happy new year!

Happy new year to the near and dear!

Let the new year bring tons of good stuff!!

Kransekake

lol, the page where i found this,
takes  $125 for a cake!

Today is a day for first times. I'm going to bake a traditional cake from Norway. Kransekake! I have never made it completely on my own before. I have only helped when mom and dad had this huge project of baking x-amount of these cakes to my schools christmas market. And since the almonds have to be ground by hand grinder to get the consistency perfect, you bet the whole family had to take turns.
The cake is basically (almost)just ground up almonds and powdered sugar, but its fantastically marvelous, and it brings Norwegian christmas a little bit closer to me, as I can't go to Norway this year to celebrate christmas.

I don't have those ring-shaped baking forms that makes the tower so much easyer to build, so I'm going to invent a litlle bit on the way.

Here is todays recipe, translated from DinMat.no


500g ground almonds
500g powdered sugar
4 egg whites


Mix all ingredients well to a smooth dough, and bake them out to long "sausages", about 1,5 cm thick. Shape as rings into special baking tins made for this purpose.
Bake at 170C in the ovens lowest rack, for 13-14 minutes.
Kransekake tastes even better when it has been frozen, then it gets its lovely chewyness that is slightly sticky. But it is also very good directly after its made.

Cornucopia, "the horn of abundance"
overflødighetshorn.

Lets see what I invent for doing with the shaping.



I remember that, when I was a kid, I had several years in a row the wanting that our "kransekake" should be shaped as a greek cornucopia, filled to the rim with candies and marzipan. I think I had gotten the idea from some magazine page or something. But oddly enough, we never made this.

The baking frenzy begins...

Im about to shop all ingredients for the baking of several different yum-yums in a christmasy cathegory. I am thinking to make a smal ton of the different sorts, and give them away to friends and aquaintances. Shh! it's s-e-c-r-e-t!

And one thing that is shocking each year(why do I always forget this??), is the price of almonds. Almonds is in almost every recipe for christmas cakes/candy/goodies that you can find. At least here in Scandinavia. 17-25€/kg has been the prices I've seen so far. Is it always so much?? And for a decent "kransekake" (=norwegian almond cake) you need at least 1 kg. Right? Because its never enough with the 18 rings on top of each other, you have to have the pieces stashed around it on the plate. Myabe I'm over shooting. We ARE after all just two people in this household. But we are having a 26th december family gathering...so...

And I want to make the English christmas cake! the gorgeous savoury fruit magnifience that has been a tradition on my aunt Trude's christmasparty many years. But as many good things, it costs so much for the LONG list of ingredients, and I think its only me that likes this in here, so I rather skip it. And leave time for the making of all the other stuff. We havent even had time for making our fantastic piparkakkutalo (gingerbread house) that we have planned!

But now, the gifts to Norway is sent, so that time-consumption is over. The quewe in the post office went all the way out from the store and alongside one wall! Lucky they are indoors in the mall now.... Poor guys working front desk postal services today must have quite the stress! But they kept on smiling=) good work!

My bestest candies!

Personal record of finishing a project!

Its "bikkjekaldt" here in Finland again, and my boyfriend has the coolest hair, hence an aversion to warm winter hats. Voila! Lisa fixes something to atleast keep the ears from falling off due to the cold.

It took me 6 episodes of Fringe, about 4-5 hours.

Watch here

Its the fastest I've ever done something from start to end(postcards and other small things don't count!) *proud*

Phew!

To get all the christmasgifts into one parcel is a demanding task of tetris. Even more so, if you happen to NOT have very many available box-options...
I ended up with two boxes. And yes, Dad, there is room in one of them to add traditional ruisleipä for you=)

And as always, sending everything on the very last day that Posti has said they can guarantee its arrival before x-mas.. Why any day sooner??

Gift-wrap-ribbon is omnomnomnom. It has shiny flavorz!

Was that all? BTW your plastic castlebag is great for sleepin

Cat helped with the wrapping. Thanx Cosmo!

now with even more tea

Since I have lately started to drink more tea than coffe, I have dreamed about finding a teamug that fits my ego... =D nah, just a bowlshaped one that takes more than the standard 1,5-2 dl cups we have at home, and that you can realy cup up in both hands and get all the aromatherapy in the world from a few sips.

And I found! In Indiska. You can say they are a substitute for the christmas calendar I don't have. Its a generous 3-4 dl with "little" plate to put your cookie (or rather the used teabag, I think.... but cookie or dried fruit is prettier!)
Me liksies!

