Two Sides of Digital Creativity

My new website has been published and the blog has moved to the new address.

Check it out: www.peonyandparakeet.com

The location of the new blog: www.peonyandparakeet.com/blog

And a new blog post is up! Go to the new blog to see it: Two Sides of Digital Creativity

Still Playing?

I read this from the editor's column of the Finnish handcraft magazine Taito: The girls that make hobby horses and play with them did not want to be interviewed for the magazine. They thought that they would be considered too childish. The magazine is a very respectable one and it is an honor to be interviewed for it. Actually, many handcrafters dream about it!

But that was not the reason I was touched deeply by the fact why the girls refused. I love hobby horses. I do not own any now but used to when I was a little girl. I rode with my horse every day. And my best girlfriend had one too. I even made a scrapbook page about the horses a while ago.

I would have loved reading about this hobby and how it is today when it's easier to find others who love the horses too!

I was about to write to the magazine: "Try harder! Make the girls say yes!"

But then I remembered a moment, just few months ago, when I was interviewed to the very same magazine by the very same editor. She wanted to take photographs of the doll clothes I make and sell. "NO", I said. "People think I am crazy. They don't understand!"

My dolls must have been very upset by that. They are fashion models in their heart anyway!

I began to think where does the playing end and the serious stuff start. I remember that when my childhood friend and I grew, our play with the horses became more secretive. We tried to ride so that no one sees us. It became pretty stressful. We had to give up.

But the funny thing is that when I grew I went back to playing. And I know that most of you who read art and craft blogs have done the same.


If you don't collect the dolls like I do, I bet you have put clothes on an art doll, or a paper doll or a digital image. Maybe you have made illustrations with women's faces like when you used to as a child. We might not ride with the hobby horses anymore but we surely play in our own way. Picking the pretty colors, buying ink, making something that is really not that useful and where the end result actually does not matter so much.

Like what I did today. Cut a head of a fashion model from an old Vogue magazine and doodled a dress. Thinking: is the world of play black and white. I claim it is not. Whether a child or an adult, we all play. I hope the girls with the hobby horses realize this sooner than I did!

Tell me, how do you play? What makes you play?

Home and Warmth

I hate houses with no textiles. It seems to be a trend now. At least I have seen many lately in my favorite tv show Grand Designs.

For me, creating fabric is one of the main goals whatever I create. I like to study texture and structure and it never bores me. Before I grab my pens I can feel pretty uninspired but after thinking about fabrics, I am soon creating in full speed.

As seen in the pictures above, I've lately been into rugs. There are many beautiful rugs designed in Finland in the 40s to 60s that I adore. Like this Leena-Kaisa Halme's rug that I saw in the rug exhibition in Helsinki many years ago.

Textiles make home. When I need to escape from the world I take a romance novel and read few pages and get extra warmth from a homemade quilt. This digi layout is about me reading romances. I think my love for fabrics shows on the page as well.

How I Survived a Scrapbooking Marathon

In September I attended a scrapbooking marathon, organized by Big Picture Classes with Lain Ehmann as an instructor. The marathon lasted 26 days and you were supposed to make 26 layouts, one each day.

I was busy with a craft fair for the first two weeks so I started 14 days later than the others, determined to make all 26 layouts. My advice: don't do like I did if you ever attend this kind of challenge, start in time - no start ahead if you can! I had to make 2 to 3 layouts each day. Sounds impossible for someone who has a day job and who usually makes one layout in 4 to 6 hours!

But I did it! I accomplished 26 layouts in 12 days! How did I do it?

1) Scrapped in digi. I scrapped 23 digital layouts and only 3 on paper. Digital scrapbooking is so much faster!

2) Found photos easily. My photos are pretty organized. I star them using Stacy Julian's method: I give 3 stars for those that I want to scrap, and 2 start for those I might scrap. I also use a limited number of keywords to tag them and have created plenty of smart albums (albums with predefined rules) in iPhoto.

3) Made some smaller sized layouts. 5 of the layouts were in 8 by 8 size. I usually scrap in 12 by 12 inches but I discovered a new concept with 8 by 8 size. I use only one photo on the page. The subject of the page is "Today". The photo is taken on the same day that I scrap it. I write about miscellaneous stuff connected with that day. This concept suits so well with my life! I might take an odd photo with iPhone, then just go to my computer and scrap the page. I have made plenty of these after the marathon and it is one of the greatest discovery for me provided by the challenge.

Here are a couple of the layouts I am particularly proud of.

I am a terrible cook but as everyone in scrapbooking is crazy over cupcakes and there are so many designs to got with cupcake photos, I baked some! And the cherries on top are from the cherry tree in our garden! The digital elements are from Mary Pop's kit I heart Sweets.

