Why I have been away from you...

You might have noticed that I have not been with you for a long time but now I am back. What was I doing then?

First I was planning my research exchange time and then doing it: me and my family spent 6 weeks in Graz, Austria to study social media in automotive industry. Boy was it interesting! It is always to work in foreign country and learn about new cultures. The visit was in November-December so me, an old Christmas fan, was been spoiled by different goodies Graz has to offer, e.g. Christmas fairs. :) Loved it! During the Christmas time I was promoting our advent calendar but the main work was done by Linda, thank heavens we have her onboard!

After we came back to Finland we had of course plenty to do, e.g. meeting the family we had not met during Christmas. But I was busy with other things too.

The loveliest dollhouse blog in Finnish, Nukkekoti Väinölä

Source: maria-malmstrom.blogspot.fi via Johanna on Pinterest

Before I started Mini treasures wiki I had another wiki, Nukkekotiwiki, a wiki about dollhouses in Finnish. After all the time I spend with you the first wiki was lacking my attention so last year I decided to give some love for it too. My idea was to host a contest: the cutest dollhouse blog in Finnish. First I planned to run it after the summer but something happened: a major Finnish blog service called Vuodatus crashed. And it deleted the photos of its users from several years! Many dollhouse bloggers were using Vuodatus so to give them more time to recover I postponed the contest till the end of the year. The deadline for voting was 15th January and since then I have been telling the results day by day. The top ten bloggers are found on a Pinterest board.

Aamulehti interviewed me for CMAD, I am the lady on the right

Source: twitter.com via Johanna on Pinterest

But this is still not all! I am not only the community manager of Mini treasures and Nukkekotiwiki but I run other communities as well. Being a community manager is one of my passions - I want to learn how to do it well and how to get the most out of you. This is the reason I brought Community Manager Appreciation Day to Finland last year. Last year we were about 15 persons in that event but this year we were 150! And I was still one of the main organizers of the event. So you can guess I was busy with that event, I was thinking that it was almost like my wedding (we had the same amount of visitors back in 2000): I had been inviting a big group of people to celebrate a day (party) with me and to hear the speaches we had chosen for them. I WAS nervous but luckily everything went quite well.

So now my life is back to so called "normal mode". Of course I still have a business to run and a family to mother but nothing so special so should be able to spend some weekly hours with you from now on. :) I just wanted you to know why I stayed away from you for such a long time - hope you understand now better.

Mini treasures is not part of my business (yet) but just a hobby. I got the bill from the Pbworks again, 499$ a year. An expensive hobby I have, don't I? If I want to make my living out of Mini treasures we would need to get 100 times as much as visitors than we currently (14 000 montly visitors) have or to get our visitors to buy 100 times more from Amazon using our affiliate links (e.g. Mini treasures store). The combination would be easiest to achieve: 10 times more visitors and 10 times more Amazon shopping. So the next time you are thinking to buy something from Amazon, use one of our links. Consider also if you can promote MTW to your mini friends - it will encourage me to pay the Pbworks bill again next year.

Till later friends, I have been missing you!

Birthday party & a give-away challenge

 We have found a treasure! A mini treasure! It was done by Finnish miniature artisan Jaana Nykvist-Pekkarinen. She her blog.

She actually made two sets for Mini treasures 3rd birthday. Want to get one? Go and introduce yourself at Wiki members page during the April and you will be part of the lottery.

If you have already done that, don´t worry: if you just update your introduction during April, you will also get the change to win a special prize made just for us :).

Good luck, I am eagerly waiting to get to know you better than I already do. :)

Enjoy our birthday month! :)

A mystery house

Got pictures from a person who had found my wiki and thought I might know what this dollhouse is all about. I didn't so I am challenging you: what do you know about this (ps. you can answer also in Finnish - voit vastata myös suomeksi).

Measurements: width 46cm, depth 41cm and hight 48cm.

Interviewing Maria, fan number 250 in Facebook

Wohoo, nice to see where are growingin every front, recently we reached a milestone of more than 250 fans in Facebook. It will be interesting to see which services (Facebook 268, Flickr 258, Twitter 178, YouTube 28) reaches first 500 contacts :).

