Hotelli: Julkisivua - The Hotel: The Exterior

Art Deco -tyylisen hotellin rakentaminen edistyy aika verkkaisesti. Rehellisyyden nimissä itse rakentaminen on minulle pakollinen paha; pidän enemmän sisustamisesta ja minien tekemisestä. Siksi valitsin rakennukseksi Gepeton Aurinkoisen. Se on tukevaa tekoa eikä sen seinät tai lattiat väänny harrastus- tai innostustaukojen välillä. Ulkoisesti tuleva hotelli ei näytä Art Decolta lainkaan vaan vain sisustus.

Olen maalannut kaikki ulkoseinät vaaleanpunaisella kalkkimaalilla. Kuvassa väri näyttää aika valjulta, todellisuudessa paremmalta. Seuraavaksi keskityn kattojen maalaamiseen, lattioiden tekemiseen ja tapetoimiseen. Ehkä jokunen tyyliin sopiva tai muu mini syntyy välityönä.

Building the Art Deco-style hotel is slowly moving along. In all honesty, the construction work is a necessary evil for me; I prefer interior design and creating the minis to the build. That's why I chose Gepetto's doll's house Aurinkoinen (=sunny) for the hotel . It's a sturdy house and I need not fear for its walls or floors warping when I end up having breaks with the work. So, the future hotel's exterior will not look Art Deco at all, only the interior. (Note that I'm not benefiting in any way by providing the link to Gepetto's site.)

I've painted all the exterior walls with pink chalk paint that I had in my stash. It looks a bit pale in the picture, much better in real life. Next, I will work on the interior ceilings, floors, and wallpapering and I will most probably make some minis, too.



Lasimaalaus yläkerran pyöreässä ikkunassa. / Stained glass covering the top floor's round window.



Julkisivun sivuseinää. / Part of the exterior side wall.

Kerhoiltojen tuotoksia - Miniatures made during club meetings

Pieni hylly jätskitikuista. / A small shelf from popsicle sticks.



Retropannunalunen paperipillistä. Alkuperäinen ohje löytyy Maria Malmströmin kirjasta Pienessä mittakaavassa.

Below is a retro trivet made from paper straws and painted. Cut tiny srips from the straw and shape them into triangles, tear drops, and circles. Paint and glue together.

Puutarha - The garden

Löysin hiljattain kaapista vanhan, valmiin työn, jota en ollut kuvannut koskaan. Mielenkiintoista. Tämä ei ehkä ole mikään helmi mutta kuvasin työn nyt kuitenkin ja laitan sen myös näkyville nettiin.

Ruoho ja pensasaita on tehty vanhasta teestä ja maalattu vihreäksi - aika vahva väritys. Kivetys on kivimaalilla maalattua munakennoa ja myös kukkaruukut on tehty munakennosta. Sohvan runkona toimii vaahtomuovirasia - nykyään niitä näkee ruokakaupoissa enää harvoin. Puutarhapöytä on syntynyt pahvista tai balsasta ja sekin on maalattu kivimaalilla. Suihkulähteen vesisuihku ei ole kovin hienostunut mutta näyttää kestäneen aikaa hyvin.

Tämä on niitä varhaisia töitäni, joihin sain inspiraation harrastuksen kalleutta päivitteleviltä ihmisiltä. Halusin osoittaa, että mielikuvitusta käyttämällä rahaa ei tarvita paljon. Työ on tehty v. 2006!

I recently found a miniature work of mine that I had never photographed. It may not be any of my best works but I thought it was worth photographing and showing online.

The hedge and the grass were made of old tea leaves and painted in [pretty strong] green. The good old egg carton was used for slates, painted with stone effect acrylic paint, and also for the flower pots. A styrofoam food container covered in pretty fabric works as the sofa. Such food containers are seldom found in grocery stores these days. The garden table is probably made of cardboard or balsa wood and painted with the stone effect acrylic paint. The fountain's water jet is not very sophisticated but it has stood time very well.

I suspect that this is one of my works inspired by people who kept telling me how expensive my new hobby was and I wanted to show them that with a little creativity you can spend as little as possible. The garden was made in 2006!



Koko puutarha. / The Garden in its entirety.



