Butter box in zinc

For quite some time now I've been on a look-out for a nice looking but also practical box to store butter in, and not just any butter, but delicious Finnish salted butter (= ihan perusvoita tai Oivariinia) which is a must in our house just like Finnish rye bread (= ruisleipää) is. As my husband travels to Finland businesswise frequently we are able to have these in the house more or less on a constant basis.

I don't eat a lot of butter myself, however, if I want to have a nice sandwich, I certainly want to smear Finnish butter on it and now I've made my daughter addicted as well. We usually talk about "Finland-butter" (= Suomi-voita) and "papa-butter", which can be any of these very low fat containing margarine-types like Becel, Blue Band etc. which my husbands tends to use. We've learnt not to smear any papa-butter on Noa's sandwiches as they will be left uneaten :).
Same with the rye bread, luckily Noa loves it and most days I prepare a rye bread sandwich for her to take to school, and our freezer is full of it. It's very filling, healthy and delicious!

I've been checking numerous places, mainly webshops though and last week I finally stumbled across the perfect container in the wonderful Dutch webshop Kind van Holland. Ordered two straight away - and my zinc theme continues :).



The service was extremely quick, and the the two zinc boxes so beautifully wrapped!

I'm really one to utterly enjoy and appreciate it when someone has put in the time and effort in creating something beautiful. So thank you Ilona :)!!

This is something I got taught by my mother - to carefully open presents and to appreciate the effort and thought that went into it. Wanting to create something beautiful for the receiver when wrapping gifts myself, I can certainly relate to the other person as well.

Now it's my turn to teach it to my own daughter and it's cute to see her carefully open presents and not just tearing them open without a second thought, regardless of her young age. Ha ha, don't get me wrong, the occasional wripping of wrapping paper takes place as well ;).

Some nice extra's had also been added to my parcel. I felt like a kid at Christmas when opening the package.

I just love the pretty and nostalgic wrapping!

I've of course saved everything from the wrapping paper to the string and the picture :)

My pretty zinc butter-box revealed! The lid with the old postcard look is quite something, isn't it!?! That totally sold it to me.

As a matter of fact, the next butter and rye bread load is on it's way from Finland. Finally the butter has a proper "home".

This is how the butter package looks like. As it comes in various sizes I need to have a storage box that is big enough.

I just realized, that you might be wondering why on earth I need a nice looking butter-box as the butter is hidden away in the fridge anyway. Well, normally yes, but already a while back I got so frustrated every morning I had to prepare my daughter's sandwich for school trying to smear rock-hard butter on bread, resulting in the bread breaking into pieces - that I decided to leave the butter on the kitchen sink in room temperature instead.

Real butter doesn't need to be cooled down anyway, and no matter how nice the taste, the package isn't too pretty to the eye. But now that issue is solved and I'm looking forward to putting the butter into it's new hideaway :).

This pretty little box could of course be used to store anything from coins, receipts, special notes to say, jewellery. 

Summer cottage

With the summer rapidly approaching and vacation plans having to be made, my thoughts seem to be wondering more and more to our summer cottage in Finland. For me there is no other location that I would trade my summer vacation for, than Granö (Swedish for Spruce island) - an island in the Sipoo Archipelago slightly east of Helsinki where my family's summer cottage is located.

In Finland the summer vacations for kids are heavenly long - 2 and half months, stretching from June to August. Since I was born and before I started school at the age of 7 I spent approximately 4 months, and after that a minimum of 2 months each summer out on Granö more or less until I was 17. So you can imagine that my urge to be there each year and to make it an important part of my daughter's life as well, is very strong!

We are very lucky to have this place! It has been in my family from my father's side since the early 1940's and everything there with the exception of the current sauna building, was designed by my grand-father who was an architect. The old sauna building was hit by lightning one fall about 20 years ago, and a new one with a huge sun deck was built in its place.

Another nice thing is that I most summers get to hook up with the family, so my sister and brother with their families, my aunts, my cousins and now also their kids. Believe me when I say that when we're all out there at once, it's PARTY-time :)). This of course includes many nice BBQs and many late night sauna's :)!

The upper house with two additional rooms, and our fresh water well.

Here we have the main house, picture taken from the opposite angle. This lawn is perfect for playing football, croquet, or doing gymnastics - yes, one of those crazy families :)

This picture I took from this huge pine which is located next to the sauna building. This tree used to be one of our favourite climbing trees when we were kids... and a little bit older too :). The beach is so much fun for especially the kids. Many nice sand castles, villages and sand cars have been built on this beach. It's also great for a game of "Jeux de Boule".


Here's the tree, and this is how I got up there this time around.

Here you see a corner of the sauna building and a tiny piece of the sun deck.

View of the opposite island - Mölandet

A storm is approaching

My little blueberry picker

Close-up of the sun deck

Reflections in the water

Our outdoor toilet with a great all natural air-co :)

Little harmless lizzard. Sometimes they come and warm themselves in the warmth upon the sun deck.

This picture was taken during one of our notorius midnight sauna sessions. If I remember correctly I took this one just after having had a refreshing dip in the sea.

These two last pictures were taken at dawn,when the sun just started rising. I believe the only ones who were up were me and a couple of birds that were getting ready for their early morning symphony. The calmness of it all was quite magnificent!

This year just as last summer too, will feel different being at our summer cottage, since my YfatherY who was a BIG part of the island - and always will be - passed away end of last summer...

I'm so looking forward to July and the time I'll get to spend there, enjoying the simplicity, the peace & quiet, the nature, my family, the saunas, the boat trips, the BBQs, the long and late talks with my cousins and aunts accompanied by delicious wine, seeing my daughter enjoying herself,

- in short - RECHARGING my batteries with Finland-energy :).