Tea has alot more cozyness and warmth that coffe lacks. its so efficient and businesslike, it even comes out from express-make-steam-machine in its efficient way. Maybe thats the thing that makes teadrinkers have generally less fat around their bellies? the time used to consume and meditate and breathing in rich smells of herbs? Not the antioxydants of teas, no no. hehe
The taste of coffe, the normal everyday squirted from a perculator and standing on its hotplate for long times, has become to me something yöck lately. So when its lost its attractiveness, something else has to come in stead, right? High quality coffes pampered with all of its goodnesses and accessories is still liked, but not so often bought, so they can't serve as substitute...


Christmas cozy and all ;)
Spent much of my day today doing especially christmas cozy-things, like gift-wrapping, watching the telly(which is in reality my computer), cleaning the house(not so cozy), planning a bit on our very un-traditional christmas dinner. It is this year so that we will be just my boyfriend and I, for most of the christmas eve-day anyway, so we are checking around to see if there is some events or artsy stuff to attend or such, planning is still ongoing.

ønskeliste del 4: Andre hobbysaker

Jeg fikler jo med mange saker, helst på en gang!

SØLV! Smykker har jeg masse ideer, men ikke gjort så mye i det siste. Iallefall så kunne det være fint å få teste sølvleire, Om ArtClay, kjøpes for eksempel her: finsk/svensk butikk. Andre eksempler er sølvtråd og duppedingser som feks låser og hekter. Sølvtråden bør være 1mm tykk, da jeg lager alle lenkene og øskenene selv.

GARN! jeg har eksperimentert med å hekle og strikke, denne gangen etter mønster og ikke bare funnet på det selv etterhvert som arbeidet tar form. Mest går det i ull og ullblandinger, noe mohair og kanskje litt alpaca. En skjelden gang har jeg også jobbet med bomullsgarn. Helt syntetisk har jeg ikke klart å kjøpe engang, selvom det er billig, med unntak av "eyelash" garn.

STRIKKEPINNER! Jeg har noe, men langt fra alle størrelser. De jeg mangler er rundpinner i de mindre tykkelsene, og sånne helt gigatjukke lange "spyd" nesten. Fullstendig liste er kanskje litt dumt å ramse opp nå.

ønskeliste del 3; hobbysaker papir og blekk

Jeg har allerede to distress inks,  "tea dye" og "pine needles". Jeg kunne tenkt meg flere bruntoner og litt blått og rødt. Ink blending tool er helt essensiellt, og jeg har ikke skaffet den enda. Og flere kan være en fordel, da slipper man å skitne til stempelpute av en annen farge.

 

Her har jeg ikke noen farger eller utstyr fra før (disse fargene virker også på metallgjenstander, til forskjell fra blekkputa som bare virker på papir og annet porøst.) 

Alle produktene her kommer fra Ranger, Det er endel butikker som fører det(iflg ranger.com) i Drammen og Oslo, men ikke i Trondheim. Og så er det såklart en hel mengde nettbutikker som fører produktene.
For å få disse siste produktene(perfect pearls og embossing) til å funke som de skal, behøvs det også en varmepistol, som ikke er så varm og stor som en industriell...

Ranger har en hel mengde fantastiske produkter, jeg har vist fram bare noen.

Stempelputer av alle slag er også på ønskelisten, vanskelig å påpeke en spesiell, siden det er så utrolig mange varianter. Men i hovedsak KLASSISKE MØNSTRE, BAKGRUNNSFYLLERE(som noter, prikkete mønstrer eller tekst), TRIVELIGE FIGURER og ALFABETER/FONTER
Her er bare noen eksepler funnet fram i all hast: (her er link til massevis av eksempler)

skoskapet vil oppdateres? ønskelisten del 2

 

Bildet er mest for å vise litt hva slags typer klær og sko jeg har tittet mest på denne høsten. 

Nå for tiden går det mest i lange(lengde litt ned på låret) lagpå lag greier, helst tights eller jeans, og kanskje en strikket lang kjole utenpå, og ganske ofte bolero, eller en vest med hette. 

På det aller kaldeste har jeg hatt på meg flere høyhalser, to lag med votter og to par leggvarmere helt opp til knærne ;) alltid ull helt innerst. Settet med lilla janus som mamma kjøpte til meg i påsken har vært utrolig bra, og brukt mye. 

