Wednesday 28 November 2018

WHEEL IT!


You may know that my love for putting wheels on, or rather: under things, is just about as big as my love for pockets.

When we made Dag's room we put wheels under most of the storage. Easy to move around when playing, building fortresses and creating new secret worlds.


He has a bench with boxes filled with toys underneath, that he can roll out when he needs them, to where he wants them.


I planned and Eddi made a lego tray to build on, and then push under the bed for when not needed. And also to mimize the amount of hazardous little hard pieces to step onto when spread out on the floor (they still appear there too though...)

And I got a couple of transport trolleys from the hardware store to store the bigger toy boxes on.
(Yes, half of our house consists of Lego.)

I wonder if there is something more that I'd manage to wheel still...

Sunday 18 November 2018

EVERY SEASON IS JUMPSUIT SEASON


I'm continuing my -apparent- theme colours for this fall; here in a jumpsuit I sew myself in a dark, plum-brownish shade.

I've noticed that sewing is perhaps the closest to a hobby I have, as I otherwise don't really have time for one (unless buying lipsticks counts as a hobby). While I have to do a lot of sewing for work (costumes) too, sewing for my everyday-self is something of a threat as I am not able to do it whenever I'd like, and it is not something I have to do but want to.

I made this based on a thinner jumpsuit I have, bought last summer.  That one fits and hangs great but the fabric was cheap and got floppy very fast. So I decided to make a new, better quality version. As you may remember I am not used to working with patterns, but I often copy things I see. Cutting is always the hardest part, sewing is easier. I will still need to make a small lift in the waist as it gets a bit bulky there, and I want to add a couple of decorative buttons in the front - but otherwise this was a rather quick and painless project!

The difference to the original jumpsuit turned out to perhpaps be the over-all feel - while this fabric is better and sturdier, it does not drape, or rather hang, as well as I thought it would. (Making a fitted dress or a short-legged romper version out of this material might have been the optional use.)  It did turn out quite nice in any case although it is not a straight copy of the old one, but it is just as comfy! And that's the big deal here.

Tuesday 13 November 2018

THE ATELIERI O.HAAPALA BOOK


The crowd-funded Atelieri O.Haapala book is finally here and it is so beautiful I almost want to cry!

The bi-lingual book -the texts are both in Finnish and English- features the studio's portraits and distinctive style of photography from the last decade (the studio/project was active 2008-2016 and produced more than 7000 portraits),  taking you on a journey trough an imaginary past:

Performers, artists, family portraits, guests at events who photographed themselves in the popup photo booth, as well as some of the studio's own project series and adventure scenarios...

...not to forget a few of Saara and Marcos, the photographers', most iconic theme-looks!

But apart from being a book with hundreds of beautiful creative images to aesthetically enjoy, this work functions as quite the emotional nostalgia pack for me, being filled with amazing people, dear friends, and oh-so many memories.



The Atelieri O.Haapala book is a superb coffee table book and will most definitely make a great Christmas present! Get your own book via their website.

Monday 5 November 2018

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SUNDAY EVENING


Sunday evening moments -

Corrected a final seam to a jumpsuit I sew myself last night and intend to wear to the very last filming of Vintage Valtakunta season 2 tomorrow.

I also sew Dag a plush seal. It was the first plush toy I ever made. Dag has this new phase where ninjas have had to move over for seals! It's drawing seals x100 and facts and pics and videos about seals all the time.  He had even made me adorable instructions on how to make hime the seal.

Now it's hair colour time - roots and ends! I always mix a lot of different hair colours to maintain my hue, but the colour I've used for my roots for the past year and a half is Shcwarzkopf Live in the 'cool rose' shade.

And I intend to enjoy some tea, peanut butter-banana sandwhices and reading about space while the chemicals do their thing.

How was your first November Sunday?

Tuesday 23 October 2018

APPLES & GINGER

Do you still have apples from this fall? One of my favourite things to make of autumn apples is apple mash with ginger!

Apple mash is what we usually cook of apples around here; as in smoother than jam with bits and looser than a hard marmalade. 

I usually make one jar spiced with vanilla as well, but the ginger version is my favourite -just grate a little chunk of peeled organic ginger at the end of cooking the mash and enjoy a spicy treat that goes well as a jam on pancakes, porridge and peanutbutter sandwhiches (especially!) but due to it's taste also is a great add to salty foods like grilled tofu or meat.

Saturday 20 October 2018

PLUM, DARK BLUE, AND ALL THE COLOURS OF AUTUMN


You've seen me talk about it trough the years - my love for autumn. I do enjoy all seasons (except perhaps for spring, as spring in Finland often turns out rather not only short but non-existent; two months of disappointment. Sadly), but while I always long for a short (hah!) snowy winter and feel most alive during summer autumn still turns out to be my favourite time of year. And this year it has been magical! Like you would have wanted to walk around with your mouth open all the time and just do a constant 'Wow!'.
 
Ah, the light, and all the colours!

My colours for this autumn turns out to be plum and dark blue. And all things checked and plaid, as usual.

But the bye-bye to all of this this is around the corner; the inevitable will soon come – no more light, no more colours.

It's a good thing we have candles, fairy lights and red wine to battle the Mordor-months with! Bring it on!