Hi Maria! How does it feel to be the 250th fan in our Facebook page? It feels fine, that means that there is lots of people who likes this lovely hobby :)

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do?I am Maria, mom and wife, miniaturist and engineer from Tammela, Finland.

Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures?
Yes, music is important for me, also reading.. I am big fan of Agatha Christie.. I am also quite a collector.. Beatles records, dolls, teddy bears, old toys etc..

When and how did you start doing miniatures?
My husband did me a dollhouse year 2000. All started then.

What is your latest / next mini-project? I am doing dollhouse Väinölä and Dollhouse Välitalo.
How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? JJ sent me the wiki address. I like the instructions/prints part, 40's, 50's.. there is lots of everything!

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? Difficult part.. all kind of projects! :)
Thanks for the interview Maria! You forgot to mention the shop you have ;).

Mini buttons for funding the wiki @ Lahti

Next week I am going to Lahti for a dollhouse fair. This is the fourth time already and once again I will be there my own junk. I bet you share my symptoms... When you have been doing this hobby for years you find out that you have too much of everything like materials that cannot be just thrown away as those may be needed someday by someone. I hope some of my junk is being rescued by people who really need them.

But this time I am selling something else too: MTW badges. I have a limited edition of 100 pieces, come and claim yours when in Lahti (or ask your mini friend to get one for you too if you cant make it). The profit from the badges goes to Mini treasures wiki to cover part of the premium version costs I am paying. If you want to join this group-funding operation you can also get a button for you too from Cafe Press, the price is
€2.00 = £1.50= USD $1.75 =
AUD $2.50 = CAD $2.50.

(There are other products too if you dont like buttons)

I am just hoping I do not need to wear all 100 buttons by myself ;D.

MTW goes to Finland

The first week went fast, didn't it? After visiting US we go forward and now it is time researh Finnish mini phenomena. As a Finn myself the area should be pretty familiar to me but let's see if even I can find something new. :) So study what Finland has to offer and be inspired of Finnish projects.
Ps. Next week we do Canada so be prepared!

New girl on the block

Three weeks ago I moved to a new city, Hämeenlinna. And today I joined a local 3-years-old dollhouse club. As many clubs they have also a traditional club swap and this is what they got today (I was not prepared for this). Next time I will teach them how to use the dollhouse wikis, Nukkekotiwiki in Finnish and Mini treasures wiki in English. As always it was fun to talk about minis. See you soon ladies!

Ps. Like in many families, the big sister (Nukkekotiwiki) is not getting the attention she deserves while mum (me) is taking care of the new baby (Mini treasures wiki). So if you are a Finnish miniaturist maybe you can sometimes go and play with the big sister while the mother has her hands full with the baby. The whole family would be pleased. :)

Interviewing Nanna, one of our top linkers

For a long time I have thought about interviewing Nanna who is bringing a lot of traffic to Mini treasures wiki through her blog and finally I did it. :) Good for me!
Hi Nanna! How does it feel to bring to be among the top traffic sources to Mini treasures wiki from a month to a month? Well, I was surprised to be a top traffic source for sure. I had no idea!

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do? I´m 37 years old mum of two children. I live in in the coutryside aboyt 20 km outside the town of Porvoo in Finland together with my husband and our two dogs and a cat. I work at my family company but we are also farmers.

Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures?
Sure thing, I love arts and crafts. I draw a lot with my children. I also do "trackin" with my dog = tracing wounded animals, blood traces and so on.

When and how did you start doing miniatures? I´ve always done miniatures! I had a dollshouse when I was little, but I got my first adult dollhouse 2002. And from then on miniatures has played a big part in my life.

What is your latest / next mini-project? My latest project has been a roombox for a competition in Finland.

How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? I found the wiki with help of my many mini friends. One could say that the jungle drum led me to it :o) My favorite page is the links page, so I can find everybody elses blogs and photos.

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? Lots and lots of more lovely miniatures! Maybe a children´s page?

Thanks for the interview! Thanks to you too! And keep up the good work!

A children´s page! What an interesting idea! I guess you mean a page for the kids who a doing also miniatures... How do we define a kid then? Someone under 15? This is a really good idea, help me to make it true by telling how you would do it.

