Lifestyle

Home Decor from a Rubbish

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This week we are moving to a new unfurnished apartment, and of course my mind started to wonder around decorating our new space. Especially here in the north home and its decoration is super important. You know what I am talking about – Scandinavian designs and homes.

I even went to an annual Habitare fair which is a big decoration happening here in Helsinki. It didn’t help: there were all these beautiful and expensive furniture that I would happily take to our new home.

Then I started to wonder, wait a minute, what I am doing? And: which empty gap I start to fill with this decoration madness. Of course as a stylist I love beautiful and esthetic things. Beauty is important thing for me, and it does matter, in what kind of mug I drink my morning coffee and I do appreciate design things, but still, I like more homes that are imperfect – homes that you can actually see that people are living there. For me living almost five years abroad have thought me more laid-back attitude what comes about home decor. For me the cozy atmosphere is more important than perfect matching decoration. Actually, nowadays I get suspicious if I enter to a “perfect” home. I start to wonder: what is this person hiding? I get curious and I would like to look at that person’s fridge to see is there anything, does this person make lunch and dinners or is it just empty.

Ok, imperfect home is more my style than that Pinterest-style perfect, but I do have some principles what comes on colors and style of the furniture. As you might know, my intention for the new home is to buy almost everything in used and in low cost (who knows where we are in next year). So when the former inhabitant told me that he would sell us his Ikea furniture, like a sofa and a bed and some furniture for the terrace, I said yes, super! It would make our moving in so easy, but then I saw the price tag: he was asking from those things more than 500 euros, furniture that I didn’t even like. No way! I slept over the night and the following morning I wrote an email to say no for this proposal. I could not have made that cozy home, if I saw that grey sofa every day. I rather have without a sofa!

Then the universe listened.

I was returning to our Airbnb apartment, when I saw a little rattan sofa abandoned on a dumpster. I called to my mum (who came to visit us for a couple of days) and together we carried it to our place. At the same time from the dumpster I did some other findings too. I found a couple of rattan baskets, two footstools and a carpet. Just to renew the fabrics for the sofa and the footstool, and they will be fine!

And what about the other furniture? Our lovely landlady promised to give us a kitchen table and bed, which she will not need. Voilà, our zero waste home starts to be ready.

To summarize my decoration philosophy, it goes something like this: use your creativity, create cozy atmosphere and go more zero waste mentality in mind than making that copy of perfect Pinterest image home – after all the everyday happiness is somewhere else than in that perfect decoration.

And welcome to our home, anytime! You can even look our fridge!

Read more:

Recycle, get rid of stuff and set yorself free

Let it go

A slow down list for autumn

 

Travel

Zero waste lifestyle on the road

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Ok, the title is a bit ambivalent because traveling can never be totally zero waste. When you take a plane – you are far away from it, but in this article I wanted to write about how you can reduce waste what comes about eating when on the road.

When you go to an airport, plane or railway station you probably buy a take away coffee and a sandwich, which is wrapped in plastic, right? Traveling is stressful and you were in a hurry. I know! I know! Well this is exactly the moment we can act differently. For me the wake up call was the birth of my child. Then I needed to start prepare beforehand a bag full of food and clothes. Also, I started to think the environmental issues: if I carry on like this, I participate filling the planet with plastic. I wanted to change our habits not only in our everyday life but also when we are traveling.

So in this writing I wanted to share my tips how you can reduce waste when you are traveling.

This is what we take with us:

– durable water bottle

– durable take away mug

– a couple of fabric bags

– wooden cutlery in a little fabric bag (that I can pack fruits)

– I made our lunch. Normally I prepare egg and cheese sandwiches (which our daughter loves, and she knows to ask them when we are on a plane).

– if we are traveling during a lunch hour I prepare also a quinoa-based salad and use all the leftover legumes from our fridge. (And if I have some food left that otherwise would end up in bio can, I give to our neighbour.)

– sliced fruits

– a little cold bag that I can add all this.

This made sound self-evident and simple – and it is, but when you don’t prepare your travel carefully this might be last in your list after packing, making reservations and checking out the weather report in your next location. Anyway, for me, every time I do this, I thank myself for doing it, saving money, eating healthy during the travel and above all reduce waste.

What’s your top tips for more sustainable travel?

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Recycle, get rid of stuff and set yourself free

Let it go!

 

 

Lifestyle

Let it go!

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Often in the beginning of a yoga or meditation practice the teacher guide us to breath in with our nose and breath slowly out with our mouth and at the same time to let go of something we are holding in, like negative feelings, stress or nervousness.

