. . Hanna Aalto . .

One of autumn highlights is trip to Finnish handicrafts fair in Tampere. There is 600 sellers in the fair. You can be sure that you get lots of ideas and materials from there.

This year I had made list of thing I need to buy. I found most, only I could not find lamb skins suitable for my projects. I got silver and smithing tools. This year I did not buy more than 2 strings of beads since I still have lots of them left. I also bought prometheus pronze clay for testing.

I have wanted to try nunofelting for long time. Thus I bought set of merinowool from Papiina oy. I also bought silk fibre for decorating felted surfaces.

One of autumn highlights is trip to Finnish handicrafts fair in Tampere. There is 600 sellers in the fair. You can be sure that you get lots of ideas and materials from there. This year I had made list of thing I need to buy. I found most, only I could not find lamb skins suitable for my projects. I got silver and smithing tools. This year I did not buy more than 2 strings of beads since I still have lots of them left. I have wanted to try nunofelting for long time. Thus I bought set of merinowool from Papiina oy. I also bought silk fibre for decorating felted surfaces.

Ahlskog manufactures very soft reindeer hides for big fashion houses (Armani, Vuitton…) and for crafters too. They had nice selection of cheap hides that had some flaws. At the end I bought 6 hides.

The best purchase was new 1920-style hat that milliner Sirpa Jäntti-Nikulainen had made. I already have a hat that she has made and it still looks like new even if I have used it for several years. Now I just have to make or find shawl that fits the colour and style of the hat.

Sometimes there is no inspiration for starting new works. Best way to get inspired is to look at paintings or handicrafts that others have made. Your subconscious will reflect what you have seen and then you start to get new ideas. Sometimes it takes just a second, sometimes new idea pops up after some time.

I had chance to visit London during our autumn holiday. Destinations were British museum, Victoria and Albert museum, Natural history museums and Warner Bros studios just outside London.

British museum

This museum is breath taking place. Both displayed items and architecture is magnificent. It was amazing to see many artifacts “life”, that I have seen in books or documents. Some items were smaller than I had thought, some larger. There were also artifacts that had been source of inspiration for me in my childhood.

V&A museum

Victoria and Albert museum is also very large and there is no chance that you could see all items during one visit.

Best exhibition in Victoria and Albert museum was visiting Hollywood costumes exhibition. There were costumes from almost all famous movies or costumes that made mark in history. For example there were dress that Marilyn Monroe wore in famous skirt flying scene, Charlie Chaplin’s costume, dresses from Queen Elisabeth movies and so on. Most of the costumes were totally amazing even from close. This exhibition was so popular that you had to buy tickets previous day.

Harry Potter studio tour

Movie industry has thousands of artists and artisans at their service. They make more and more amazing structures to productions that grow year after year. Viewers have become more demanding. It is not possible to use cardboard swords or styrox walls anymore. Everything has to be very realistic. Harry Potter film series is good example: artists and artisans created together with special effects group, whole new world.

Harry Potter studios are in Leavesden, 30 km away from London. There is very practical (although it takes 1,5 hours one way) bus service from London. Studio tour takes almost four hours. First two rooms are guided but then you can wander around with those 70 persons that enter the tour same time as you do.

Huge warehouses have all kind of props and settings from Harry Potter movies. Whole process of film making is covered in different rooms. There are models, paintings of planned settings, robots and so on.

Many props were interesting for artisan point of view. Some were genuine antique scientific instruments; some were especially made for these movies. Costumes were amazingly detailed and aged.

Only disturbing thing was lights in these warehouses. There were bluish or purple spotlights everywhere. They of course made atmosphere more magical, but spoiled (maybe on purpose) almost all photographs.

A long haired person needs sturdy hair forks. This hair fork is made of apple wood that is very strong and durable. Snail is sand casted sterling silver. Snail tentacles can’t be sand casted. I soldered them on its head latter.

I wanted to have “real” stone seal already when I was a child. Finally I managed to get one. Elephant is part of soap stone statue that broke inside luggage when we traveled home from India. I could not throw it away even the best parts were gone. Soapstone is easy to carve. Square block is some kind of soft green onyx. Carving workd was done with Dremel and sharp knifes and other tools.

Both seals have same writing Hanna (Hana) that also means flower.

Wall collection boxes became fashionable interior decorations few years a go. I made these wooden boxes before. They can be hanged in the wall and glass will protect the items inside.

Background is papered with beige wallpaper. Items are glued on with hot glue. Other box is filled with different kinds of seeds collected from our trips. In another there is small sample of seashells.

Both Janne and I collected butterflies and moths during our childhood. I gathered largest and most beautiful ones to these 2 boxes. These butterflies are on display in our dark hall, where is no windows. Light room would lead to fading colours. Rest of our butterfly and moth collection is waiting for suitable museum that would like to take them.