Pancakes :)

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American cook chef

Slovenian cook chef

 America vs Slovenia












You know every now and then you have that hunger for something delicious in the morning. Well, Melissa and I had it for some time now. We wanted to make pancakes, and because it’s much nicer to make pancakes for more than just two, we invited some friends over to my place and we had the most delicious breakfast in a while. 
Susanna, Alina, Veronika and Cathrin came this morning and enjoyed this meal with us :D It was great start of even better day :)But the biggest reason for this cook off was comparing European (or let’s say mine) pancakes and American pancakes. We wanted to see which ones are better. But as it happened, we did not come to conclusion. Surly we all enjoyed it. And there is just no way to see which ones are better.  I mean, how can anybody who enjoys food as much as I do, decide. There is just no way. Everything is good. :)

 Result

To conclude this useless blog, I can say that after long week, this morning was a healthy change.
Thanks to Alina for the pictures. :)
Enjoy and smile!

Game design workshop with Gareth Noyce and Lassi Kurkijärvi

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As one of my courses here in Tampere, I’m taking online course Game design. Name already tells you all about this course. It’s a course about games, and how to design them in concept stage. We learned about basic structure of game design. What we need to have good concept before we go to development stage. After few tasks on the basic stuff, we split in groups, and started to work on our designs. Each group, hat at first, 25 different game ideas. I know’ your thinking, what 25 ideas, why? Well, we are all full of ideas, and sometimes is hard to know which are and which are not good. Also sometimes we get too attached to some ideas, and don’t realize that they are not so good. To get easier trough selection process we gave comments on ideas from other groups, and other groups commented on our ideas. At the end of this stage we had few ideas, that got best comments and we could decide on our best idea and develop it in detail. So, for last two months we worked in group, to get all parts needed for great design. And this week, on 30. 11 and 1. 12, we had workshop to present our design. 

Gareth Noyce and Lassi Kurkijärvi (photo by Heidi Mäenpää)

To evaluate and comment we had two guests who know a lot more about game design that we, because they bout work actively in game industry. Gareth Noyce who is Development Director at Ruffian Games  and Lassi Kurkijärvi who is manager of Mobile Development at Sanoma Digital. So two really capable guys gave comments on our designs.

 

 

 

My team, The SuperSmash Foreigners was on second day of the workshop as first presentation. We were prepared and confident that our concept is the best, awesome and brilliant (it was actually in presentation):P.  And everything seems to be true. We did presentation in best possible way. Explained all aspects of the game and show also some sketches. When we finished, we got best possible feedback. Gareth and Lassi were really satisfied with concept of the game. Gave as some advice how to go on, and encourage us to develop the game.

SuperSmash Foreigners at work (photo by Heidi Mäenpää)

We are really proud with what we achieved. (more on game and team in next post)

After workshop, we also had party, where we had fun. Played some guitar hero and DJ hero, drink few beer and talk. It was nice to talk to Gareth and Lassi, about what they did already in there carriers. But the best part was when I realized that they are two most awesome guys. We told us the most funny stories from past. At some point in the evening we compared photos from young years (that was actually my fault, because nobody believed me that I had black hair) (and also Heidi was sure that I’m 25, end then I had to show her, what a big difference my hair do). It was amazing :D The best, most random night in my life.

 

See you around!

Randome day!

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Random days.

Yea, I just decided that random is good. That is mostly because of yesterday.
You see, yesterday I woke up and I thought that it’s going to be another boring day, like most of this week. So to go out on the fresh air and catch some sun I decided to go to the city. I had no plans what so ever.
But that changed soon. I texted friend and we went for the coffee, some company felt really good, probably for both of us. Then I just went walking around. Went to some stores, just to see how expensive everything is. However I ended in one of the second-hand shops. I already talked about this shops. You can find the all over the city. So I found one that I have never been in and took a look. It did not take long that I found something. But this was not just a lamp or something cheep. It was headset that I was thinking of buying, but since in store is like 49€ I decided not to buy it. But here I found it for 14€. My day just go a lot more fun and interesting.
After that I just wandered a bit more around, till I felt hungry and went home.
Rest of the afternoon went as any other. Not doing much, watching YouTube videos and eating like a pig, and the rest of the day should also go in similar way.

However, somewhere around seven in the evening one exchange girl asked on Facebook if anybody is going to The Subways concert. First thought was like “ok, let’s check them out, they do sound very familiar”. So I did. Went to YouTube listened to a song and immediately I remembered them. I think Vanja or Tanja showed them to me. But I was like “eeee I don’t know….” You know how it goes, when you have your own battles. Well at the end I just decided to go, drink a beer and run on the bus.



