still not at home. We will be by tomorrow though. In the mean time, here's a picture Mr Morrgan made and wanted me to show off to the world. It features the familiar Frederick Raven with his newest friend, Oliver Owl.


I wish it was as sunny here!

Cucumber Love

This is my bristlenose catfish (Ancistrus sp.) called Mörkö. She is a lovely lady who takes care of her health by including lots of veggies in her diet, such as cucumber and zucchini (and the occasional sword plant, much to her owner's dismay).

She really loves cucumber. Here's the heart-shaped proof, fished out of the aquarium the other day:

Tuesday Finds: Science

Today I picked up my Master's thesis in printed form from the printery. It took a while, but it's finally done. Wohoo! To celebrate, I will fill up this blog with wonderfully nerdy science things for this week's Tuesday Finds.

First up is a necklace I've had my eye on for a while now. It's a caffeine molecule in jewelry form by Raven Hanna from Made With Molecules. Mmmm, pretty coffee. Perfect for this coffeeholic.
($85, molecularmuse.etsy.com)







I suppose it's wrong of me to want kids for the sole purpose of making them as nerdy as me with the help of Tiffany Ard's Nerdy Baby ABC flash cards. Yeah, it probably is. Ah well.
($18, electricbogaloo.etsy.com)

The one thing that deserves to be called 'awesome' is the cell, methinks. The complicated inner workings are just fascinating. The cell section necklace from discomedusa designs, showing layer upon layer, reminds me of the complexity.
($95, discomedusa.etsy.com)

A sneaky peek

Owls and a triceratops; both creatures I've been wanting to make for quite some time and now the perfect opportunity showed itself.


These little ones are all spoken for, but I suspect there are more to come!

Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries, yum yum

A group of people came to visit the other day and I had the hardest time figuring out what to bake for them. It's summer, which means our tiny place gets HOT, especially when there's more than two of us here, so I wanted something I could make the day before. Preferably something that is at its best when served the next day.

Suddenly, it hit me. A swiss roll! Perfect! Plus it gave me an excuse to get some fresh strawberries. Even better!

For the filling I used something that Wikipedia claims is quark in English. I remember trying to explain it to my New Zealander husband in our early days and he had no idea what I was talking about ("What? You put elementary particles in your food??"), so I don't know how familiar people outside of Europe are with it. It's a type of soft, sour cheese that hasn't been aged, if that helps. Wikipedia also gives the name "Fromage frais".

It's been aaages since I made one of these and I had forgotten how easy they are to make. I think I have a new love in baking. Sorry, muffins!


Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries (about 18-20 slices)

3 eggs
1 1/2 dl (3/5 cup) sugar
3/4 dl (~1/3 cup) potato flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Filling
2 dl (4/5 cup) whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp sugar
250 g (~9 ounces) quark
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) fresh strawberries

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Mix the dry ingredients together, then fold into the egg-sugar mix. Pour into 30x40 cm (12x16 in) pan covered in baking paper. Bake for 5 minutes at 225 °C (437 °F). Turn out onto baking paper sprinkled with a thin layer of sugar. Peel off the baking paper the cake was baked on and let the cake cool.

For the filling, whip cream with the sugars until stiff. Fold the quark into the mixture and spread onto cooled cake. Chop the strawberries into suitable chunks and sprinkle on top of the cream mixture. Roll up the cake with the aid of the sugared baking paper. Cover the roll with the baking paper and plastic wrap, then place in fridge overnight. Cut the roll into slices right before serving and enjoy!

Busy times plus a front page feature!

I guess I've been busy this week:
Most of them will show up in my shop(s) eventually.

So, my mind's been preoccupied with work and other stuff this week and this morning was no different. I was quite lost in my thoughts. Imagine my surprise then, when I went to the Etsy front page and saw my gloves right there in the middle of the page! Thanks so much, artish!

The treasury list will be up for a few more days, if you'd like to take a look:
f r o s t y