This kind of meditation mantra is a part of my daily meditation moments. In concrete level this “let it go” process has been part of our life in the past couple of weeks now between this moving hell. Instead of carrying all the old stuff from Spain to our summerhouse in Brittany, we decided to say big NO. It seemed pointless to just put those things on hold and not to be sure, if we ever going to use them. So with help of our lovely neighbor we put on sale a lot of furniture, terrace chairs, two fridges and washing machines. And most of it, we sold very fast. It feels good to give those objects a new life, but also it feels good in that “let it go” level. It almost feels like all these old stuff was holding us back. Now I feel we have make space for something new.

And with new I don’t mean that we are going to replace the sold stuff with buying something new. Our idea is to use those money that we get from selling the furniture to decorate our new apartment with second hand furniture.

Also, I did this cleaning up ritual again in my wardrobe, too. As we only have a car that we are going to fill with all the everyday stuff and clothes that we will take to Finland, we have planned really carefully what we are going to take with us. This means intentional cleaning and letting go process in my wardrobe. I ended up giving (again) clothes to the charity shops, and now what is left is only my favorite ones. When going through my closet, I kept in mind this information: we only use about 10 percent of the content of our wardrobe. So why the hell should I bring all these clothes to fill the closets of our new apartment? Nope I won’t do that. This time everything is thought in a mindful way.

I have to say that a little by little, I start to breath in a more minimalistic lifestyle, and it seems to fit me inside and outside.

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Recycle, get rid of stuff and set yourself free

A slow down list for the autumn

Lifestyle

A slow down list for the autumn

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Normally autumn means a new start for me. I always try something new and enroll in some exiting class. This fall I decided to do differently.

I had to admit that right away I started to look at the new activities in Helsinki. Maybe a language or a painting class? Or maybe learning a completely new skill and challenge myself?

Then I said to myself: slow down. I am going to fill my calendar and end up having hardly any free time. Then again I do have a couple of unfinished writing projects that I have to get done.

Eventually, I enrolled in two classes. The other one is a weekend class to learn fashion illustration and the other a mindfulness class that I am on a waiting list.

Also, instead of making hard core To do -lists, I decided to make a slow down list for this fall.

For me it looks something like this:

Regular and guided yoga classes in Helsinki. Hopefully I will find some place to start teaching yoga,too.

Meditation moments in mornings and before going to bed. Now I have been doing Sarah Blondin’s ten days meditation program ” Coming home to yourself” using Insight Timer application. Highly recommendation.

More family time and spending free time in nature. Not anything too difficult, but just simple walks in the forest and discovering natural areas near Helsinki.

Really listen to music (records!!) without doing anything else – like in those teenager years.

More reading time and going to a local library.

Reactive my sewing skills.

More pampering moments in a beauty salon.

And that’s about it.

What do you think my slow down -list? Did you find something for yourself too?

What’s in your slow down list?

 

 

 

 

Sustainable Fashion

Recycle, get rid of stuff and set yourself free!

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A couple of weeks ago I was selling my old clothes in an open air flea market in Brittany. When I saw all the stuff that nobody wanted, I made myself a promise not to buy anything useless ever again.

My table was minimalistic; I just took one suitcase full of clothes and accessories that I wanted to sell. When I looked around me, I saw sellers coming by car with trailers! Then I thought, Oh boy – how much people do have things that they don’t need.

Later on it started to rain and I saw lot of items getting wet. Who wants them now? I thought. All this unwanted stuff. It made me sick.

How did we end up like this, collecting stuff like hamsters?!

The second thing that I noticed was that the high street fashion brands do not have value. You can only ask a couple of euros of them. Even when they are in a good condition. Of course my point wasn’t make money, but just to get rid of everything I won’t be wearing anymore, but still. This highlights even better the point that it better to buy things used or buy only quality and long time used clothes, because otherwise you end up loosing money. And let’s not forget the planet and environmental issues.

Lucky me, I almost managed to sell everything. The rain didn’t disturb me as I had parasol with me. Actually these parasols tempt people to come my selling spot when it was raining – and then: I got rid of all the unwanted clothes.

After the day in a flea market I walked back to our car. With (almost) empty suitcase in my hand I told my husband: less stuff, more mental capital!

 

Read more:

6 reasons why you should buy second hand clothing

The story of the green pants

You are what you wear

Wellness

Walking on my power path

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In Brittany I have been walking on the same hiking trail every evening. That gave me an idea that this is my power road.

You might have heard talk about power animals, and everyone seems to have their favorite quote of power sentence – I am not that into on those things, but walking and finding my own path, yes! At this moment my life is a bit chaotic. There is big moving ahead, and next week I need to finish packing all our stuff. Sometimes I feel myself like a gypsy and restless, because I don’t stay in a same address more than two years. Luckily we have this summer place in Brittany. There is one place that is always here and I feel safe, powerful, and in a way find my roots. Here I can find my walking path and the same beautiful landscape. Since I met my husband, I have been coming here every summer.

