Happy New Year!

Q&A in the December issue of City magazine

There was a Q&A with me in the December issue of Finnish City magazine. You can read the whole interview online here.

x

Salla

Don't miss your chance to win a Po fringe necklace!

Today is the last chance for you to enter the Po giveaway at Devon Rachel! If you're in luck you'll be the proud new owner of some lovely fringe action! The two fortunate winners are raffled at 5:00pm CST, so if you haven't already taken part, now is the time! 

Good luck everyone!

x Salla

The Best Christmas Movie Ever: Rare Exports

The true colors of Santa is revealed to young Pietari, played by Onni Tommila.
Photo ©Mika Orasmaa, via Rare Exports image bank.

I don't want to sound like the traitor of my nation, but besides Aki Kaurismäki films, I've never been a huge fan of Finnish movies. For some reason they just don't appeal to me. There are exceptions though, and a big one is Jalmari Helander's Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. I went to see it on the big screen when it came out last year and was completely blown away. This R-rated piece of brilliance is now available on dvd and I'm going to make a tradition of watching it every Christmas. 

Santas are hot commodity.  Photo ©Mika Orasmaa, via Rare Exports image bank.

The cast: Ilmari Järvenpää, Rauno Juvonen, Tommi Korpela, Onni Tommila and Jorma Tommila. Photo ©Mika Orasmaa, via Rare Exports image bank.

I really don't know how to describe this movie to you non-Finnish people who haven't seen it... Therefore I encourage you to go and read this really good review of the movie by the prestigious film critic Roger Ebert. He rated Rare Exports three and half stars!

Happy Holidays!

x
Salla

Po giveaway at Devon Rachel!

Devon Rachel wearing Scylla Pearl necklace. Photo © Devon Dyer

The Texan blogger Devon Dyer from Devon Rachel is having a Po giveaway this week, so if you want a chance to win a Po fringe necklace, head over to devonrachel.com and enter the competition before December 28th!

The posting also includes a short Q&A with me and some great outfit photos of Devon sporting her new Scylla pearl necklace. I’m always curious to see how people style my pieces and I was delighted to see how she manage to combine junky necklaces with sunglasses, leopard print and electric blue without making it look too busy. Absolute opposite, the outfit is very coherent and top notch elegant head to toe. Great work Devon! 


x Salla

Ferocious photos of Fernando Pinto

Photo © Fernando Pinto

I was browsing through the Internets the other day and I found this amazing picture of the fierce, yet beautiful creature that you can see above. This image immediately made me think of Miss Grrrr since the tiger in question most definitely possesses a similar fearless attitude. 

Annoyingly, the page where I discovered the photo didn’t include the photographer’s name but luckily after some digging, I found out that the shot was taken by Venezuelan born, now Californian based fellow named Fernando Pinto. I contacted him and he was kind enough to let me feature some of his impressive shots. 

Photo © Fernando Pinto

When I first saw the close up photo of this sanguine white tiger, I presumed that the shot must’ve been taken by a professional photographer for an animal encyclopedia or a similar kind of publication. Therefore I was very surprised when Fernando told me that even though he has always loved photography, it’s merely a hobby to him. 

Photo © Fernando Pinto

Photo © Fernando Pinto

Photo © Fernando Pinto

These shots were taken 2007 in Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, California. You can view the whole series of photographs in Fernando’s Flickr here. 


x Salla

Miss Grrrr attacks Etelä-Suomen Sanomat Magazine

Etelä-Suomen Sanomien viime lauantain numerossa oli mukava juttu Po:sta. Lämpimät kiitokset siitä toimittaja Saara Larkiolle ja valokuvaaja Katja Luomalle!

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There was a really nice article about Po in the local magazine Etelä-Suomen Sanomat last Saturday. Thanks again editor Saara Larkio and photographer Katja Luoma!

x Salla

Po creations available at Kimi!

Hoi Lahti! Eilisestä alkaen valikoituja tuotteita Po-mallistoista saa Kimistä. Ihana liike ja maailman mukavin myyjä löytyvät osoitteesta Hämeenkatu 13. Rientäkäähän katsomaan ja hypistelemään! Aukioloajat ma-pe 10:30-18, la 10:30-14:00.

Howdy Ho Lahti Finland! Starting yesterday, selected pieces from Po collections are available at Kimi. The store is wonderful and the owner is one of the loveliest people in the world, so you most definitely need to go and check it out! Opening hours mon-fri 10:30-18, sat 10:30-14:00.

Inspiration for Vigilantes, Part II

After I had the super hero theme figured out I started flipping through a pile of old animal encyclopedias I've been collecting (I’m a sucker for vintage photographs). I wanted to make brooches with animal characters and after playing around with different ideas I decided I wanted my dynamic duo of daredevils to be a lioness and a bat boy.

A male liger in California. Picture via Ligerworld.

I thought it would be fun to create background stories for the characters, so I started researching stuff about lions and bats. It was then when I first stumbled upon an article about ligers. Truth to be told, I didn’t know such creatures even existed, but apparently they do. According to Wikipedia, a liger (Finnish: liikeri) is a hybrid between a male lion and a tigress. Since lions and tigers habitat don’t overlap in the wild, they only exist in captivity. Liger is said to be the largest cat animal in the world and besides males, also female ligers may attain great size, weighing approximately 320 kg (705 lb) and reaching 3.05 m (10 ft) long on average. 

Male and  female ligers in ’a zoo’ in Habir, China. Picture via Ligerworld.

Somebody rubbed this pussycat the wrong way. Picture via Dailymail.co.uk

After learning all this about ligers I of course wanted my heroine to be a similar kind of hybrid. The fact that ligers only exist in captivity and that in some places lions and tigresses are intentionally breed by civilians to produce puppies for sale, made me come up with the background story.