Tuesday 9 October 2018

COLOURS AND FROST


Today it's the gloomy Halloweenish weather one would expect with mid-October approaching (already! What? How?), but yesterday we woke up to a breathtaking colourful frosty sunrise that I even tossed out barefoot for to try and catch with my phone -

The view to the south is often like a painting. This is also the bathroom view, and one day eventually the view from the study-to-be; the brown room which for the moment is just (you guessed it): boxes.

Colourful trees to the west! And the old barn of the farm peeking from behind them.
The study will be the only room in the house, apart from the living room, with windows in two directions. That actually makes it the nicest room in the house. This, plus an apple tree in the front, would be the view from the second window.


Amazing colours to the north!

And the rising sun in the east.

I really love crips autumn mornings like this, when the air is fresh and cold and the light makes everything magic.  But give it a month and we will be up earlier than the sun, wake up to dark mornings, when the universe evens out all those light days we got during summer...


Saturday 6 October 2018

THE SEASON(S) APPROACHING...


Let me first start this by saying that I am definitely and foremost waiting for Halloween (and now that the second week of October is about to start I consider Halloween-season here!).

But.

While it is as little as 80 days until Christmas (!!!),  it is only 56 until our yearly Christmas show, which this year will kick off the whole festive season:
This year we are celebrating at our Rubies-Klubit burlesque club's home venue Sture 21.

Poster by me, as usual.

Ps. and first Halloween, yes. Catch me at these Halloween events: Horror & Tease in Tampere Oct.13 and our very own Rubies Klubit: Demoniklubi on Oct.27!

Friday 28 September 2018

OCHRE AND WINE RED

Last spring before I went to France I quickly made this yellow ochre-coloured A-line skirt (like, the actual night before, because that is what insane people like me do in order to maintain a maximum stress level). I had had the fabric waiting in my to-do pile of fabrics for a few of years already and decided it would make a great and comfy travel skirt. With large pockets, of course.

Skirt-show-off walking, as one does.
Dark yellow is a strangely versatile colour that pairs well with many others, and I especially like it with wine red. Maximising the level of autumn-points.

Photos by my friend Asko Rantanen / Asko Jonathan Photography who takes amazingly creative pictures.

Monday 24 September 2018

LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE


Photo: Neil Kendall

It will be a full moon tonight and if the sky is clear I know I will most likely be woken up by it, as it stares straight into my window around 3am with a light strong enough to penetrate my sleep. But I still don't want to close the curtains because there is just something about being woken up by a bright full moon, so I most often tend to stare back at it for a while and ponder the universe.

So in honour of that I'll post a picture from a photo series inspired by Méliès 1902 film La Voyage Dans La Lune – taken at the end of this summer, when I had the chance to shoot with amazing vintage style photographer Neil Kendall in Chester and I got to be the first one to try out his new moon set!

Not to be shared without proper credits.

Friday 14 September 2018

THE LIVING ROOM


We finally have a living room!

Yes, there has always been a living room downstairs, but that room still has boxes and extra furniture from our former city flat everywhere, that have been waiting for the renovation to progress so they can be taken into use and the downstairs one glorious day be emptied up of extras. A day which is very much closer now than a few months ago. (Insert big choir underneath my window singing Hallelujah! the Bach way here.)  We had basically been hanging out in the kitchen for the past two years while first fixing up the boys' rooms, and this summer we finally got the upstairs hallways turned into a hang-out space. 

The hallways was always ugly, unpractical, and tended to collect junk. There are no proper before's of that exact reason. A long time ago when I first came here it made you feel like a tiny hotdog in a bun as one wall was ketchup red and the other mustard yellow. Eventually we coloured the walls white as a quick fix. The ceiling was this strange plastic-cardboard-probably-very-great-in-the-eighties-material. Here are some of last summer's progress:


New ceiling and new walls. I wanted an apricot-y shade on the walls; this is Riviera by Tikkurila. The hardwood floor was in good condition but not nice per se, so it stayed but changed it's looks with paint.
Eddi hand-painted the checks on the floors. The same as the downstairs hallway, from where the stairs lead right up to here.

A lot of things are from our old Tapiola-living room -

(The cats have totally destroyed those red chairs btw. Anyone know of a good upholsterer?)

But some found their way from other rooms, or are in one way or another new - my old movie theatre chairs that had been waiting on the front porch for, umm, five years or so finally made their way up to be put into use! Scraped a lot of old hard bubblegum off underneath those (yuck!)... We also have a tv for the first time in years

The lithography is from my late grandmother's home. She got it as a gift from a lady she had helped during ww2. I always liked the colours in it.

Haha these vases were waiting for the living room to happen, collecting dust in our bedroom forever. Eddi got me the blue-and-white one from a job trip to South Africa and I thought it was a bit ugly until I got the two small other mid-century vases from my grandmother's home when we had to empty it, and I thought of pairing them together.
The Helsinki-poster by my graphic design idol Eric Bruun hangs here now as a nod to what I still consider "my" town, next to a map-poster of where we now live (the village of Vassböle), that  my sister gave us some Christmases ago.

Nothing is ever really ready though. Doors are missing, books need to be taken out of boxes and arranged and the bedroom corridor still needs a new ceiling and walls and and and...

(And now we have no front door because the front porch is being renewed. But that is another story. Right now however I intend to hang out with Netflix on a bigger and comfier screen than the usual laptop-in-lap. Netflix, theatre chairs and red wine it is!)