Tilbehør som belter og smykker blir ofte glemt til hverdags, for jeg har lenge nok styr med å komme meg inn i alle lag med varme klær. Og når man begynner kl 7 på morgenenen, blir det bare tid til akkurat passelig mye påkledning og frokostlaging. Men jeg elsker jo ørepynt og fine saker, armbånd og smådetaljer, så jeg sier ikke nei takk om noen byr =)

Jeg har ofte sett på litt høyere støvler med pelsdetaljer og som er store nok til å romme både bukse og lange lester i skaftet, men jeg klarer ikke bestemme meg, og flere par blir litt for dyrt, kanskje...

Gina Trikot har veldig mange fine ensfargede trikot-trøyer for eksempel, i flere lengder. De sier jeg ikke nei takk til. Strikkede vester og gensre er også noe jeg blir glad for.

Fargene er som vanlig da... kanskje ikke så mye lilla og pink denne gangen fordi håret mitt er så knall rødt at det blir litt krasj. Kanskje innslag av varme bruntoner og petrolgrønt??

Klærne plukket ut her er fra Blue Banana, og skoene er Din sko, Demonia, Funtasma, Mekka og Ugg. De firkantede smykkene er fra epla.no, og det runde er fra Mekka(finsk skobutikk). Illustrasjonsbildet i hjørnet er fra lookbook.nu

Bøker på ønskelista

Jeg fikler litt med ønskelista til jul, det er vel fint å få noe man ønsker seg?
Jeg har litt andre greier enn bøker også på lista, men her er iallefall (noen av)bøkene:

Historiske romaner er alltid noe jeg synes er bra lesning. Trudi Canavans priestess of the white er første bok i en ny serie for meg, men jeg har lest hennes black magician trilogy, og den er så bra at man savner personene man har lest om når boka er ferdig. Håper at age of five- trilogien er like bra.

Tom Egeland fikk mamma meg hektet på, da hun gav meg Lucifers evangelium i fjor jul.

Med Sepulchre og Labyrinth, har Kate Mosse også fått en plass på bestis-lista mi. Andre på denne lista er Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison og Stephen King, for å nevne noen tips til julegavekjøpere som synes det er kjekt å handle fra bokkilden eller libris for eksempel.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali sin bok fikk komme med på bildet fordi jeg er så nyskjerrig på hva hun har å fortelle. Jeg har lest en del avisskriverier om henne i høst, og min nyskjerrighet er vekt. En annen muslimsk kvinne, bosatt i Norge har også en bokutgivelse som jeg kunne tenkt meg lese, men jeg klarer ikke finne tak i navnet hennes. Boken handler om problematikk og konflikt med å være muslim (og muslimsk kvinne) i Oslo generelt og personlige fortellinger fra også flere enn forfatteren selv. Men som sagt; navnet og tittelen husker jeg ikke.

Følg med; jeg driver å setter sammen flere ting som kommer på ønskelista.

Rim og vers fra barndommen

På et eller annet vis dukker det opp de merkeligste ting fra hukommelsen. Jeg fikk plutselig, fra ukjent kilde til assosiasjoner, et vers som vi brukte å sitere i 3.klasse. Jeg ser ennå for meg Guri, klasseforstanderen, stå og sitere foran vår fine tavle(håndlaget á la Steinerskolen) og hører ennå hvordan tonefall og takt det hadde. Verset? "Farao på ferie" av André Bjerke(som jeg ikke visste før google-søk i dag fortalte meg det), kommer fra boken "morovers".

Farao på ferie
I landet Miramarmora
var Farao på ferie
hos farmora og mormora.

En morgen klatret mormora
til Farao i furua
og så begynte moroa.

- Hva ler'ua'? Sa farmora.
- Av mormora, den furia!
- Hvor ser'u a'? sa farmora
- I furua! sa Farao

- Kom ned igjen! sa farmora
til mormora i furua.
- Imorra, ja! sa mormora
til farmora til Farao.

Du ser av vår historie
at det å dra på ferie
i landet Miramarmora
til farmora og mormora,
den furia i furua,
har Farao hatt moro av!

so many ideas, so little time

I have had so much stuff on my plate lately, with two distance studies and a 6hr day job. And ofcourse; the mandatory autumn/early winter flu. All of the ideas I have had while sweating over the schoolbooks, drowzing at the couch with fever and aching muscles....

I have been so inspired lately by this genious lady, that the sewingmachine is yelling at me from the corner.

But now!
Flu is over, two mid-terms is done, and a weekly spendage of atleast 2 hours of train-time(back and forth to my new course/study), gives plenty of time. Whay more than last couple of months. I can knit on my armwarmers/jacket details, read some of the little bit more ficiton related litterature, draw up new stuff to (dream about to one day) sew, rewrite my messy lecture notes....Train is fantastic.

