FINNISHED!

I warmly think of Munich and the local beer that is just excellent. And now I carry the memories of the good times with me as I made buttons out of Bavarian beer bottles. I have Augustiner, Chiemseer, Löwenbräu, Hofbräu, Franziskaner and Tegernseer. Paulaner is missing but not forgotten. So greetings to you all in Munich and Prost!

And by the way the jacket is from the Colours second hand shop in Berlin.
Check out my Berlin second hand shop reviews.

Beer bottle caps make an interesting impact on my second hand jacket.
Prost München!

I'm planning to renew our living room after the ongoing front renovation is over - in September. But I already started the work from small scale chores. This lamp shade is made out of a pair of white leather pants. I'm actually quite happy with the result and qoing to make another piece (maybe black leather or blue jeans) for sale as well. But here the instructions for you too.

For this lamp you'll need upcycled leather, linen, splitrings,
glue, a thick needle, scissors, cardboard and a gel pen.

UPCYCLED LEATHER LAMP

1. Take your leather and glue another fabric behind it to make the back side constant/sleek and also make the leather a bit more stiff. Here, I used white linen from an old curtain.
2. Cut a square from an old card, draw squares to the leather (I used gel pen because you can wipe it off with a wet cloth after cutting) and cut as many squares as you need.
3. Make tiny little holes in the middle of the each side of the square. I used a darning needle. Remember to make holes ONLY to the 3 sides of the squares in the lowest row!
4. Connect each square with splitrings to each other. You'll need three rings per side.
5. Connect the last and first column and attach the highest row to your upcycled lamp frame.
6. Your lamp is ready!

The great Easter surprise here in Helsinki was that is was amazingly sunny and warm the whole long weekend. Maybe our guest Sandra brought the sun with her from Munich. It was quite a roking weekend introducing the city but today we'll take a break of all that partying and spend a healthy and day outside. So, season's greetings everyone!

A while ago I visited my brother and his better half in Tampere. They have such a cute home and several handmade upcycling details make it even more charming. So here I send to you not only greetings but also inspiration from Tampere. Take a look!

Take a better look in Maija's blog: Poppastelua.

Like said, I'm a 90's teenie and I just still love the hoodie vests or vest hoodies or whatever they are. I found two old hoodies from the flea market pile and decided to take them back to use. The other one I just cut here and there and the other one I sprinkled with white fabric paint. 

You can sprinkle paint with "a tool" made from basic string knotted together.

I found a piece of an old studded belt and went a bit crazy with it. It's amazing how many new looks I got from this short piece of belt. Nothing surprising really but a bit more time for one of my old favorite shirt that is aging and looser look for a flea market sweater and a hat that I got from my friend. 

This sweater is my Sunday favorite. It's big, gray and loose and
I also cut the neck to give a bit of a slobby touch.

A new life for an old friend. And thank's Inkeri for the hat!

Speaking about what beer labels and bottle caps logos can tell about the people, here are my favourite bottle caps from Norther Germany. What do they tell?

 
Astra and Fritz Cola from Hamburg and Berliner Kindl from Berlin, of course!

I would sooo like to buy all my stuff from people that make all their products themselves or "mass produce" only in small scale. ...Or can at least somehow wear the tag 'Handmade Design'.

But it's actually somehow amazingly hard to find online shops for handmade design even though I know there are lots of them. So I try to collect here some shops that I find along the way. I hope you can find here great things for you and your friends. (And please do give me more links to add and use!)

Finnish national animal is a bear that had always an important role in Finnish mythology and ancient believes. Bear (Karhu) was considered to be the owner of the forrest, maybe the forrest itself. Then nature was and in a way still is the core of the Finnish mind in a way.

For example most of the Finnish family names come from nature related words: Joki = river, Kallio = crag, Niitty = field. (In comparison in Germany most of the last names come from occupational words: Müller = a miller, Schuhmacher = shoemaker.)

Also what a bear indicates fits quite well the Finnish personality with certain plainness and rawness. In addition it's both feminine and masculine at the same time, like our society. And finally bears also sleep through the whole winter and wake up in the spring to the first beams of light, haha.

So, this long story sums up pretty well why I just love Karhu beer brand and it's logo. It holds the truth about us Finns. :)

Back in the Finnish mindset. Karhu beer.