Easter grass tip

This Easter I decided to grow Easter grass for the first time in 15 years maybe. It looked good for two days, because I'm not really into growing grass and don't know how to keep that stuff alive. The reason why it looked good anyway was because of Iitala's Aalto "vase". I had never thought that I could use it for something else than keeping keys and change in it.

Then it started to look really sad. The same day I threw it away I got a bagful of seashells  and an Iittala's Irish coffee -fridge magnet and other stuff from huuto.net, which is kind of like the Finnish version of ebay. And I think the seashells look much better in this vase than grass or keys. It's a complete waste to use something so beautiful to something so practical.

Hungarian decor magazines

So, right now I'm studying in Pécs, Hungary. Even though I'm an ERASMUS student, I have a lot of time for actual studying (hungarian language course and writing my master's thesis in marketing ) and for interior design magazines. Of course I don't understand anything else than the pictures and the prices, but I don't care. I "read" them through and then rip off the pages where I saw something cool and then file them in my inspiration archive when I get back home to Helsinki.

For my dissapointment, though, the magazines seem to be dragging like five years behind... Being used to finnish and international magazines like Divaani and Elle Decor, it was interesting to read these. A lot of black and white "baroque" stuff and everything that's out of style everywhere else in Europe. But I think that it's the same thing in every country. I mean, in Finland at least, there are some lousy magazines too.

The positive surprise here was this "Szép Lak". A lot more stylish than all the others I have bought here. In the picture above there are some of them. I think I'm gonna keep buying these "Szép Lak" magazines until I go back home in June, but I'll also go on searching  for other good ones :)

Picasso

I went to the Picasso exhibit last week at Ateneum in Helsinki. Needless to say, the paintings looked totally different than in the photos so that was money well spent :) It made me extremely happy! Then I started to look at the creations like "If these were commercially worthless, which paintings would I wanna hang on my own walls". Of course they're all great pieces of art, but just too colourful for my taste usually... These are the ones I especially like:

Le Peintre et son Modele

 

Acrobate

La Suppliante

Jaqueline Lisant

Minotaure Caressant du Mufle la Main D'une Dormeouse 

 

Le Baiser

And this one I thought would be really funny in a hypothetical kids' room in the future

Enfant Jouant Avec un Camion

Bensdorp Cacao & Smith Kendon tablets

I adore these old "tin boxes". It's not easy to find a perfect one. The bigger one I found from an internet auction (huuto.net) for 14 euros or something and the smaller is from a flea market quite near our place. The second best flea market  in Helsinki (Valtterin kirppis). I needed a  can for my green tea leaves and this was just 1 euro. That's a bargain. And I think I'm not done with these. I rarely like retro stuff but these are just so cute :)

Chairs gone white

I'm not the biggest fan of reddish wood, but we do have that kind of furniture quite a lot in our place. Solution: paint :)  I bought some acetone, white paint and other equipment and then started removing the red from these:

 And then they looked like this. I didn't even know there was a beautiful light birch wood underneath. It kind of would've been nice to leave them like this, but the tone of these was quite unbalanced and the white paint was already waiting :)

And so they turned out to look like this. I love them now. Now they match so much better with the mostly black and white decor :)

Bedroom art

A couple of years ago I had an idea to glue black&white pics to an old wardrobe door. Dad made trims to it so it's deeper than a regular wardrobe door. The pictures are from my childhood when I liked to cover the walls of my room with tiny black and white pictures. Here's a picture of me doing the decoupage.

And here some close ups.

 

 It used to hang on the wall in my ex-homes, but now it looks better just leaning to the wall on the Ikea Malm drawers. The bedspread is from Tallinn, which is a great shopping city! Not as good as Helsinki but cheaper :)

Last spring I bought 5 meters of top quality silk from Bangkok and turned them into curtains. I love the deep dark blue colour in them and how they look so bright and cheery in sunlight :) And they cost almost nothing :)

Funny Ideas