And the days when Im not travelling to another municipality to attend classes, I can make the bigger stuff, the patterns and experiment with making stuff like that doo-dad on the right(made by Tim Holtz, Ranger inks which by the way, has a line of products that would be appreciated under the christmas tree, please tell santa if you see him!), or spend quality time with my lovley boyfriend!

And workout sessions! hiphei! I can regulary attend again!

My yummy jam

For some time now I have tried very hard to empty our freezer so that it can be defrosted. Too bad tho, that now what is left is small portions of stuff that dont go well together(yay me I managed to get some of last years mixed mushrooms out from layers of "snow" and put it into todays moussaka).
Yes, snow in freezer=has been too warm... we had an incident of slightly open door-syndrome and we don't know for how long that day it happened.... Hence the panic for getting it all out from there.

Well anyho, this is one of the best outcomes from freezer-emptying.

Apple-rhubarb-ginger-cinnamon jam.

it tastes so good you want to have it all at once. its like candy!

so here is(what I remember to be the recipe....*start-writing-stuff-down!*)
1 part finnish apples, chopped, peeled, pitted
1 part rhubarb salvaged from the freezer, defrosted peeled chopped
1 part hillosokeri(which is basically a mixture of normal sugar and pektin, unsure of its actual ratio sugar/pektin)
1 lime or lemon, but only its juice
1 stick of cinnamon (mine came all the way from Egypt, transported in Annes luggage, almost a meter alltogether in length!!)
1 length of ginger, peeled nicely

So;

1. Put the fruit and the sugar so it makes a sticky porridge(maybe this happened only because I saved it all in the same bowl that the rhubarb had defrosted, so much liquid/rhubarbjuice had gathered there), and squeeze the lemon/lime juice over. The citric acid in the juice act as preservative. Although im unsure for how long, since its added before the boiling takes place, it may not keep its abilities after this process. To be sure you can add the juice ALSO after the boiling is done, because who wants brown looking apple jam? Alternatively add citric acid bought from farmacy/store according to package description(which is about 2g/kg).
   
2. Keep it in the fridge for some hours-whichever fits your timetable
   
3. Glop it all into a pot and add the ginger and cinnamonsticks. I used a fairly large piece of ginger, mostly because I like ginger alot. This is now going to start boiling, and when it does, let it simmer for a while. maybe 15-20 minutes.
   
4. Pick out the ginger and cinnamon(they are now washed off and sit in my fridge, awaiting another task before I feel it proper to toss them) And while the jam is still steaming, poor to hot jars(over 60C) to the rim, close lid and set to cool upside-down.

Voila! it is so good, you have to hide some of it in secret locations if you are one of those that like to nibble yummy stuff. Or if you have kids or spouse that do.

food ingredients

When living in another country, the questions about what kinda food or stuff from the store is often raised. Since Finland is not that far away from Norway, culturally,the huge Oops'es has been quite avoidable in daily grocery shopping. But when it comes to names of fish, parts of meat, berries, mushrooms and to simply ask from a customer service counter(those that serve you the x amount of that particular fish or breadtopping you want), has made difficulties.

Most people here know what salmon is in three languages, and so do I. But when it comes to all the other fish-speices we norwegians have on our plate, I have come short with both my english skills, and the clerks.

Many other funny mishaps have happened when talking about and describing berries(simply because in this home we have no clue what the berries are called in English...well, most normal ones we know okay), like "you know that purple eyeball berry" (turns out they are gooseberries in english.)
Or when describing fish speices, like "um, you know that silvery one that can get really big, not shark, but the other one?" or "the one that looks like the one that killed Steve Irvin, but only much smaller and not really like that anyway but its flat atleast."
Or when describing what part of the animal you want, in a butchershop(like this last christmas, when I made traditional lambs-roll thingy from Norway), constantly pointing to ones limbs, telling and almost bringing along a chart to point at.

My help has sometimes been to check this marvelous list of anglo-finno-russo-scandinavian list. But most often I have been in the store, staring at the fish filléts on the ice, wondering and damning myself for not having a copy of most used glossary in my wallet.

Bra webside for oss norsklesende mennesker

Da aftenposten før helgen hadde en artikkel som diskuterte litt fram og tilbake om hva kommer til å skje med bibliotekene, var det en flinking som hadde lagt inn link til denne siden, altså bokhylla.no. Så langt ser det lovende ut, jeg har ikke rukket greve i "hyllene" dems enda, men jeg gleder meg til å finne spennende bøker som jeg ikke kan få så lett tak i her i Finland.
Takk til aftenpostens diskusjon-deltagende nynorsk-skriver!