The guidance for the last day was to let go and do something wild and break the rules of scrapbooking. I decided to use my own elements only, few photos, a poem written by myself many years ago and some doodling. It all came so easy, knowing then that I am passing the finish line!

After the Craft Fair

Digital scrapbooking layout using my own background papers. The template and few other elements are from Scrap Orchid collaboration kit All About Me, purchased from The Daily Digi.

The craft fair is over and I have had few days to take it easy. Like the layout says, it feels like an achievement. It was hard work to prepare the sales table but definitely worth it. I love talking with people about creativity and creating stuff. I really loved the experience!

A Happy Organizer

I am attending two great online courses at the moment, both in the area of scrapbooking. They are produced by Big Picture Classes. The first course is Stacy Julian's Library of Memories. It is about how to keep up with photos and stories. I have managed to organize my scrapbook pages plus 4500 digital photos within few weeks!

Another great course that has put me organize my stuff is Lain Ehmann's Mother LOAD. It prepares for 26 days scrapbooking marathon. I made this layout about my scrapbooking space as the first week's assignment. I think it's pretty cozy but actually it's only temporary as we have been renovating the library room at our house and once my table arrives, I will move my scrapbooking stuff there. The real library of memories and the place to scrapbook, I am so happy about it!!

Last week's theme at Lain's course was putting all the scrapbooking stuff in good order. I am pretty organized in that sector but after going through my die cuts and odd alphabets I got this idea. I put them all together in separate divisions of one plastic container. I love this arrangement, it's so practical! If you have problems with handling the small stuff, try this!

Here's my layout for week 2 of Lain's course. It's about how my dog Cosmo makes my life happy. I think both of these layouts really show the happiness. Well, on summer holiday, it's so easy to be content and happy!

More ATCs, made in the middle of summer nights. I love to stay up late and play with paints and doodles.

During the days, I have been dyeing yarn and wool! Here's some tussah silk and bluefaced leicester wool blend. Happy colors here too.

Never Not Doodling!

I am participating this week's Get Inspired scrapbooking challenge with this layout. It has my budgie's childhood photos. The first two of them has been taken by her breeder Annica Haga. This is a digital layout and most of the elements are from Michelle Underwood's Wild Hearts kit.

What I really like in digital layouts is adding some doodling with the pen tablet. I have Wacom Intuos 4 in medium size. I have used it for the title. The digital page looks so much more personal when some hand writing or hand doodling has been added on it.

Talking about hand doodling, I have spent some non-digital quality time too. Here are the papers I decorated yesterday. The blue one is my favorite. They are for sale as a set in my Etsy shop. Check them if you are interested adding some wild stuff for your art journal, cards or what ever you like to craft from paper.

Budgie Pages and Style Talk

I have had pet budgies for almost 20 years. So when I started scrapbooking in the beginning of last year, it was natural to make some pages of them too. Here are my budgies pages so far. Now that I look at them, there might be a maybe a slight style change in my scrapbooking.



This is my latest layout. It is made for the LOAD scrapbooking challenge. The first day's prompt was about making a basic layout with a photo, a title, some journaling, cardstock and patterned paper.


Well, there's really not much basic or simple in my style but I honestly tried. Ok, I did not succeed in making anything plain but I quite like the result, very unplanned but turned out ok in the end. Now I wonder, why do we use so little hand drawing in scrapbooking, I am definately going to try to include that more in the future.



This and the next one are my newest budgies and I have used baby colors for their pages. I love little bits and pieces of embellishments and I used them generously here.



The last layout is about my very first budgie. This page was made during the Amy Sorensen's scrapbooking course called Textuality. It focused on writing and I really enjoyed writing my budgie's story.



There has been a lot of talk about style in scrapbooking. There are even courses about how to develop your own style. When I see something that I like, I try to analyze why I like it. There are often the same elements that really catches my eye. When I repeat them in my own work, I get pleasure creating them.

The funny thing is that the more I learn about my own style, the easier it comes to play with the style. It also enables making something in a totally different style when being aware of the elements that affect the style in general. I have began to maintain a moodboard of my style at Pinterest to have pictures that I love all in the same place. If you have tips about style, leave a comment!

That Little Push from ScrapHappy.org

Here's a scrapbooking layout that's my entry to ScrapHappy.org's sketch challenge in April. It's about making circles and why I love it. I have used my hand decorated papers for the layout and I quite like it how they work with the photo and with the peaceful background. (I try to keep hand decorated papers available in my Etsy shop from now on so if you like to try them, see Peony And Parakeet at Etsy).

Now you might wonder what is ScrapHappy.org. It's a community hosted by Lain Ehmann, a famous scrapbooker. It has a monthly fee and each month you get blog posts that have challenges, videos, audios and other fun and inspiring things for scrapbooking. I like the way Lain brings her personality online. You also get to participate her Layout a Day challenges where you scrapbook layout a day for the whole month. Those repeat three times a year.