When I came to the Klubi not that many people were there and some pre-band was playing. I got a beer, and waited for the show. In the mean time the girl that suggested concert also came, and we knew how we should look, even if there was no light in the club. But we did find each other. Around then, band started playing, and let me tell you, they are great. I really forgot how amazing I feel on concerts. Especially this small ones. I don’t know, it’s something about the atmosphere and smallness of the place. Interaction with band is stronger. Just amazing.








The Subways are really good band. Honestly I did not expect such a great night and it was worth going. :) At the end of the concert I even got drummers stick and signatures from all three of them and a picture with Charlotte Cooper. Sooo happy :)

Ahhhh random amazing days are my favorite

I like it!

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Lately more and more stuff is random and I must admit, I kind a like it.  It’s not that before there was not randomness in my life. It’s pure fact that all the time I tried to control my environment. But suddenly I stopped. Well maybe not entirely, but I don’t mess my head with everyday plans. I know the important stuff and let everything else just happened. 

I’m young! I have to stop trying to be somebody else, and start being myself. Even if I don’t have any idea what so ever who I am. I shall find that out along the way. But until then I intend to enjoy myself. Like today. I again, just went to the city. Run in a friend that I have not seen for a while now on the bus. Walked around, enjoyed the weather. Even if it was windy and snow is melting so now everything is dirty and messy. But fuck it, after all this mess spring is coming. Sun will shine more, and birds are already louder. 

I know that right now, I might seem straight out of the book. You might think yea I’ve seen this before. But it’s just how I feel. It might be weather or it might be that I’m getting old (just kidding), but honestly, I feel great. 

Life’s good :)

Assassin's Creed III

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All Assassins Creed fans: 
 

If you have not noticed jet. Ubisoft revelled cover for just announced AC3 which comes out in October 30^th. From the cover, we can see that it will be placed in America at time of American Revolution which took place in 1775 to 1781. IGN.com suspects that it will happened between 1777 to 1778. There are several clues that suggest that. Like flag in the back and uniforms of the solders. 












I must say, I am very excited for this new chapter of AC. I just love the way this new character looks. There are some strong Native American signs. However, I don’t know how will the gameplay be satisfying. In previous ACs we had lots of building to climb, high towers and so on.  But at this point in the history American colonies were not so populated. There were some cities, however none of them were anything like Venice, Rome or Constantinople.  But we’ll see. I thrust Ubisoft not to disappoint us. 


Today there were also some screen shoots leaked. They do reveal quite some more stuff, but this are still just some speculations. It seems that we will be able to climb threes and hunt. So for that surrounding areas will get stronger position. 
But most importantly, we know now that our targets are British soldiers and influencing figures. And our friend will be George Washington.
Also on Monday,5th of March they shall revel trailer with much more clues. 

My first ikat inspired designs

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I gave the ikat designs a try the other day and I'm pleased with the results. It was a lot of fun to play around with the brushed look. To create the designs, I pulled out the old paint and paper. I sketched the basic shapes I wanted to use for pattern-making with a pencil and then used a dry brush and black paint to create the look of fibers pulling down from the images. Then I scanned that in, created a .tif file in black and white, brought it into Illustrator and used the Live Trace function to create vector art. After that, the options were endless.

This is really a sneak peek into the designs I'm creating in preparation for the Surtex show at the Javits Center in NYC this May. I'll be exhibiting as a senior designer with the group A Fresh Bunch. Here is an idea of how I see these designs playing out into a tote bag.

I particularly like this colorway with the pinks, corals and reds. I have another color way with blues that I created with my sister Alex in mind. She loves blue and white patterns. It's funny, now that I think about it, we used to have sister outfits in those color ways. Mine was always in the pinks and reds and hers were in the blues. I remember getting kind of mad about that and insisting on blue things at one point, but funny how that kind of thing sticks with you.

Here is the photo that inspired the colors. I maintain a Pinterest board with images that inspire new color combinations here if you're interested.

Source: decorati.com via Margot on Pinterest

A Downton Abbey Party I styled for A-Line Magazine

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I'm so excited that this is finally out in print! It was difficult to keep quiet about it because the party idea and event was so much fun. I'll be posting periodically on the delicious menu, creative decorations and theme implementation in the coming days and weeks, but until then, I'm so proud to show some photos from A-Line Magazine. By the way, that cover is a beautiful photo of the Madisono's grapefruit sorbet...so delicious to look at and eat! Read the entire article for free here.