Finnish pages and Moomins

To show an example for you I filled the pages for Finland and Finnish. And while I did it I found out a new Youtube video for Moomins:
I love Moomins and have created some Moomin projects with my kids last summer - but haven´t had time to take photos yet. Some day, some day...

Wiki metrics

Some time ago I shared metrics from Google Analytics with you and as I found it really interesting I do it again. :)

TOP-10 countries (wiki visitors)
1. United States
2. Finland
3. Canada
4. Spain
5. United Kingdom
6. Netherlands
7. Germany
8. Australia
9. Denmark
10. Philippines

Are these the countries with most miniaturists also?

On average people stay 5 minutes in the wiki and visit 3.13 pages.

I started measuring the wiki in November and now there are 50 people who have visited the wiki 100-200 times during these months. Quite a lot :).

The most popular search phrase was ´how to make dollhouse from foam core´ so I made a new page for that.

The most popular wiki pages during the last 30 days were:

1. printables
2. main page
3. trash_minis - I am very glad about this since I am one of those miniaturists who love to turn trashes to treasures :)
4. diy - do it yourself is number 4 while shops are lower...
5. projects - my favorite page as I always want to do theme projects
6. hearts - well, we just had Valentine´s day :)
7. roomboxes - interesting, roomboxes are more popular than dollhouses...
8. shops
9. advent_calendar_2009 - people were still looking at our advent calendar and I am not surprised - it was very nice indeed, thanks again for everyone who participated :)
10. facebook - a new page I created to collect all those nice fan pages and groups there in Facebook for us miniaturists and doll lovers.

Top-10 sites bringing traffic to the wiki:
1. google
2.(direct) - via bookmarks
3. flickr.com - via our group I guess
4. nukkekoti.pbworks.com - this is my dollhouse wiki in Finnish
5. facebook.com - via our Facebook page I guess
6. bing
7. schifka.vuodatus.net - via Nanna´s blog
8. yahoo
9. ca.mc539.mail.yahoo.com - via Canadian Yahoo mails
10. hannajaleijona.blogspot.com - via Hanna´s blog

Nanna and Hanna both belong to a dollhouse discussion group called Nukkekotielämää which I started with my friends 7 years ago and now we are like one happy family with about 40 miniaturist (we are limiting the amount of members so that we can know each other). I am very happy to have them in this list :).

The more I study the results the better I can customize the wiki for you. I just wish I had more time for this...

Visitor number 5000 on wiki's main page

I have been busy elsewhere so there's a delay in this interview. But some weeks ago a magical number was broken again, there have been more than 5000 visitors in our wiki's main page (not everyone are using that page when they visit the wiki.)

Hi Mervi - How Does It Feel to Be the visitor number 5000 in our wiki's main page? It feels really great to be 5,000 visitor. And greeting all the dollhouse enthusiast.

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do? I am Mervi Kejonen, 46 years old, married with two children. I live in Nurmes, eastern Finland. I'm not at work, I have the support for rehabilitation because of eye disease. I have not a home page for my dollhouse yet.

Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures? Miniatures in addition to a variety of tea, crafts, mm. sewing, duct work, weaving.

When and how did you start doing miniatures? I have been doing miniatures all my life, but actually I started about two years ago, when I bought houses from Piironki and Lundby.

What is your latest / next mini-project? The latest and the following projects are related to furnishing Piironki and Lundby houses.

How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? Mini Treasures Wiki I found when I began to put the first doll house. I put the google search the word doll's house and then I found this wiki. Mini Treasures Wiki is a really good in overall, but perhaps the best are the blog pages, where you can be find other miniaturists and their miniature projects: objects and furniture, etc.

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? Can not think of what I would like to see the Wiki in the future. But there is alread a lot in Mini Treasures Wiki what I follow.

Thanks for the interview! And when you get the homepages don't forget to add the link to the wiki :).

4000 visitors in our wiki, interviewing Hanna&leijona

Few weeks ago the milestone of 4000 visitors in our wiki´s home page was passed and the visitor number 4000 was Hannajaleijona (Hanna&lion). So let´s ask her a few questions...

