Friday is my day: Helmitarha

Hello and happy July to everyone! Today we will spend a day in the company of Jana in Finland. She creates very striking and unique jewelry from beads, stone and leather - go take a look at her shop helmitarha.etsy.com for more of her beautiful work!

With this post it's time for me to say goodbye and thank you to all readers, commenters and especially the artists who have shared their day while I've been taking care of this blog. A big thank you also to Heli for giving me the opportunity to work behind the scenes here. :) Thank you all!

The blog will go on a little summer break now, but will be back in August when Heli is back at the helm. Have a very good summer, everyone!

- Maria/Morrgan

Flying Over Coral Desert - bead embroidered necklace. Fossil coral, MOP, crystal, pearls
helmitarha

Hello! My name is Jana and I’m the artist behind Helmitarha. I live in Kotka – beautiful city by the Baltic Sea. I live with my husband and our precious little squirrel-dog Liisa.

This is one day from my life.

6:45
I get up. I need to be at the office before 8:00 and I still need to get myself ready and drive 20 km to the city.

Check the weather – nice! Warm, but a bit cloudy.

Then I get a judgmental look from our dog for getting up so early. She’s always the last one out of the bed.

Then I get myself ready and go to the living room/kitchen. While the coffee is getting ready, I have a whole bunch of hungry fishes to feed.

Then I have a short moment to check my e-mails, blog comments and my Etsy store.

Coffee is ready and it’s time to sit on the porch and enjoy the weather. :) In summer we try to have most of our meals outside.

Hmmm... Looks like grass needs some trimming.

7:30 It’s tme to leave for work.

During the day I work in a small propery management company, but I’m always waiting for that special moment, when I come home and open the door to my workroom.

18:30 Here it is – one of the greatest moments of the day. I’m home and I can go to my tiny nook and dig into all of my treasures.

This is my temporary workroom. We moved to a new house just a couple of month ago and I still have a lot of things packed in the boxes. This room can fit only my table and couple of drawer units, but I’m planning to move to a larger room once we finish the reno.
Here is the other corner of the room. You can see my antique typerwiters right by the big pile of boxes that I still need to unpack.

Today I want to start a new project. I still don’t know, what it is going to be, that’s why I look for the inspiration around me...

stone beads...

seed beads...

My cabochon folder...

and bookshelf...
Then I decide to open the jewelry box and look at some of my favorite pieces.

Very often I like to ty new things – fresh design and unusual color combinations. That’s why most of my jewelry is one-of-a-kind.

22:00 Oh, I discovered 3 new sales in my Etsy store. Yay!

I sit down at my table, get my portable packing station and start packing the sales.
I enjoy the packing process, as I always imagine the face of the person that will be unwrapping it – untying the ribbon, reading the hand-written note and then discovering the jewelry piece that they are going to enjoy for many years to come.

23:30 It’s been a long day. My hubby pours me a glass of wine and we sit in the living room and talk about the day. Then I take a book in one hand and dog in the other, and we all head towards the bedroom.

Thank you for spending this day with me! I enjoyed your company! Have a good night! ;)