Finland Quality Design – Moomin Story

Ninny the Invisible Child and Moomintroll and the Martians

The beginning of 2019 brings us two new sets of Moomin dishes from Arabia, the Invisible Child and the new Moomintroll and the Martian replacing the series discontinued in 2018. Each series contains a mug, a plate and bowl and will be released on February 11.

Ninny is the main character in Tove Jansson’s short story, The Invisible Child, published in 1962. In the story the Moomin family receive’s an unusual guest, little Ninny who has been mistreated by her caretaker and has turned invisible. She is afraid to talk, play or even laugh. Moomin family takes her in and treat her with kindness and care. Little by little Ninny regains her confidence and turns visible bit by bit. Moomintroll does everything he can to help Ninny, encouraging and teaching her new games. In the end Ninny’s small face appears and she finds courage to show her feelings.

The Invisible Child is a story about the importance of seeing and being seen. Arabia has chosen 2019 to release the Ninny dishes because this year the UN convention on the Rights of the Child will be 30 years old. The campaign is intended to support children’s rights and equality.

The new Moomintroll dishes are colored in fresh grass green and they show Moomintroll with a small Martian who is lost. One day a flying saucer crash lands in Moominmamma’s cabbage patch. Moominpappa uses a strange machine dangling out the the flying saucer to fix their broken radio but he accidentally makes himself and Moomintroll invisible. When they discover the little lost Martian, the Moomins hide him from the police until he is found by his parents.

Visit our shop Finland Quality Design to find more lovely Moomin products.

Moomin Advent Calendar 2016

The new Moomin Advent Calendar with toys from Martinex is ready. This year you can find inside the well known and beloved characters like Moomin family, Little My, Too-Ticky, Mrs Fillyjonk, Snufkin, Groke, Stinky, the police chief, and Mymble, as well as new ones from Moomin winter stories like Mr. Brisk and Sorry-oo. The 24th item is the swim house from Moominland. As you can see in the picture they are all ready for a little fun and adventure on the frozen sea.

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Snowhorse- Moomin Winter 2016 Arabia

Just in a couple of weeks, on 1st of October, Arabia will launch the Moomin seasonal products for this coming winter. As last winter there will be a mug, a bowl, 2 small spoons and a set of 4 miniature decorative mugs.

This series is based on the Tove Jansson’s original artwork from the book Moominland in Midwinter and it is designed by Tove Slotte.

Everybody knows that the Moomins sleep through winter. But one year, while the rest of the Moomin family are in the deep slumber of their hibernation, Moomintroll finds himself awake and unable to get back to sleep. He decides to go out and explore his favorite summer spots. He discovers a strange, unknown world where everything is covered in cold, white powder.

While Moomins were asleep, Too-Ticky, who doesn’t hibernate, has built a snow horse right in front of Moomin’s house for the Lady of the Cold. At first, Moomintroll feels a little angry, lonely, and scared. But soon many characters come to Moominvalley in search of warmth, shelter and some of Moominmamma’s favorite jam. We can spot Hemulen, trying to teach Moomintroll how to ski and Sorry-oo the little dog who becames Hemulen’s new friend .

The colors are subdued, predominantly white, greys and light blues, but Hemulen and Sorry-oo are nice bright spots of yellow and red on the white background.

The whole set will be available in our shop Finland Quality Design on 1.10.2016. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the notification.

Moomin Mug Winter 2015 Hibernation

The new winter 2015 Hibernation mug from Arabia has arrived, together with accompanying bowl, spoon and decoration minimugs. Illustrations in lovely Christmassy colors white, red and blue by Tove Slotte inspired from Tove Jansson’s book Moominland Midwinter.

Moomintroll wakes up from his winter sleep. His parents are still asleep and the house feels strange and the furniture is covered with veils. Moomin explores the house with an oil lamp. It is snowing outside the the whole Moomin Valley looks strange. Moomintroll is scared and puzzled but he gathers his courage and goes out to be the first Moomin ever to explore the winter.

Tove 100

Last year, Finland celebrated the 100th anniversary of Tove Jansson’s birth. She was a great artist, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic books author. She wrote six novels and five books of short stories for grown-ups and she painted landscapes, interiors, still life and portraits, but of course she is nowadays most famous for her Moomin stories and illustrations, for which she received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1966. She started writing the first Moomin story, The Moomins and the Great Flood, during the Second World War, as an escape from the war hardships into a world of innocence and naivete.

In celebration of her life and work many Finnish companies have launched collections based on her lovely Moomin illustrations, many of which are still featured in our shop Finland Quality Design:

Spring

SnufkinBlog — Click on the picture to see more Moomin posters in our shop.