Hi Hanna - how does it feel to be the visitor number 4000 in our wiki? It's cool! It's good that there are more and more people visiting and using wiki. This is our common database and a great way to get lost in all the eye-candy you find following the links at wiki.

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do? I'm Hanna, soon 38, a mom, a dance-teacher and a mini-maker from Finland. (Psst: here´s a link to her Etsy shop)

Do you have any other hobbies than miniatures?
I try to get myself to do something else sometimes, but it's difficult! I watch tv when I'm lazy and I do stuff with my daughter a lot, but I don't think I have any other hobby.

When and how did you start doing miniatures?
I've done miniatures in one way or another all my life, but in an almost obsessive way for about four years. It started with my daughter's first doll's house.

What is your latest/next mini project?
I have all these ideas and projects going on and getting mixed up in my head and in our home... I've made two small houses, it's sort of a beginning of a neighbourhood, but I'm collecting stuff for a theatre too.

How did you find Mini treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? At the moment my favourite is the advent calendar, of course! It's so much fun to see a new page every morning. I used a lot of the Finnish version so it was a natural shift to international wiki.

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future?
Hmmmm.... dunno really. A lot of new links to all kinds of dollhouse blogs and homepages. I'd love to see different projects like zoos or circuses or amusement parks. It would be lovely to see really cool sci-fi or fantasy-settings or a hommage to Simpsons. Also it would be cool to have links to all kinds of historical dollhouses around the world. But then again... there might already be things like these at wiki!

Thank you for the interview Hanna, it was a pleasure (like always) to talk with you :). You are right, there were some of the pages already but I would also like to see them growing so keep adding cool links to the wiki :).

Hej till Sverige!

(Title translated: Hi to Sweden!)

Yesterday it was Swedish day in Finland (there are 2 official languages in Finland: most of us speak Finnish and about 5% Swedish) and to celebrate that I edited the Swedish pages in our wiki.

blogs_swedish
forums_swedish
home_pages_swedish
swedish
sweden

If you know more nice Swedish links, feel free and add them. :)

PS. I am starting in a new job soon so I don´t have too much time for the wiki at the moment.

Wooper will be missed

I heard something I still can´t believe: one of the most beloved miniaturists in Finland has unexpectedly passed away. I just want to express my condolences to her family and friends - the dollhouse people in Finland will never forget Wooper.

I run out of words.

Wiki slogan and a story behind

A site and service needs a slogan, right?

In the morning I found the slogan from my head:

Mini treasures wiki - Connecting dollhouse people.

I love it, do you? :) The true meaning of the wiki is to help us to connect with each others.

I started this hobby back in 2000. In that time I didn't know anyone doing dollhouses and but then I found Yahoo groups and was thrilled - I'm not the only nut :). I started to network with other miniaturists in Finland and a little bit outside Finland too - now one of my best friends are found via the hobby.

When the hobby was hardening in Finland I quit the foreign groups and started to promote the hobby in the web in Finnish. I established own Yahoo group with my 2 friends, Nukkekotielämä in 2002 and that group is really special: in 2004 we build a dollhouse together and in 2005 we published the very first dollhouse hobby book in Finnish. Our other projects are recorded in our common web page.

My dollhouse web pages (started 2003) were pioneering in Finland and in 2005 I started one of the first dollhouse blogs in Finland. In 2006 I started the Finnish Dollhouse wiki (Nukkekotiwiki) and by now it has found its place among the dollhouse enthusiasts.

Now it's time for me to go back to the roots and start dealing with miniaturists around the world again. :) Back in 2000 it was nice to find someone who do dollhouses but now that we are so many in web I want to mainly find my soul mates: someone who does similar projects than me. My wiki can help me in that and I hope it will work for you too. Whether your dollhouse is occupied by skeletons, Sylvanian families or James Carrington originals, whether your dollhouses are in 1600s or 2000s, in Rome, London or NY, whether your dollhouse shops sell candies or hardware Mini treasures wiki will help you in finding similar projects.

I'm so thrilled about this since I know that if I succeed with the wiki it can change the way we all do this hobby!