And every summer I walk the same hiking path. And for me this walking is therapeutic. It is my power path that gives me strength and clears my head. In the first summer when I walked in this path, I was pregnant with my first child, in the baby year I was taking my me time by walking, in the third summer I was convinced by the idea that I would like to participate a yoga teacher training. This summer on my walks I have been combining all the previous things: I am thinking of my second pregnancy, take time alone and feel even stronger calling to teach yoga. (It should be logic after the training that I want to teach yoga, but I can sure you that teaching is not easy at the beginning.)

When we arrived to Brittany, I was feeling sad and restless. After spending a couple of days in Brittany, I already felt much stronger and balanced. Day after day, walking by the same path, I feel like I have walk away all the sorrow, and find my self-confidence and positive believe in the future. It feels almost like I am returning from a mini pilgrimage.

Have you find your power path?

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This autumn everything will change again

Plan B

New start

Lifestyle

This autumn everything will change again

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This summer hasn’t gone like I planned. I didn’t spend a relaxing and easy-going summer – no I surely didn’t. To be honest this summer has been heavy in a mentally and physically way. Mentally because I have been processing a lot about our future and where would be that ideal place to be right now, physically because I am pregnant. This was surprise to us. Of course we were thinking about the second one, but not in this moment. Then this “surprise” pregnancy leaded us to think our life all over again.

And oh boy those hormones! Every other day I have been crying because I wanted to stay in Catalonia, in the other days I wanted to move back to Finland. All the decisions making made us tired. I mean that was the only thing that we were talking about as a couple. It ate all our energy.

Thought, the final decision was kind of clear and evident. We knew what we have to do. We realized that the 400 square metre house and its renovation, baby coming, to take care our daughter and my husband running two companies – well, all together it would be too much. We needed to make our life simple again.

We decided to try to sell the house and see what happen. And in a month we did sell the house. We took it as a sign, that this was the right decision. And in the end we get our investments back, so in a way we can think that we were living for free in Catalonia all the months that we were there.

Some might think that we were a bit fool and ask: was it really worth it?

Yes it definitely was, because we got to realize our dream. If we haven’t moved to this little wine village we haven’t got to know the actual village life, learn more about new culture and most of all to get to know all this lovely people around us. We experienced so much, and in the end I learned a lot about myself.

Also, I learned the downsides when you realize a dream.

I learned that we need to return to Finland so that we can start dream again of moving back to Catalonia.

So, on the road again.

Stay tuned,

Xx

Satu

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Plan B

5 things that are differently

Other

Plan B

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Have your heard about the theory of Plan B? Or really thought about it? My husband has. He had this theory about plan B – and this he has been thinking a lot lately. According to him, plan B is the one quality in common that successful people share in life. And why is that? Let me explain. When you have a plan B in your life, your current life or the goal that you are reaching, well the journey is not that difficult, when you won’t have to do it with blood tasting in your mouth or try too hard.

I was criticizing my husband about this. Sometimes in life people that succeed are those, who are focusing only that one thing, succeeding it, and often they don’t have other choices.

Well, sometimes yes, but often when seeing only that one goal in life, there might be misfortunes, mental or physical tiredness, or simple you just want to change the goal or you get tired of it. That might happen. Then it is better you have some back-up plan in might. The plan B can be something you find in the middle of your journey by accidentally and it will be come your other option.

My husband gave me two examples. In the other, let’s say there is a musician who doesn’t play that good even whe he has been practicing a lot. Would it be better that he finds something else to earn his living and just play the music for a pleasure? This is how the pressure of being a professional musician is gone, and who knows one day that musician will be doing that for living when there will not be any forcing. So this plan B is also about knowing who you are and what are those things that you are good at.

Another example. A friend of my husband is really scared of flying. When my husband asks, which is the scary part of it? His friend answered “the pain when the plane is crashing”. Then my husband encouraged him to think what happens after the crash. There is only peace and your body won’t experience any pain. Kind of radical example, but also to learn about this story is to image your worst scenario in life and then, what happens after. This is a part of plan B.

I started to see the point and this all let me think about our life and our back-up-plans. You know, all this life in Spain, a beautiful house with a swimming pool could be actually gone in next day. It is really possible. My husband has two companies in the web, and you never know what is going to happen, and me, I am a freelancer journalist who doesn’t make that much money anyway – well this can not last forever? What we will do then?

Well, we have made our plan B, which actually liberates us from stressing, and gives us new ideas.

