Diary of a Tropical Island Girl in the Finnish Lapland, in point-form: Part 6

The final 3 days of our Finnish Lapland trip~

Day 8

¤ Saying our goodbyes to Nellim =(

Bye, Nellim squirrel~

¤ After breakfast, we made a 2-hour journey to Inari, one of the largest villages in the Inari municipality. As for population density, "largest" is pretty much an over-statement. The whole population in Inari can fit nicely  in my neighbourhood...

Nonetheless, the Inari village has a town center, which might be small but packs a punch. So, welcome back to civilization! =P

Modern hotel

Supermarket and convenience store!

Their small buildings are equally cute as Nellim's

Another quaint church :)

Horse-riding nearby? Look, there're sleds!

¤ Our hotel was beside a river and the view of broken river ice slabs was breathtaking.

¤ The night was so clear tonight that I mistook the full moon for a street lamp when we stepped out of the hotel reception after dinner... The guys were again very excited for such a clear night but... I came down with a fever and felt too sick to join them. I took some paracetamol meds and slept through the night... =(


Day 9

¤ I felt much better today. The guys told me that I didn't miss anything the night before.. Coz there wasn't any aurora. Ahhh.. But the sky this morning didn't look good. Cloudy.

¤ We visited the Siida Musuem today. We had a deeper insight about the history, economy and geography of Inari. Spent our whole day there. We're like school children again. haha. And it snowed pretty heavily outside..

Cute baby wolverines.. There were tons of such fake animals around the exhibits.

Retro snow mobile

I actually find this kinda cute...

Woof! Statue outside the museum

¤ By the time we left the museum, it's already late afternoon. It's stopped snowing. Looking up, half the sky's  covered with clouds while the sky over at the river side was clearing up..

While walking back to our hotel rooms (by the river), we heard what sounded like a low "boom". A little hard to describe how it sounded, but looks like the ice was breaking! It's pretty scary actually. And we suddenly were able to hear river flowing!!

One of these ice slabs broke??

¤ During dinner, I went to check spaceweather.com again. Good news! There was a sudden disturbance in Earth's magnetic field! For no apparent reason! Some parts of Finland had already caught some glimpses of the aurora. Looking out of the restaurant window, I was all hyped up to see the sky was clear! But it was still a little too bright (at 8pm!) for aurora viewing.

We waited a little longer and were contented to have a good ending to our little Lapland journey.

Fail? I tried to snap a photo without the tripod.. That's my friend in the middle..

My best attempt at trying to keep still....

Okay, nice clear photo from XB

Gotta love the swirls

This was when the light show came to a climax. Half of the sky was covered with aurora and the edge was really intense and moving really fast!

My friend went out earlier than us and he managed to catch the rare red color in the aurora!

An amazing shot that my friend took of the heavens and aurora

And for the comet-buffs, can you spot PANSTARRS? (Enlarge the photo)

After this episode of nothing happened while I was sick but we were given the gift of a magnificent light show on the last night when I was well, it really makes me wonder.. God works in mysterious ways huh?


Day 10

¤ Had our last breakfast and lunch at Inari today. Made our last minute shopping before heading back to Ivalo Airport to get on our flight back to Singapore, transiting at Helsinki.

Daiso Maniac Saturday: #15 Chocolate-colored Glue Sticks

I promised 2 weeks ago in my first "The Christmas Tree Patisserie" post that I will be introducing this yummy-looking glue stick (and the mold that I used).

I happened to get this "milk chocolate-ish" color but after visiting a few Daiso stores here, I believe the glue sticks also come in dark brown, pink and white. Do note that the glue sticks are to be used with the small hot glue gun.

I actually got the idea of using the glue sticks with a mold from AtelierLorien, another channel by Abi from StudioLorien. Here are my materials and tools:

A chocolate mold from Daiso, my own molds, my ugly small hot glue gun, and a piece of paper

And so, I loaded my glue gun with the chocolate glue stick and let it sit for a while until the melted glue could flow smoothly onto the piece of paper. Then, I started to fill some of the shapes in the Daiso chocolate mold.

