17/11/2020

Hello, I'm Riikka!

 

Hi there and moikka! I thought that I haven't really introduced myself for a while and as there's new readers along, maybe an introduction would be in order! 

First of all, welcome and thank you for visiting me! On top of this blog I have an Instagram account, a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. I also share my posts through Twitter and occasionally tweet something else as well. But mainly things are happening here in the blog, YouTube and at my Instagram account! 

Maybe some basic info about me? I was born in a coastal city of Turku, Finland. As a child my hobbies included playing the piano, scouts for a while and also an art school for kids. I attended a gymnasium with an emphasis on natural sciences so I had extra many chemistry, math, biology and physics courses. But the gymnasium also had emphasis on art, and naturally I took all of those courses as well, witch then ended up increasing my total number of courses well over the amount needed to graduate. After graduation I moved to Helsinki, the capital, where I now live with my husband and two daughters. 

Instead of going to the university, like most of my family thought, I went to a polytechnic and studied to be a clothing designer. I've actually never done that work after graduation, but instead I've worked in an array of different theaters as a seamstress. Nowadays I work full-time as a sales person in a craft store and crafting is kind of my second job. 

When my first daughter was born, I found something magical called "scrapbooking". A couple of years later I opened my first jar of gesso and added some splashes to a layout. This marked a transition from strictly paper based layouts to more mixed media direction. My biggest "heureka" moment was in a crop, when I suddenly understood that "it's just paper". No matter how ruined the paper would end up with different mediums, the memories were stored in my heart and the physical picture was among the last details I added, so if I needed to toss the paper away, it would be just paper, nothing priceless was lost. That idea then freed me and since then I've not tossed any layouts away because of the medium mishaps. The beauty of mixed media is that you've always can add another layer!

So, I started with layouts but along the way I begun going more and more into mixed media. Well, I've always crafted this and that, but my road to this place went through the scrapbooking. I've also been lucky enough to be chosen to several different design teams. One of my dreams came true back in 2015 when I got to the Prima Marketing design team and another even before that back in 2012 when I became a member of the Scrap365 Magazine team and got published on regular basis. My most recent dream come true is becoming a member in the first Seth Apter Creative Team

What else? I craft in our living room (so no studio as such), my favorite color to use in a project is teal or turquoise, I only wear black and I'm a metal head. Even though Finns drink most coffee in the world, I only drink tea and Earl Grey is my favorite. My husband is a Swedish speaking Finn and our daughters speak three languages and currently study fourth. 

I'll also share a shorter version of this post in my Instagram and will put a possibility to ask questions to my stories. So if you'd like to ask anything, please head there! Another option is also to wait some days and come and hang out on Saturday when I'm guesting at Seth's Facebook live! 

Thank you again for stopping by today! Wishing you a lovely Tuesday! Please be back tomorrow for another project post. 

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