I started blogging and had my first website created ten years ago!
This series is a sneak peek back into those days (and illustrations).

Ten years ago one of my dreams was to sell my handmade arts and crafts.

So I put up another blog where I could sell them. It was called Elinan puoti which in English would be Elina’s Shop.

The idea was to create colorful things that would bring joy into your everyday life.

I made all kinds of things from crocheted and knitted toys to finger puppets, tawashis, PDF crocheting tutorials and even board games and decorative stuff for homes.

I treated my online space as if it was a shop made of cardboard box and I was playing with it with my children like in the pictures above which were illustrations for the shop.

I knitted little woollen hats for spruce cones for playing outdoors and drew a series of comics where cones where using them, like here where they’re trying them on and laughing out loud – Imagining themselves as toadstools.

One of my favorite things though was to share Christmas magic with others by creating a special package on how to lure Christmas magic into your home. It was an actual invitation for Christmas elves to stop by and pay a visit and oh wow how THEY liked it and so did the children. I have always loved Christmas!

This board game was my variation of Snakes and Ladders, designed for little kids. It was really quick and fun to play.

During the time I had this blog up I was also creating all kinds of creative ways to raise little children. I invented ways to take their nightmares away, inspire them to do chores and stop whining about going to their day care.

But here’s where my multipassionate nature backfired, I couldn’t turn them into something that would sell. They worked for us, and the children who tried them, but they were not a business. They sold only one or two each, and so I immediately turned towards the next great idea. Always striving, never arriving…

And so when my children grew bigger and life changed, I lost my interest and started focusing more and more on drawing.

The lesson that I learnt from this endeavor was realizing that it’s not my thing to crochet multiple items, or sew a series of puppets but only to make unique designs.

Also now after I have drawn Mira a couple of thousand times without getting even slightly tired of her, I can say that drawing Mira IS my thing. It brings me back to love where I don’t constantly try to figure out how to do it or why. I feel I’ve arrived.

But I do love to look back and see all those things I created!

And can you imagine – I thought I never got anything done! I was convinced that I didn’t, and that’s what constant striving does!