What I really like with Lain is that she really tries to make scrapbooking easy. The sketches are very simple and her tips about taking time for scrapbooking are practical. Sometimes I need that little push to get the page done!

Painted Pottery

It all started with the two flower pots that I found at the antique flea market. I found them so inspiring! Then it continued with the few drops of wood stain that were left in the jar after some home renovation. I made some patterned papers by combining the stain with the watercolor pencils. Then I had to scan them just to see how they looked like at the computer. And then it all got out of hand ...

I made a digital scrapbooking page about the pots.

But before that I made my own kit.

It is available for you for free. Just remember: just for personal pages, no commercial use, no alterations.

Painted Pottery Digital Scrapbooking Kit (large zip file, over 17 MB)

Colorful Music

This art journal page is called "This is how I see the music". It is inspired by my favorite artist Tracy Chapman. For me, music is a very visual experience. I see lines, shapes and colors when I listen to it.

Speaking of Tracy Chapman, I made a scrapbooking layout last summer about me listening to her music. This was my very first digi layout, the template is by Cathy Zielske.

Scrap Journaling

Ok, I confess, am more and more into art journaling when speaking of paper crafting. I do still love scrapbooking, the whole non-commercial and commercial ascpect of it. But spending a day buying scrapbooking stuff and scrapbooking in a crop at the annual scrapbooking event in Helsinki, made me get back to basics. I realized that the best shop I can ever find is the one I am able to keep for myself.

I imagined walking into an art journaling shop where I have hundreds of little circled packed in cellophane bags. Would I like to pick the spring colored ones or the mix with the handmade buttons? Or perhaps I would like to browse background papers, all neatly arranged and made by ... me! This shop would be me-me-me, I-I-I, and perhaps something made by a friend, an artist that I love, but all handmade, and in components, ready to be scrapped ... I mean art journaled or put into a collage!

I woke up early in the morning, eager to start the manufacturing process. I began creating circles, flowers, leaves and backgrounds. And found some handmade buttons as well. I did not have the time to make something from textiles and yarns, I was too excited to get to the buying mode. Well, this shop had great service and everything was free, it was easy pick up all the pieces needed.

Then I could not hold myself anymore. More is more! Well, this is what you get when you get overboard with shopping!

What if your scrapbbook and art journal would be almost the same thing ...

Tell me what you think? Did you get the idea?

Creativity Heals

Here's my entry for Inspiroidu scrapbooking challenge #145. It is about my dear beagle Toni who passed away just few weeks ago.

This was a very difficult page to make but I felt I needed to do it. When I started scrapbooking a year ago I thought I could only make happy pages. But as life goes along sad things do happen. I did not want to document Toni's last days. Instead of that I summarized how handsome and sweet he looked at all ages. He was a very special dog. I will be making many layouts about him and his life with my other beagle Cosmo but with this page I try to accept what happened.

Creating Keepsakes magazine, January 2011 issue, has a great article about scrapbooking difficult events with the title Creativity Heals.

Happy Holidays!

I always dream about preparing for Christmas well ahead and usually never will. This year of all the years I have done more Christmas preparations than many times before. Even if I am about to move to a new home within a week and I am living with a small chaos at the moment!

Here's the cover of a mini album I have made as a present. I think mini scrapbooking albums make great presents. I picked some memorable photos for my sisters, like this gingerbread house which we made together when I was a small child.

Hopefully new memorable photos will be taken this Christmas for future scrapbook pages! Happy holidays!

What Scrapbooking Has Taught To Me

This is how I spent most Friday evenings: have a coke, listen to Paperclipping Roundtable podcast and make a scrapbook layout. It is so relaxing and so much fun.

This week's Paperclipping Roundtable was one of the bests ever. The discussion about scrapbooking museum and what it would consist, is both deep and entertaining. I am pretty sure that scrapbooking is one of the noblest hobbies one can have. It really shows how valuable time is and how unnecessary it is to own and want everything. Through scrapbooking I have learnt that everyday life is huge and valuable. And I have only scrapped from the beginning of this year!

Here's one of the 50 layouts that I have made so far. It's about my first dog Anja and a stuffed toy dog that I bought because it looked so similar to her. Even if Anja has died many years ago, I often think about her and how she got excited about small things in life. For me scrapbooking has taught that, really cherish the small events. I believe strongly that all the big things are collections of small ones. If you can understand the value of small steps someday you will be able to take a big leap too.

Doodling Over Photo

I love scrapbooking so I wanted to add some to my art journal too. I combined illustration with a photograph. It looks so summery, the lily from the garden and all the pastel colors!