Actually we have plan B and C. In the one we move to my country, Finland, where things are in so many level better than in other countries that I have been (for example a free education). In the other scenario we pack our bags and travel in different places fro a couple of year or so, we help people and the planet in different organizations, home educate our kid, make yoga videos and keep a travel blog. Anyway, this plan B allows you to start over again – and it is not that bad thing at all.

What is your plan B?

 

Sustainable Fashion

How to travel light?

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A little escape in the city when the weather report promises sun and some rainy days, you have a wedding party to attend to and you want to travel with Zero Waste principles in mind – how does it work? Let’s find out!

We went to visit Paris for five days. Beforehand we decided to travel only with hand luggage and that we try take as little as we can. We even left the pram home (not so good idea). To pack wisely, I weared my culottes trousers, a white smart shirt, a cardigan and a long coat. I put on an outfit, which had a several layers on it, so I didn’t need to place them in the bag. This is why I had a lot of space in my bag to fit in my party dress, shoes and a little bag, my yoga pants and a top, one vintage dress, a long sleeve skirt and a pair of jeans. Also I took a book, my notebook, charger and a headphone. My computer I left home, because I knew it that I won’t have time to open it. What goes with the everyday cosmetics, I reused my little bottles and fill them when ever needed.

And what about the Zero Waste principles?

It is definitely not easy when you travel. At least then you notice how much waste we produce! If only there where proper tap at airports where you can fill your durable bottle, but no – there is only few airports that I know, where you can fill your water bottle (one is in Helsinki-Vantaa airport, for sure). Imagine how much less we would produce a plastic bottle waste, if only we could refill our bottles in airports?! I hope in near future the airports are more greener, because now I feel I am going to a wasteland where everything you buy or eat is wrapped in plastic. So it is definitely not easy to live along your Zero Waste values when you are traveling. Anyhow, there is something you can always do to travel more sustainable.

For us, we can still travel with filled water bottles with us through the securite control, because we have our little girl. That helps a lot, when we can fill the bottles at home. During the flight we try to eat more healthy and avoid buying those e-code filled sandwiches. So I sliced an apple to a box and some dried fruits that I put in boxes. For a little fabric bag I put bamboo cutlery so we didn’t have to take those plastic ones in the airport. Also, I took with me my durable take away mug and a couple of fabric bags to do the groceries in Paris. Yes, these are little steps, but easy ones that everybody can adapt while traveling! I am proud of that at some points I can say big NO to producing more plastic waste.

Lets get back to my carry-on baggage. How did I manage the travel? Where there something extra with me?

Yes, there was. A pair of jean I didn’t use. Except the wedding party, the weather was sunny and warm, so I was wearing my vintage dress from Beyond Retro. And when it was raining I was covered in a fancy French castle.

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Osa II: täydellinen lomapuvusto

Wise packing for a holiday

Are you going to Helsinki? Mark these addresses down

Sustainable Fashion

6 reasons why you should buy reused garments

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1. It is more ecological to buy used clothes than new ones. This is not a new information for you, but often we forget this, when we need to find rapidly some piece of clothing. Then it is tempting to go to the nearest high street store. It is true, that buying clothes on secondhand markets demands more time and planning. There is no short cut on this, but when you find a piece of clothing that you are actually going to wear long time, you have made the goal: you are lengthen the lifecycle of that item. Not only you save your skin from the chemicals that are used in new clothes, but also you save the planet. Did you know that one-kilogram of textiles produces 23 kilogram of greenhouse gas (read this article).

2.There is a guarantee in a second hand item. When you find it and it is in a good condition, you have guarantee that this item will be weareable for long time. Also, when it fits you when you try it on, you are sure that there will not be unpleased surprises when you wash it.

3.Second hand item can be fashionable. Forget those images of hippy-style and retro clothes, today you can find stylish and timeless clothes. I am sure you can find at least something from secondhand markets. You only have to know what and where you look for it!

4.Your style is more personnel, when you buy used clothes. Don’t buy those trendy items that everyone else is buying from high street stores, be more creative, be more you!

5.Second hand clothes are treasures. You have used your time and energy to find it, so you more likely going to take care of it better than you normally do when you buy clothes from high street stores.

6.You will save money. Yes, this is so true. Used item costs normally a half of the price than the new ones. So when we are talking about in numbers, you really save money.

Finally, you can think that every one wins when you buy clothes from the second hand shops. You save money and most of all: you save the planet. If you find clothes from charity shops, you do good for the society and help those who need help. In a big picture you are also participating in a conversation on second hand culture. You are saying yes and you are supporting it. You are saying, that it is always better and more sustainable way to buy second hand clothing than new ones.

Anyhow, even when you find clothes from second hand markets, it is good to keep in mind this: buy less and buy only quality.

* Except sunglasses all the clothes and accessories are found from second hand markets.

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Towards sustainable clothing

For more sustainable and balanced living

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