Wallpaper on the wall

It took me all day to get the thing on the wall (I have made nothin like it before, so it was a live-and-learn situation). I'm so proud of my work :)

Newspaper wallpaper

I saw, maybe ten years ago, a small room wallpapered with old newspapers in some interior magazine , and I still remember thinking: SWEET! I newer thought that there might be a ready wallpaper just like that! Until I found the perfect wallpaper for the "room" (picture below) I call this tiny place that leads from the hall to the bathroom and kitchen. The wallpaper is going to go on only one wall (that you can see below) because all the other walls are with doors (and because the whole room is 150x150 cm, there is not so much wall left there).

I love this appartment, but the bath+wc+loundryroom is really tiny (150x165 cm!) I'm planning a small loundry-maintenance-area in the "room" above. The wallpaper is going to go on the wall and the the white board you can see on the picture too, is to be a kind of worktop. Underneath it will be a place for dirty laudry and I'm also planning a narrow closet to the corner to keep clean towels and stuff.

BTW, Jaakko found that ceiling light on a dumpster. He cleaned it and it looks as new alltough I expect it to be some 40 years old. We re-wired it because the old wires weren't lookin too reliable.

Decorating, it's almost spring!

Mornings are beginning to light up and it always makes me more active and hopefull. It also helps that our "new" appartment is strarting to look like a home (Can I call it new if we've lived in it for 3 months now? Yes I can!). I like painting and woodworks and thatkind of stuff, but it's nice to focus on the little things occasionally. Like clocks! And I have my heart set on this one:

http://www.habitat.co.uk/fcp/product/browse/Analogue-wall-clock/968486

It would be big enough (50x50 cm) and just look at it!

The other thing that made me smile this week, was a story about Hammerpress. I'ts really old school and still working press. You can see from the picture what kind of things they do. http://hammerpress.net/

From Wikipedia I steal this next sentence: Letterpress printing is a term for the relief printing of text and image using a press with a "type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image.

Sweet! Small industries like this always appeal to me for some reason.

Banksy

I have found something absolutely amazing and fun! It all started last summer when I was visiting London with my friends. The wall paintings (and more accurately) stencils there caught my attention. I hate grey, dull city scenery, so it's very pleasing to see some brave ones to take action! So I'm not the guerilla-type of a person, so I mostly admire others. (But you never know when the need to do something takes over).

So the wildest thing to me was not to go to a paint store, but to buy an inspirating picture book about stencils and other wall art from (suprisingly) the British Museum (I SO love museums). On one page there was a fine picture, but I was mostly interested about the text above it: Banksy can kiss my ass. Banksy who? Then I forgot all about it.

But this week I travelled to Helsinki (to study for a couple of days). I went to Kiasma - the museum of modern art. The level of how much feelings and thoughts the art there awaked in me was really diversified. And the best place was the little store downstairs. All the books and little trinkets! Ahh!

There I lay my eyes on a book about Banksy. Ahhh! This is the one! Wow! Look for yourself: http://www.banksy.co.uk/

By the way. The most funny modern art piece was by Anssi Kasitonni. It looks like this:
http://anssikasitonni.com/

Mumin illustrations

I like the old Mumin pictures and this fall I've seen two new illustrations. These are from trays (by Muurla) that I photographed today.This last one is really perfect, with the soft shades!

Gray Day - Viva La France Anyway

This ringed seal is ready for abroad adventure. This shop (or actually travel agency) window is the high light on my way to work. The seal is so cute because the people of the travel agency have made the little baret just to fit the little head and also custom made the newspaper it is carrying (while dreaming of a holiday in France). I'll be dreaming of it too soon if the weather doesn't change. I usually love the time before christmas alltough it's really dark, because the snow makes all seem bright. But now it's grey and there's no snow at all, only water and mist.
PS: ringed seals are very rare and this area is famous for having the last few in the precinct. Alltough they look like mother nature's giant sausages, they don't have any other natural enemies but humans. (Picture is from WWF/Jouni Koskela)

Nekobasu cake and other things

My wery talented friend Henriika made this incredibly fine nekobasu look alike for our friends baby shower. The future mother loves the movie Totoro and this was the source of inspiration.

Last couple of months I've renovated and painted like a maniac with J. We bought a three room appartment from an old building. It was built 1949 and has the biggest repairs done, but still it needed a lot of work done. Now we're living and renovating here at the same time, but it's almost ready and I love, love, love it!! I will post some pictures.

Aaaand my favourite season is goming up: Yule-tide :) JEI!