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!