The process can be kinda fiddly since glue is, well, sticky. I would suggest placing the tip of the glue gun within the mold cavity while squeezing the glue out. Once the cavity is filled, tap the mold to level the melted glue. Once the glue cooled and hardened, I removed the pieces out from the mold.

And here are a couple of pieces from my own molds.

Chocolate floral cabochon..

Chocolate bar with a bite off..

Tumbled hard but picking up

Life has its ups and downs,

But sometimes you fall deeper than you'd expect.

I apologize for my 2-week absence. I guess the accumulated mental stress from work finally took a toll on me and I fell deeper than I would like myself to. The last weekend had been a mental turmoil for me. If not for XB and my parents (who purposely came down on Mother's day *sobs*), I would probably have gotten stuck in the black hole.

The week that came after wasn't a bed of roses either. I was given a week off to rest, but for the most part of it, I felt totally drained and had no motivation to do anything. All I wanted to do was lie on bed and sleep. There were the occasional negative thoughts but I was blessed with a couple of friends who gave me the strength to keep them at bay.

The past week also saw me make the big decision to quit my current job and taking the leap to enroll in a part time certification course in fashion design. As of now, I am unsure what my near future entails. Perhaps I will finally get my butt off and realize my dream in opening my own online/Etsy store.

(On the lighter side of things, I was horrified to see my pile of clothes collecting on the sofa, waiting patiently to be ironed.. Yikes)

Capturing the essence of time..

For time flew

and old I grew,

Dreams are still dreams

Unfulfilled.

Feeling kinda "emo" at the moment. When you feel your days could have been spent on something more fruitful and yet time is not there waiting for you to do so. This is definitely a project of instant gratification. I already have the bottle, the watch parts and the findings on hand. All I needed to do was putting them altogether. Inspiration was from a photo of steampunk earrings I found on the internet.

The Christmas Tree Patisserie - #1 Mint Choco and Strawberry Choco Macarons

First up in the menu of the Christmas Tree Patisserie is:

Mint choco macarons and strawberry choco macarons. The shells were made from Fuwa Fuwa clay (light-weight paper clay from Kutsuwa) which I had tinted mint green and strawberry pink respectively. The shells were let dry before I glued the chocolate bits and the chocolate fillings.

The chocolate bits on top of each macaron were made by melting chocolate-colored glue stick in chocolate molds, both of which were from Daiso and I will be introducing them this week. As for the chocolate fillings, they were also made from Fuwa Fuwa clay which I had tinted a nice yummy shade of milk chocolate!

All the pieces were then dried and glazed with matte varnish.

Pouch + Kimono Cropped Top

Last saturday, I attended the 2nd part of the shibori dyeing workshop. This session was fully on hand-sewing and all of us managed to complete our very own pouch.

And so, I was left with 6 of the dyed pieces. I had thought of making a tank top out of them but after playing around with the pieces, I figured there wasn't enough fabric. (Well, on hindsight, with some extra fabric from the stash + some creative piecing, there could be enough..)

In the end, I decided to choose 4 from the 6 pieces and display them in their full glory. And I thought the best way to do so would be creating a Kimono-ish top, 1 dyed piece for each panel. And hence, the birth of my Kimono cropped top.

The front: floral + damask

The back: Triangles + Peranakan (The overhanging piece is from my striped piece)

I'm not that thrilled about the white lace trim. It would have been more lovely if it's dark blue. But I guess all I need now is a nice white dress to pair this top with... My next sewing project?

As for my 2 leftover dyed pieces, I guess I will sew another pouch out of them.

Daiso Maniac Saturday: #14 Lemon Honey Caramel Corn

Just because. I love. Lemon honey. =P

I guess caramel corn is a snack that can't go wrong. It's been around Singapore for pretty long (first heard of its existence about 8 or 9 years back..) and I kinda like it. And now it comes in my favorite flavor!

Yum!