Thursday 26 January 2017

UMK: TWO MORE DAYS TO GO


Most of my time the past months, or if not most then at least a lot, has been taken up by my participation in UMK; the competition for new music, which in other words is the national selection for the Eurovision.

It has been an interesting project in many ways, but we'll get back to all that next week when this is over!
 
Some time ago we were filming some inserts for the finals. Chrzu was directing and gave us lollipops.

Everyone loves our glitterboots. But hey who wouldn't.
 
But even awesome glitter boots need to be taken off every now and then.
Btw you did know that Dali designed the logo for Chupa Cups, right?

Last weekend it was our turn to do a Facebook live for UMK. Which we casually shot at Weird Antiques. Love that place. 
 
Tinker Bell and I play miniature bongos.

The place has monkeys. And you know who loves monkey? Me! Me! Me!
They have this monkey-o-matic BimboBox that I one day must own.


And today we had the first rehearsals at the Metro Arena. I'll spend the rest of my week there and on Saturday we go!

(And, oh, there's still time to pre-vote -nr.5- for a few hours, *wink wink*. Only in Finland though, and by signing in to Yle.)


Monday 23 January 2017

A MINIATURE A DAY -


You may recall I have a huge love and fascination for all things miniature. As well as photo stories (my Milk Toof, remember?). Minitature Wunderland is one of my favourite nerdy places to go when in Hamburg. So when I stumbled across Miniature Calendar and it's small smart dioramas by Japanese artist Tanaka Tatsuya I was of course blissfully happy! And there are so many of them, as Tatsuya has been creating these for years, one for each day. *late night insomnia browsing topics secured*


Ah, so many genius thoughts there!

All pictures from Miniature Calendar
You can follow the artist on instagram @tanaka_tatsuya

Monday 16 January 2017

SHOWTIME!



A few photos from a show we did last week with The Ruby Knuckles Sextet.
All photos by Jani Karlsson.


Sunday 15 January 2017

A SELFIE AND IT'S META VERSION


Last night at the club night I co-produce -RubiesKlubit -Nancy took a photo of me and these two gold sparkling performers, Bébe and Bent, while we were indulging in the act of taking mandatory backstage selfies.

I probably have a thousand of photos like these by now in my phone, smiling fab people with a lot of glitter on them squeezed together to fit an instagram square (as well, as fit in a tiny backstage). But they keep on appearing, just the heads in a different order, after every show...


Monday 9 January 2017

DO THE TWIST, DO THE GO GO, DO THE -




Here's the music video for the UMK17 participation song that I am a part of!

We filmed it in November with a bunch of our friends and students taking part of the shoot.
Some people love it and others hate it but that's how it is with most things in this world.

It's going to be really interesting to get to do the actual show on January 28th because it's, of course, a production of a size a lot different than the ones I normally get to work with. It's also naturally a rather time and energy demanding process, albeit also a fun one, of which you can see more of in my instagram and the Ruby Knuckles instagram aswell.

Saturday 7 January 2017

MIDWINTER


When everything is not really that white, but a lot of different hues.

And cold. Oh so cold.


The usual countryside photo view in it's winter mode.


And my cherry trees in theirs.
(There's also a cake behind the summery cherry tree link and here's the recipe to that btw: Dream Cream Candy Cake with Cherries.)



When it's very cold everything is sort of slower, in a very strange mode.
I think Tove Jansson captured the cold loneliness of winter so well in the Moomin book Trollvinter. I often think about that story and it's images on cold snowy days. How Moomin woke up and everythin was just white cold and oh so silent.


A snowy mist rose on the fields as the temperature sank and sank.

But, rumour has it that during this night the temperature will go up by some 20c and we'll be at zero again...

Friday 6 January 2017

WINTER WONDERLAND


After a weeks of rain and mush we got outselves a crisp white and sparkling winter! Here's an old postcard-inspired photo Asko Rantanen took and made of me in honour of that.

Well, two years ago actually. Today it's -20C, no one would go out and pose in the woods like that now, that'd be insane. Painfully insane. This was taken on a nice and snowy -1C day that was perfect for shooting, especially since we'd planned a snow queen shoot for weeks but it had kept on raining and we had decided on the date for the shoot and to just go with what the weather offered and ta-dah! In the morning everything was white and beautiful.

And now it's also breathtakingly beautiful. Quite literally, go beyond minus fifteen and it actually hurts to breath. (But to be honest I am enjoying it when it last three days or less. You got to have yourself a little winter every once in a while.)


Tuesday 3 January 2017

PAINT AND SPARKLE


Happy new year to all of you!
2017 is SO the future already and  since I started blogging in 2007 it means that come autumn we've been haning out here on ze interwebs for a decade already. Oh my.

On New Year's Eve we went to a glitter & glam themed party.
"Must be very hard for you to find something to wear", said Eddi.

(A little show trick that works great for parties off stage too: apply some lip gloss over your lipstick and press fine loose glitter on top. Sparkly lips like whoah!)

I went for the glittery thing that was the most comfy. 
 
I made Eddi a glitter bow tie for the occasion. He added some sparkle to his to-be-or-not-to-be beard himself.

I also made Dag (I am guessing no child free New Year's eves for the next 10 years or so as no-one will babysit on nye, ever) his own sparkly bow tie so father and son could look adorable together but even though red is his favourite colour he refused to wear it. Kids.


 On this year's side I've, apart from being fluish, I've paited my head. Sort of. Put colour in my hair.

And started painting the windows. Finally, finally, finally!

I've hated the brown frames and wanted to paint them white forever, but one should actually take the windows out and do it properly; all layers (we have triple layers in Finland because of, well - Finland) which makes it possible only during the warmer months. And also hell of a job (I can be a lazy shit sometimes.) I saw mthat y sister had painted her window frames just on the inside and it looked totally fine, so decided to do the same. At least as a first step now, and perhaps one glorious day do it the proper way as well. I am painting with linseed oil which takes forever to dry, so this is a slow and somewhat of a on-the-side project.

But there are other faster projects going on here at home, i.e. I have been painting a lot more as well! But lets get back to that later.