Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

We arrived back from our holiday on Thursday night/Friday morning.  We had a lovely break and I am brimming over with inspiration for cards, crochet and how to combine the two, as well as some ideas for new crafts to start. Embroidery is on my list and I am more determined than ever to take that sewing machine out of it’s box and get it going.

The holiday was amazing and we saw some beautiful places, amazing architecture, art, design and of course crafts.  We spent four days in Riga, an overnight in Tampere then three days in Jyvaskyla and four days in Helsinki.

Riga is well known for it’s Art Nouveau architecture and is famous for two main crafty things, linen and amber, both of which are ubiquitous at the market stalls.  I bought this cute flower crocheted with linen yarn and these amber earrings and necklace.

The stopover in Tampere and Jyvaskyla was the main reason for our trip.  We celebrated the wedding of our friends Ronan and Laura, this little fella’s parents.  We had a fantastic time at the wedding, I could rave about the food they served but I’m conscious that this isn’t a food blog. Maybe I’ll hijack Cookzors at some stage.

Then it was onto Helsinki for the final leg.  Helsinki isn’t short of amazing market stalls either and I picked up these Turquoise earrings at one of them.

It also has some wonderful workspace type places that sell everything from handmade ceramics to jewelery.  In this one, my better half treated me to some very pretty earrings (yes I did go a bit overboard on the earrings) for my birthday.

We saw many of the creations of  these guys and I saw so many iconic design classics in one day that I nearly exploded with excitement.  We had a drink in the Arctic Ice Bar….yes it was as cold as you imagine.  I made the HUGE mistake of wearing sandals and you could have snapped off my toes and used them as ice cubes.

I read my way through three books, one fluffy but appropriately themed and two slightly more highbrow.   And I also managed to fit in some craft of my own….more on that at a later date.

All in all a fantastic holiday.

Now, I’m off to start about 100 thank-you cards!