“One calm and cloudless evening, towards the end of April, Snufkin found himself far enough to the north to see still-unmelted patches of snow on the northern slopes. He had been walking all day through undisturbed landscapes, listening to the cries of the birds also on their way northwards, home from the South. […]

‘It’s the right evening for a tune’, Snufkin thought. A new tune, one part expectation, two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just the great delight of walking alone and liking it. He had kept this tune under his hat for several days, but hadn’t dared to take it out yet. It had to grow into a kind of happy conviction. Then he would simply have to put his lips to the mouthorgan, and all those notes would jump instantly into their places.” (Tales from Moominvalley- The Spring Tune)

As every year, since we have been living in Finland, spring took me again by surprise.

Because summers are wonderful here, with lots of green, and berries, and flowers and hundreds of birds and long long days, light growing and growing until Midsummer… and “it’s all downhill from here”. We are cutting out the light, just a little everyday, but we don’t let you feel it yet. No, there is still enough, kids are still playing outside long hours, you still have flowers and birds and sun.

Then one day you hear the wild geese flying over your house going South, and the rain starts, with cold wind and mud and dirt and tones of sand your kids bring home. No more light for you! No more sun! And it feels like it will never be spring again. You are doomed to darkness and cold.

But one morning you look out the window to find a thin white blanket covering the ground. The kids are over the moon, but they still have to wait weeks for enough snow to ski and sledge and skate. And if you are lucky, you will have a white Christmas. But don’t get too excited! Snow is not here to stay. It comes and goes, but mostly we give you icy roads, so watch your step! It’s dark when you get up, when you take the kids to school, and when you start your day of work, but take some light for your lunch break, because what do you know, when you pick up the kids from school it’s dark again.

Then it’s February, and one morning you hear a little bird chirping, and it is Hope! Spring will come again! But not too soon. Now you have light, but it’s still -15 in the morning. You have the skiing holiday in March. Snow starts melting away, there is dust and gravel everywhere on the street, but look, you can see the ground again, and “just give us some spring already!”. You can see little crocuses here and there but it’s 29th of April and it’s snowing. And you go on with your days and stop paying attention.

Then, two weeks later, you look around you and see a tree in bloom, and an explosion of vegetation, hundreds of little flowers and you have a lawn again.

It is here! It came by surprise, didn’t it?

From Pillowcase to Art Wall

Finlayson has some amazing Moomin products, from towels, to bedding and kitchen textile products.

When we were visiting one of their shops in Helsinki we noticed the beautiful printings from the pillowcases hanging on their wall. We asked if they started to make canvas prints and they said that those were actually pillow cases cut and stretched on ordinary wooden frames.

I always thought this black and white pillowcases would make a wonderful art display with Tove Jansson’s beautiful original drawings, so there you have it: pillowcases turned into canvas pictures. But of course they’d look nice on your bed, too…

Check out the Moomin bedroom textiles section in our shop Finland Quality Design.

The Moomin House Mug

The Moomins live in a round blue house. The house has three stories and a cellar where Moominmamma stores her much appreciated jam. On the ground floor there is the kitchen, the salon and the bathroom, on the first floor there are the bedrooms and the second floor holds Moominpappa’s study, where he writes his memoirs.

Tove Jansson’s original drawings show some more details from the old house: Hemulen’s room as well as Thingummy and Bob’s room and Muskrat’s room on the ground floor, Moomintroll and Snufkin shared bedroom on the first floor, where also Sniff and Snork have their own rooms, and there is always spare room for unexpected visitors.

Moominpappa built this wonderful house for his family with his own two hands and he is very proud of it. The Moomin family adopted all kinds of creatures which came to live in the house. Moominmamma takes good care of them all and a hug from her can always make you feel better no mater how sad you are.

It is said that in the old days Moomins used to live behind the ceramic fireplace in Tove’s house, and that is why Pappa has build a house of the same round shape.

The new Moomin house mug is available in our store Finland Quality Design, and you can get it for free with purchases over 248 € (VAT 24%), excluding shipping, within EU, or over 200 € (VAT 0%), excluding shipping, outside EU. To get this offer use the voucher code M0SP5YIP in the shopping cart. The offer is limited to one per customer, however feel free to share the code with your friends. The campaign ends on October 31^st 2015.

Moomin Mug Summer 2015 Moment on the Shore Hetki Rannalla

The new Summer 2015 Moomin Mug from Arabia features pictures from the Moomin falls in love in the comic album #3. This mug is the last piece of a story which started in 2012 with Primadonna’s Horse, followed by Snorkmaiden and the Poet and Sailing with Niblings and Too-Ticky.

After months of heavy rain in Moomin Valley, Moomins try to save an entire circus from the flood. Moomintroll soon falls head over heels in love with the circus Primadonna.

Later Moomintroll sets up camp on shore with the circus strongman, Emeraldo, where they bath in the sun fishing, away from the ladies which have grown jealous. During the night Hattifatteners attack the ladies but the Primadonna’s horse alerts the men and Moomintroll rescues the true love of his life, Snorkmaiden.

The whole adventure comes to a happy ending with Moomins returning to their house on stilts.

Unlike most Arabia current products, this mug is made in Finland. The mug and the matching bowl are available in our store Finland Quality Design.