The Imperial Senate ordered on 14th December 1888, that an allowance be granted for the operation of a handicraft museum beginning in 1890.The resulting museum operated under the Society of Industrial Art and was located at the Museum of Art and Design (operating today as the Design Museum).

The year 2018 in the Craft Museum of Finland begins with the Memento exhibition, which consists of solo exhibitions by visual artists Ulla Pohjola and Kaija Poijula. They both are storytellers and with the works they illustrate their inner worlds. Pohjola and Poijula are masters of handling and merging different natural materials. There are mirrors, stones, a burnt loom, skulls, bream scales and fluffs of dandelions in their works. The artists use such techniques as embroidery, painting and collages of objects.