I pictured the dispute where she lost her eye being something similar as the final showdown between Elle Driver and the Bride in Kill Bill 2...

After ligers, it was time to turn to the world of bats. I was surprised to learn that there are about 1,240 bat species worldwide. Most of eat insects and fruits and perform vital ecological roles such as as pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds. To my knowledge, only three species out of the 1,240 feed themselves with blood, so the association of bats being vampire-like, blood thirsty creatures is overly exaggerated.

Out of all the species I find flying-foxes especially endearing. With their foxlike snouts and big eyes I wouldn't mind a fellow like that hanging from my attic roof. Unfortunately, we don't have them here in Finland since they mainly exist in warmer climates. I found this National Geographic Mission Programs video about the orphan bat pups in Tolga Bat Hospital in northern Queensland, Australia. Check it out, it's almost too cute...

Watching this video, I could so see my little hero bat hanging from orphanage's roof, eating apples and bickering with the other pups, planning future mischiefs. I imagined that after growing up flying around the world he could've met Miss Grrrr somewhere in Tokyo. Grrrr managed to safe him from a bunch of sanguinary bodyguards of a retired yakuza, whose car our alated misfit was trying to steal. After this, Moonbat refuse to leave Miss Grrrr before returning the favor and ever since they've been inseparable.                                                                                                                                                                                

That's all folks, you can view the whole Vigilantes vol. 1 collection here. Needless to say there's going to be sequels to this saga, so stay tuned.

x Salla


Ps. In case you were wondering, and I'm sure you were, Moonbat's last name is Flittermouse. ;) 
Miss Grrrr -brooches are available in my Etsy store. More Moonbats joining them soon!

Inspiration for Vigilantes, Part I

I thought it would be fun to shed some light on the work process that preluded House of Po’s first Ag jewelry collection, Vigilantes vol. 1. So here we go!

The original idea for Vigilantes came to me after seeing the movie Kick-Ass. The film tells a story of Dave Lizewski, a nerdy high school kid who decides to become a superhero even though he has no training or even a meaningful reason to do so.

Watching the movie I was especially captivated by the character of Hit Girl, played by wonderful Chloe Moretz. Here’s a trailer of the movie showing this 10-year-old vigilante kicking some serious ass. I can’t help it, I just think it’s cool as hell.

After seeing Kick-Ass, I started reminiscing all the super heroes I liked as a child. Being the kid of the 80’s, He-Man and Turtles were a huge thing for me, but above all, my absolutely favorite must’ve been the rerun of 1960’s Batman TV-series. I remember being about 5-years old and taping every episode and watching them over and over again, until the VHS tape was so torn out that I could hardly make out the picture anymore.

Batgirl was of course my favorite and I adored everything about her: the revolving closet in her apartment, the tulle adorned moped (seriously, how cool is that thing!) and the purple outfit. Here’s a short clip of Batgirl (played by Yvonne Craig) getting ready for some camp style action. I’m afraid the quality of this snippet is as bad as the videotapes I used to watch, so try to bear.

Ok, that’s all for time being. I’ll be returning to this topic in Inspiration for Vigilantes Part II, with more insight how I ended up making a collection about an unlikely superhero team of a feminist, mistreated liger cat and a slightly wino, banana beer loving bat.

To be continued...

x
Salla

Learning to blog...

Writing longer texts in English has turned out to be more challenging that I first thought and my blogging so far has been more newsfeed-like. I'm trying to post longer and more insightful things about my work process in the future.

I've had my hands full working with the rest of Ag collection jewelry. The whole collection has gone through quite a metamorphosis during the summer and I'm super excited about it! Hopefully I'll get around to photographing next week so I can update the webpages and reveal the new look to everyone.

Meanwhile, I've also created some new items for the Au collection. I'm really keen on these green versions of Scylla necklaces. They're made of this wonderful two sided, shiny green fabric I discovered from a goofy flea market nearby.

Medium and small size Scyllas are now available in my Etsy shop and cost 39 euros + shipping. http://www.etsy.com/shop/houseofpo

  x Salla

Iku, Scylla and gold version of Bat's Treat necklaces now available!

I had another photo shoot for my Etsy store, this time with my friend Hanna. It included lots of coffee, giggling and cupcakes. I'm hoping it will become a tradition...

www.etsy.com/shop/houseofpo

x Salla

New items in my Etsy store!

I recently had a photo session with my friend Jenni which was almost too much fun, it didn't really feel like work! You can check out the results and my new Bat's Treat necklaces at Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/houseofpo

x Salla

Tikau Share's Design Helps -auction

Po is very happy to take part in Tikau Share's Design Helps - auction with Iku-necklace. The auction is held Friday 27.05. 2011 at Astoria-banquet in Helsinki. Timo Lassy Band and Reino Nordin will be performing at the happening.

More information about the auction: http://tikaushare.org/

x  Salla

........

Po on mukana Tikau Share ry:n järjestämässä Design Helps -huutokaupassa. Huutokaupan tavoitteena on auttaa köyhää kastittomien kylää Intian Orissassa. Astoria-salissa 27.5. järjestettävässä tapahtumassa esiintyy Timo Lassy Band ja Reino Nordin. Lisätietoja tapahtumasta ja huutokaupattavista tuotteista löytyy osoitteesta http://tikaushare.org

Website open!

After months of hard work my website is finally open! I want to thank dearly everyone who chipped in and helped me in any way. Whether it was by donating materials, helping with the site or just giving me hug when I really needed one. Honestly, thank you. I couldn't have done all this on my own.

I'll be posting more stuff about my collections and upcoming Etsy shop soon. Remember to tune in!
x 

Salla