The page was also very easy to do: just some doodling with pens on the background paper, then attaching the photo and then doodling over it. I love to doodle circles, it is the shape I am most fond of!

Using Predefined Colors

Here's a layout I made using the colors given in Scrap Camp pre-class assignment. This is about my dogs and how they have to wait for us to come home, get fed and taken out for a walk. It is heart-breaking to leave them every morning when going to work!

Tein tämän sivun Scrap Camp -kurssin ennakkotehtävänä. Siinä piti skräpätä käyttäen annettuja värejä. Värit oli valittu alla olevasta kuvasta ja annettu väriruutuina.

Here's the given predefined color palette, inspired by the picture.

I have to mention that as I love animals, I love Basic Grey's new line Max & Whiskers. Finally something really appropriate for the layouts about animals. Love, love love it!

Eläinrakkaiden skräppialbumeihin sopii hyvin Basic Greyn uusi Max & Whiskers. Suomessa sitä saa ainakin Paperikierteestä. Aivan ihana minusta! Naiivi, mutta en mahda mitään, että vetoaa minuun ja sopii niin hyvin eläinaiheisiin sivuihin (joita minulla on lukuisia ja joita tulee vielä lukuisia).

Using Cake Paper and Two Languages

As I have both english and finnish speaking readers I have decided to change this blog bilingual. My aim is not to translate every word but include both english and finnish in every post now on. Feel free to leave comment in either of the two languages.


Koska blogillani on myös suomenkielisiä lukijoita, kirjoitan vastedes osan merkinnöistäni suomeksi. En käännä sanasta sanaan, vaan kirjoittelen vapaasti. Kommentoida voi molemmilla kielillä.
Here's a layout which I made for this week's Inspiroidu scrapbooking challenge. The challenge was to use any stuff found in kitchen. I immediately knew I had to use this cake paper as I had just read instructions from May Flaum how to use die cut circles for a page. She advised to cut them in two pieces and use the other one for the photo and the other for the journaling. This page is about my african violets!


Osallistun tämän viikon Inspiroidu-haasteeseen tällä sivulla, jossa esittelen saint paulia -innostustani. Sain idean käyttää kakkupapereita May Flaumin ohjeesta, jossa hän neuvoi halkaisemaan ympyrän muotoisen skräppipaperin ja sijoittamaan tekstin toiseen ja kuvan toiseen puoliskoon.


Speaking of May Flaum I will be attending her scrapbooking class called Scrap Camp at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I have very high expectations as I was so pleased with my previous class, Textuality by Amy Sorensen.


Olen ilmoittautunut May Flaumin pitämälle verkkokurssille, jonka nimi on Scrap Camp. Sen järjestää Big Picture Scrapbooking ja odotukset on aika korkealla. Osallistuin keväällä Amy Sorensenin Textuality -kurssille ja se oli aivan huippu. Voin melkein lajitella tekemäni sivut kurssia ennen tehtyihin ja kurssin jälkeisiin.

My First Teddy Bear

I am taking part of this week's Inspiroidu scrapbooking challenge with a layout made today. The theme of the challenge is toys and it immediately brought my old teddy bear to my mind. I found an old photo of me holding him and asked my husband to take a photo of us today. We have both got older but our spirit has stayed the same! The hanging teddy bear is to remind me of the evening when I had eaten too much berries and accidentally vomited on him. My mother put him to the washing machine and hanged him outside to dry.

Text, Photos and Scrapping

A scrapbook page "April in Pictures".

In April I participated Picture Spring course organized by Big Picture Scrapbooking. I think it was more about stretching the creativity by completing the assignments than really learning about photography. I do not recommend this kind of course for someone who does not know much about how to adjust the camera as the course was merely a daily challenge than anything educational. Luckily I was familiar with all the basic settings of my SLR camera so that was not a big problem for me. And, I got few really nice photos during April and I am pretty pleased with the result. I really put a lot of effort for taking photos and shoot thousands of photos (really!) during April. My daily picks can be found in my Flickr folder.

Now I am taking part of another course, Textuality. It focuses on writing and is just wonderful. Very educational and full of instructions and examples. Here's one of the exercises I have completed, it's about our kitchen and it is filled with text! The photo has been taken in April - I have so much photos now to use on the layouts!

A scrapbook page "Our Kitchen and How We Would Change It"

I especially like the colors of this layout.

I am taking part of this week's Inspiroidu challenge with these two layouts as I also made them to match this week's theme: using a big alpahabet in the beginning of the title.

A scrapbook page "Why I Love Peonies".

Above is the first layout I made for Textuality - and a bit of the mess I make when I scrap! I have always enjoyed writing but have not really realized the opportunities to use a lot of journaling for scrapping. I intend to improve my layouts not only by taking better photos but also by adding more text and meaning for them.