Sushi Pillow

Sushi is my favourite food in the world and I could eat it all the time. And I'm so happy that I'm finally moving into a proper apartment with a big kitchen and that I can start doind my own sushi dishes again <3 It's been a long long time since I did them the last time. I've been a victim of my own laziness and uncomfortably small kitchens. I love sushi so much that I wanted to make a pillow that looks like salmon nigiri. Maybe not a good idea, because now every time I see it, I crave for the real thing. Anyways, this was a fun project :) Something to do while watching movies and being a lazy ass.

 

I got the idea from this website: 

http://www.theoriginalsushipillow.com/nigiri.html

But I made my sushi look a little different... (Not so good, because mine looks  more like some ancient Nintendo game mushroom). But I still like my version better, because it has sequins :) Maybe later I make a shrimp nigiri. But then I want to have a sewing machine, because my fingers look like shit after doing all the sewing myself.

A praise for Lush

My plan was really to stick to design and only design in this blog, but I can't help myself now. I love Lush so much. And I'm sad some people don't know that company. I prefer buying almost all my cosmetics apart from make up from Lush and so it becomes kind of a decorational thing that all the boxes/cases/packeges match. They're all black, my favourite "color". And Lush is really committed to environmental issues, for example they're motivating customers to recycle the packagings: when you return 5 of them back to the store, you get a free face mask.

I really really recommed Marilyn for all the blondes. I don't know how they're able to make a blonding hair mask using only natural ingredients (well, almost only...), but somehow my hair always looks so much lighter after using this. (The picture in my profile is really old, now I'm a blonde, especially under my hair.) So, go there: lush.com.

Festivo Design Wine

Finland is a place where everything is forbidden and I have no idea if advertising alcohol in one's blog is illegeal, but still I will do this. I got so happy this summer when I found these wine "bottles" in Alko (the only shop in Finland where you can buy wine), because they are both really handy and so pretty. (Plus they taste good, especially the white one.) Handy they are because you can open and close them during the night as much as you want  for example on a private island on Midsummer festival :D The prettiness comes by Paola Suhonen, a famous Finnish designer. I had a cute terry skirt with the almost same print when I was about 15 and I wore it all the time until it got some permanent hair color damage... Anyway, it says also in the back of this 2 liter wine box something like this is the first wine which matches the typical youthful and scandinavian table setting. In short, I love this new summery fresh idea and will propably buy the white wine again sometimes when I have guests coming.

Marimekko, my love.

This summer I needed to buy a new wallet and a new make up bag. My old wallet was torn apart and my old make up bag was way too small, so I headed straight to Marimekko. It's my second favourite Finnish design company and they're known all over the world. Even Carrie Bradshaw had Marimeko curtains! (The print is called Satula.)

http://www.marimekko.fi/eng

In Helsinki there's a lovely luxury shopping centre, Kämp Galleria, which has a huge Marimekko store in two floors. I love to go there although it makes me sad because I normally don't have money to buy the clothes or bags. But I bought these (the more inexpensive stuff):

The blue stripey one reflected my style so perfectly. It's not a usual wallet, it's kind of granny style, but I love stripes, blue and white and it was so easy to throw everything there, money and cards in the same pocket. BUT some mean idiot stole it in Spain. I lived there for a month this summer and with my friend we went to the biggest 2nd hand market place in Fuengirola one Sunday and after the round I noticed my dear wallet was gone :( And there was also a Marimekko store in Fuengirola (million Finnish people live there...) but I thought I would move on and not buy the same kind again.

The black and white bag I also love really much (the print is called Pirput Parput). I hope I never have to get rid of it.

Alfons Mucha art exhibition

Last week I went to see Alfons Mucha's art exhibition with my czech friend Monika in Pécsi Galeria. Alfons Mucha was a czech art nouveau painter and designer. One of the reasons I love Pécs is because everything is so cheap here. For example the ticket to see this exhibition was less than 2 euros. Other reason why I love this city, is because it's one of the three European culture capitals this year:

http://www.pecs2010.hu/

There are so many interesting things going on all the time and I love to participate in them. Festivals, art exhibitions, concerts, opera, theatre...

The exhibition of Alfons Mucha was especially interesting. His works are basically posters, ads, paintings, calendars and zodiac maps from the late 1800's and early 1900's and they mainly present half naked women surrounded by flowers and ornaments.

This is my favourite piece, you can see all the four seasons here.

Living in Boszorkány dormitory

Since last February I have lived in the Boszorkány kollegium, Pécs, Hungary, because of my lovely ERASMUS exchange. Today I thought I would post some pictures from here in to my blog because this is a very important place for me. Sometimes it's hard to sleep because the people are more like wild animals sometimes, but then the best thing is to join them :) Sleeping is totally overrated. The atmosphere is something totally different compared to Finland. People always say hi and goodbye in the elevator although maybe 800 students live here (I have absolutely no idea how many...a lot) and almost every night we have a BBQ-party or some other kind of party. On the other side of the floor is the Spanish ghetto, and on this side, where I live, there are people from all over the world. People don't really knock on the doors here, at least not in Spanish ghetto. That's so strange for me because in Finland I'm always used to plan any kind of visiting into someone else's place and of course you have to ring the doorbell, because no one in the city has open doors. But I really like this kind of living. At least for 5 months :) This small room is for two people, so there's a huge lack of privacy and not that much space in general...

Yesterday was the first time in a long long time when I really had time to clean up my room because I've been busy with my master's thesis. But last sunday I sent it to my university. It was about environmental sustainability as a part of company's brand strategy in the luxury interior design business. It was interesting, but of course I'm happy that it's over now. I had the best Finnish company as a case-company in my thesis, Artek, and I really became a fan of them during this year. But normally their products have difficult names, typically just a letter and numbers (for example the famous lamp A810). And I want to learn these codes. I always have to study something and I love memorizing lists. So yesterday I put this brochure on my wall so that it's easier for me to study them. Just for fun.

In our floor there are two kitchens. I was lucky to have a picture like this because normally this kitchen looks like a group of hysterical hungry hooligans just were there. Normally around 10-12pm there are ten people cooking at the same time all the time. But this picture was taken in the morning after cleaning. The cleaning ladies HATE us.

And this is one of our common rooms. The party room. Now there's only Murat studying.

Sometimes living here requires a lot of imagination. One reason is this: I have only one glass, one mug, one "plate", one spoon, one fork and one knife. And I still want to cook delicious stuff. Luckily there's always someone who can borrow stuff. Like my lovely slovakian roomie Katalin :)

Quite often my "cookings" are quite interesting, because I'm so lazy to go to the supermarket to buy food. This morning I only found one piece of wholemeal bread, margarin, sour cream, ketchup, sunflower seeds and chilli. (And of course a painkiller because last night I wanted to celebrate my finished marster's thesis...) But this sandwich was really good! I recommend! And with the best music, Chambao, it tastes ever better.

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.