Bokhylla finner du her

Poninäyttely in Espoo

I went with Tuuli this previous sunday to look at horses. It was superb weather, and a very chilled out feeling in the whole area it was held. Nobody had any stress anywhere, and it was a very good last day of vacation before work starts again.

Pony-exhibit(or whats its name) makes me wonder what all of these little animals are used for. They are (some) soooo tiny, I'm tempted to keep one in the apartment! Are they just for cutting your yards grass, attract flies and look cute? Maybe let your toddles "ride" on them?





Many of the ponys had ofspring with them, following the mommy in the tail, and crying when mommy had to show off to the judge, and not pay their attention towards little baby dearest. It was tempting to go next to one and cuddle my face in their fluffy baby fur....and take one home....

 

The judges had this very old-fashioned look, with straw hats and dark double-buttoned blazers, if I had looked closely, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a embroidered crest on the jackets chest. Upon seeing these outfits my thoughts wantered to Agatha Christies books and the TVseries of Poirot and miss Marple.

I found myself a weird water-growing "flower" looks like its from another world, or atleast not in these northenly hemispheres.

...and for some reason, the horses were on sale, only 5€ !!

Revamping apartment, stage 2

Its really stage one, but I was so excited about my tiger wall, that I ranted it off before what I really started out with. but anyway. SOFA!


Our apartment have been sortof looking like a office for a while, since the main furniture has been concentrated about computers and such. We have been longing for a sofa to cuddle up and watch movies in, but havent really seen where the hell it should ba placed. And besides, our livingroom has a stoopid layout when it comes to doors and windows placement. Also, new sofas costs quite some €€.
Answer was to play some tetris with the furniture we have, and consider about changing some things. And going to the local kierrätyskeskus - second hand place à la salvation army. There we scored a beige "beauty" two seater that is quite spacious -32€.


Those who know me I believe can agree with the statement that I don't r eally like beige. Neither does my boyfriend. But Hey! we have IKEA and their reasonably priced fabrics around the corner. And I'm pretty pro on the sewingmachine.

Result:

Even Kosmo has approved...
Thoughts about this:
IKEAs "minna" fabric is very durable and takes 60C washes in the machinge. However, it wrinkles quite easily, so it's very annoying to keep tidy-looking. And a gray cat with gray fabric couch is not as camouflaging as one might think. The sheaded fur shows just as easy as on a black fabric.

...a little closer

...to be finishing up the bedroom upgrading. Found some lamps in a box under the bed, that needed some pimping before they got stuck to the wall. Nice shape, but scuffed off frosted looking "silver" didnt really match the exquisite wall painting(if I may be so bold...)

add some squishy dabs of tigerpaint and fiddle with some newspaper pages = get something matching to the style :D
Thay have white frosted glass upwards pointed shades. It would be just best if the electrical cords would be black... to sort of hide or bled in better, but I currently don't have such just lying about(in boxes under the bed)

Renovating, part one

So here I have had this idea on my mind for a very long time; paint a dragon or something on our bedroom wall(the one which is pure red).

This is your standardised before picture.

Finally I have gotten around to get it all organised, gotten hold of the equipment needed and so on.
When it was left to choose which motive we wanted, we flipped through alot of scandinavian tatoo and tribal magazines, always looking for a dragon. We found one that could fit and looked good. Not completely convinced that we had seen all the options, I googled tribal dragon, and found plenty.
This one picture had something very catchy about it, tho it was not a dragon. It was a tiger.
It ended with flipping a coin to be able to choose between a dragon and a tiger, we got the latter.

is it the chessire cat??

Starting to take its shape...

....Almost there...

When it comes to the design of this tiger, I vould like to give the artist credit, but since it popped up in a google picture search, I have no clue. It was mounted together with a very cool looking fenris wolf and a black bird, but the file info gives nothing more than a random line of numbers. So, hats off to the designer, whoever you are, I figured it would be okay to use your design in my personal home, since I didn't go and earn money off you. :)

And Voila! I have made myself a tiger. *proud*

Bedroom now smells like oil paint, and the bed is still pushed aside. When the room is 100% finished, I'll honour it with a picture and a posting =)

a year has past

Oh my! Its been a year or so since I last wrote on this blog. But I guess it is the exact thing I have described in the title of my blog "fancylatskap" and all.(=fancy laziness)

One of my facebookfriends fron China sent me this link to a Japanese fashion site, its very nice pictures and inspiration, but since I don't read japanese very well its the only thing I can do...look at pictures.

At home we have done some fixer-upper of the look, I'll post some of it later. It's goning to be fantastic!