New Year's Resolutions

Only something more than 30 minutes remains of the old year and although I did not want to make any resolutions this year, I finally decided that there are some things I want to do in the next year and this list is only to summarize them.

• Next New Year will be celebrated at a party, preferably one where you have to be dressed in funny clothes, not in a sit-at-home-and-watch-TV style.

• I will go to freediving trainings with a little bit less reluctance (even though it is cold outside and it takes me 50 minutes to get there and then return home at 10.30 p.m. with still wet hair and lots of wet stuff that needs to be hung somewhere so I wake everyone up)

• Similarly, will put more enthusiasm into studying, going to work and shopping for clothes (so that next time that I arrive at my parents', my Mum will not have the feeling that I look like a homeless who needs to be dressed anew from neck to toes and will not drag me to the shopping centres to undergo the torturous process of choosing the right outfit)

• Will take up one of the following: swimming, yoga, aqua-aerobic, belly dancing

• Will NOT cut my hair

• Will come to visit parents and old friends more often

• Will save some more money, but also let myself enjoy what I earn in a sensible way(such as traveling to visit parents and old friends)

• I will take greater care of my pets (snails, stick insects) and will care more about their diet and will finally take my tortoise to the vet after she wakes up this spring

That seems to be everything, although the list will be changing, because some things will not work, obviously :o)

I hope you will all have a wonderful New Year. Have a great time.

Creative Christmas

I decided that I will NOT do anything like special Halloween / Valentine's Day / Christmas bracelets this year. I don't think it helps to get more sales and to be honest, it's boring. If I ever make a bracelet with hearts, pumpkins or reindeer on it, it will be because I enjoy doing it and not because some sort of holiday is coming and I want to get sales.

Anyway, I thought it wouldn't be too bad to make some more items for my shop, so I bought lots of different embroidery threads, even the colours I don't usually use and I played with it for a while during the Christmas holiday. The results are shown in the picture below. Not all of them are finished, but I am working on them every single day :)



Some of these I might keep, but most of them will be listed on etsy.com after the New Year.

Merry Christmas to all!!

So, my dear friends, it's Christmas once again. And Christmas always makes me realize, what a great and comfortable home we have. I hope all of you had a great time with your families and the people that you love. I have arrived to Slovakia on December 19th, managed to send out a few Christmas cards to old friends, meet my high-school friends and tonight I had our traditional dinner with my family and we opened our presents. In Slovakia we eat cabbage soup and fish for dinner and open our presents right after we finish eating. Also, I have given myself to a Christian habbit of fasting through the day in order to fully appreciate my mother's wonderfull cooking skills. And the result? Ended up with an overfilled belly sticking out in a preagnancy-like manner because I was too greedy (actually, I was the last one still eating, while my brother was giving me the "GRRrrrr, hurry up 'cos I wanna open my presents already" looks over the table). I will have to work on that during next few years. Also, I'm thinking of improving my eating habbits, but that is a matter of New Year's resolutions and does not belong into this short blog entry. So - Merry Christmas once again, I hope it met your expectations.

Beadmaking process photo guide

As I already mentioned, I made some FIMO polymer clay beads last week. Now I'd like to share an easy technique for beadmaking with some pictured that I have taken last Wednesday. I found it on the Internet myself, but I think it is so great, that I want to spread it further :)

First I had to make a cane, so I mixed different colours of FIMO to create different shades of green, the lightest colour in the middle, but you can use any colours you choose.

Then I rolled the cane and created differently thin cuts that I put together like in the picture above...

... and rolled them again to make them join together. After that, all you need to do is slice the cane and stick the little slices on a ball of FIMO (this can be a differently coloured waste material from some of your previous beadmaking) and roll it again to make it join together.
Then punch a hole and let them bake in the oven for half an hour and the beads are finished!

Bead Holiday!!!

October 28th is a bank holiday here in Czech Republic, so I decided to use my day off for some crafting and beadmaking. I have bought a few new packs of FIMO polymer clay and spent a great afternoon having fun with it, although I must admit that I didn't make many beads, but I think that I might have learnt something new - and there is still a long long way to go to improve my technique - but the first listing is already on Etsy and many more should come before Christmas :0)