Matchstick Museum

Hubby had a must-do on our Scandinavian road trip last year and I had a must-see: I wanted to visit the match museum in Jönköping! Not that I'm an arsonist with a fascination for matches, you understand.  No!  The one thing that I could remember learning about Sweden in school Geography lessons was that matches were manufactured in Jönköping.  Only I pronounced it "John-coping" in those days because I didn't speak any Swedish; nowadays I know that it's pronounced "Yearn-shurping".  I spotted the name when planning our route between Malmö and Västerås and when I saw that there was now a match museum instead of a factory it seemed an ideal place to break our journey.

I have a thing for mechanised processes and was fascinated by the match dipping, drying and boxing machines that were on display.  These particular machines were a mixed blessing for the locals; they reduced the risk of Phossy-jaw for the workers, but they also took away people's jobs and caused hardship.

Hubby and I spent a good while there enjoying the displays and videos (thankfully in English as my translating skills are beyond rusty), admiring the myriad matchbox designs and making our own match packages from paper (and in true scrapbooker fashion I've included the packaging stamp on the page).  

The sculpture was part of an art exhibition ... there was a film clip of a replica (or the original) burning to nothing.  After giving up on a Google search, I've just found out the name of the artist via Facebook (!) - Jill Lindström - the full video is here.  It takes 4 minutes for the statue to collapse and 10 to burn out!

I've used the Teresa Collins' My Name Is Collection along with some grey cardstock, fabric Thickers and made a little dent in my collection of brads!