Pikkutyttö on tulossa puutarhaan. Pöydällä ja sohvalla on selvästi aikuisten tavaroita: viinilasi, silmänaamio, hattu ja kirja. Kenen ne ovat?

You can see a little girl entering the garden. But hold on. There are things on the table and the sofa that have nothing to do with little girls. There is a wine goblet, a masquerade mask, a bonnet, and a book. Who do they belong to?



Lapsia aina kiinnostaa vesi. Niin nytkin. Kastuukohan tytön mekko?

As always, children are fascinated by and drawn to water. Is she going to get her dress wet?

Kaikki Puutarha-kuvat löytyvät flickr-albumistani.
All the Garden photos are available for viewing in my flickr-album.

Art Decoa kutistemuovista - Art Deco from shrink plastic

Kutistemuovikokeilut jatkuivat ja lopulta nostin uunin lämpötilan 170 asteeseen. Silti jouduin painamaan kappaleita suoriksi ja nyt ne onnistuivat jo melko hyvin.

I continued to experiment with the shrink plastic and finally raised the oven temperature to 170 Celsius centigrades as per the instructions. Nevertheless, I had to press the pieces flat to straigthen them out. This time they turned out OK.

For the love of miniatures

Thank you for your comments to my previous post, which inspired me to write this one.

Although population-wise we're small, area-wise we're the 8^th largest country in Europe (out of 51 countries). Therefore, small miniature fairs, often organized by either miniature enthusiasts or local miniature clubs, take place approximately monthly in different parts of the country throughout the year. What's more, miniature businesses often exhibit and sell their items in connection with a couple of major craft, design, and hobby fairs, like the Craft & Design Fair in Tampere (178 km north of Helsinki) and "Handy & To Do" in Lahti (112 km north of Helsinki). The links are not sponsored.

The main source of event information, sometimes also of global fairs and happenings, is included in the Finnish Doll's House Magazine, published five times a year by the Finnish Doll's House Association. Want to take a peek at our mag of February of this year?.

I became interested in miniatures twenty years ago. There were no shops, online or brick and mortar, specializing in miniatures; only hobby shops. Most miniatures were ordered from abroad or made by ourselves. There was only one book about doll's houses in Finnish by Vivienne Boulton, translated from English (nothing wrong with translating books, though!), and also the association was taking small steps forward.

Twenty years later the miniature scene is completely different. There are at least six miniature shops in the country and tens of books written in Finnish - I have 12. Books in one's native tongue are important; not everyone has in-depth knowledge of a foreign language, not even of English, the lingua franca of today. Despite online translating tools, some of the translations into a non-Indo-European language, like Finnish, can be somewhat odd.

Currently, the association is thriving by not only publishing the magazine but organizing events and courses, and running campaigns. This has happened thanks to an ever-growing number of very active miniature enthusiasts who have been - and still are - working mostly voluntarily. All for the love of miniatures!

Wanhan ajan lelumarkkinat - Olde time toy fair

Aina jotakin tarttuu markkinoilta mukaan vaikka oikeasti en mitään tarvitse...

The annual Olde time toy fair was organized in the sleepy little town of Forssa last Sunday (not a sponsored link) and although I really don't need anything, I knew that I would end up buying a little something. Although the name suggests it's only about old toys, it really is mostly about doll's house items.

Näitä kauniita ja taidokkaasti neulottuja villapaitoja ei voinut ohittaa.

There was no way I could pass by these skillfully knitted sweaters. The one on the left is a traditional Ostrobothnian Jussi-sweater, often worn by men. Learn more about the Jussi-sweater (not a sponsored link).

Pari jugurttipurkkia. / A couple of Finnish yoghurt tubs.

Arpajaisvoittoja.

Members of the Finnish Doll's House Association (link only in Finnish and it's not sponsored) always attend all toy and doll's house fairs in the country with a stand of their own. There are already over 1,200 members in the association, which is a lot in a country with a population of 5.5 million. Anyway, they always organize raffles in the fairs and I won these: scales, a bottle of disinfectant, a mask, and some rubber gloves.

Lentäjällä on maski jo käytössä! / The pilot is already wearing the mask!