Handicraft fair

This weekend is one of the best weekends in the year, because Tampere hosts Finnish Handicraft Fair in Pirkkahalli. I was there last year for the first time and I was washed away by the multitude of handicrafts, creativity and pure fun the place has to offer. Of course there are always plenty of people, but it doesn't bother me at all, since everyone seems to be having great time! I always get loads of ideas and feel a bit envious about the abilities some people have... And I also always end up buying something. This year, my mom joined me and she was quite amazed, too, by the fair. We both agreed that it is the best fair in the country, because it's so diverse - and still everything has to do with handicrafts. E.g. the International Book Fair usually starts to repeat itself when you walk around, that's not the problem with this one.

Anyway, I highly recommend. This year I ended up buying a temple (the thing which keeps the cloth stretched in the loom) and some fabric you can print on. Most of the time I urged my mom to buy stuff, mostly Christmas presents. :) Here are few picks of my favourites:


Latimeria's wrist bands. I'm a really bad person to buy a gift for, since I don't feel like needing anything and I'm really picky about what I buy or use. That's why quite often the gifts I recieve will end up in some corner unused. I'm also extremely picky about the jewellery I use (I hate gold, brushed steel is my favourite), so it's very rare that I ever find anything I fancy. These are really pretty though, but I'm a bit dubious that they would suit me, since they are so broad and my wrist is quite thin. :(


Sammallammas foxes! (Okei, Senni, säästit mielenrauhasi olemalla kotona. :D) They had apparently a new design, too, since it's not in the homepage yet, but they had on sale BLUE FOXES! Cutest things ever! (Well, I guess this doesn't open to everyone, mainly only those who read the book called "Ainakin miljoona sinistä kissaa" when they were kids - and those who adore foxes. Like S.)


Anna Pusu Design's glass droplets. I saw them in the fair last year, too, but I forgot the name and tried to look for them frantically but couldn't find. This year I didn't make the mistake. :) These glass pendants are just awesome, but you really need to see them live, since they only sell them with the pics you can load there in their webpage... But in the fairs they have a huge collection of really cool pics, like Marilyn Monroe, James Bond, Suursyömäri (from Käytöskukka!), Uuno Turhapuro, Kekkonen, Audrey Hepburn, Princess Leia (well, not this year anymore), Donald Duck... Well, basically anything you can imagine. Pretty as hell! ;D

So, all in all very pleasant experience. Now I can go back to feel sick. I (like apparently many other classmates, too) caught a cold from Austria. Makes your head hurt. :(

Jigsaw puzzles!

Ok, I should never go shopping when I feel the spree coming. :P I wanted to buy a couple of the advent calendar Christmas cards and ended up coming home with piles of stuff. Well, what can I do if there are huge piles of jigsaw puzzles in the shop! Especially if one design has some astronomical pics in it... So, those of you astronomically inclined, how many of the objects can you recognise in this pic? And I mean honestly, it's not enough to say "I know that some of the moons of Saturn are Dione and Rhea", you need to really recognise them from the features. And you are not allowed to use books or other aids. (It helps to see the real package, sorry;).



I think I got as far as 29. Fun, though.

I'm still in search of some of my old jigsaw puzzles, they have disappeared at some stage while I was moving my stuff around when living in NZ. :( They were really dear to me so I'm devastated that I haven't been able to find them... One of them was the old star chart with 2000 pieces, one was a pic of a sunset over the ocean, also 2000 pieces (I was rather proud when I got it done!). The one which I never had time to finish was the 3000 piece one with a pic of some mountain range. And there were a few more, too. I still have some slight hope that they might turn up one day...

Europrix

Last weekend, our class spend few days in Graz, Austria. This trip was part of our Networked Media Culture course. The reason why we travelled such a distance was that Graz hosted Europrix festival. This festival is an annual event and it is open for the young media talents of Europe. There are several different categories to enter and the competition is hard.

Since we have talked a lot about the festival in one of the other blogs, (my Blogger account starts to be a bit confusing, I wish we wouldn't open another blog for every course...), I won't go too much into detail here. Just to mention that I enjoyed the trip quite a lot! It was nice to get to speak German again (and not to slip talking English), to see the beautiful city in beautiful weather and to relax a bit. I got tons of new ideas and I finally found out what I am actually studying (it's been a bit of a question mark for me until now). :)

I really wish I could do that trip next year, too! Here's a photo taken by one of my classmates, Miska, from an evening event hosted by the local broadcasting company ORF.

Submachines

Picture from Pastelportal.com

I'm completely hooked on the Flash games by Mateusz Skutnik. I like point-and-click puzzle adventure games much more than anything else (I hardly ever play anything else), and these I consider to be the elite of them all. Especially the Submachine series. The atmosphere in them is enchanting, the music captivating.

I like the way Skutnik is capable of keeping the overall feeling throughout the series, also Daymare Town is a good example. There is a Game Design course going on at school (which I unfortunately had to skip since I just don't have enough time), and they were talking about how what you can do in the game is not as important as what can you feel in it. Spot on. I would love to create something similar one day... Maybe when I would have time to learn Flash better? (Bloody ActionScript 3, I hate coding. :P)

Submachines and other stuff you can play here.

Oven mittens

I've been pretty busy with my Tähtipäivät project, writing project plans and stuff for school. (I guess I'll write more about that later here.) So, not much time for anything else, all that jazz has made me tired.

My friends had their birthday yesterday, we went to have fun in some cultural activities (theater, that is). "Hamburger Börs" in Turku city theater was quite a lot of fun. Should be doing more of those... As I've known my friends for such a long time, it feels stupid to buy anything for them as birthday presents. I hate everything that's been given only because it is expected. That's why I try to make as much by myself as possible, or give experiences. This time I crafted two oven mittens for my friends, since I found suitable coloured yarn in my closet. (It's great to make a small inventory there occasionally, I always get ideas.) Turned out quite ok. :)