A weekend for taking pictures

I spent this weekend at our family cottage in the east of Slovakia with my parents. Because the weather was hot and sunny, I took my bracelets and my old digital camera with me and made 146 pictures of new items, ready to be listed in my Etsy shop. Today, I am continuing by sorting out and editing (cutting, cropping) my pictures and I have already listed one new bracelet and plan to list twice a day this week, if it is possible.

( these bracelets are photographed and ready to be listed in SillyLittleSheep's Etsy shop during the following week )

The knotting therapy

The last month of the academic year was sort of rough for me - a lot of stress about defending my thesis, passing exams and interview to be able to continue in my studies etc. And now, when everything is over, I cannot help it but feel depressed. I must admit that I really was going totally out of control in the past few weeks, which meant that not only I have suffered, but also the closest people around me who had to deal with me and tried to talk me out of it every single day.

Now I am at my parents place in Slovakia again, having a little break, being taken care of and cooked to and also knotting like crazy! Even during exams I discovered that making bracelets helps my mood - playing with colours, while I can clear the bad stuff from my mind and create something pretty. And not only that, but also the possibility of selling it one day to earn money, which makes me feel like I'm actually doing something. Also it is an easy thing to do, I was concentrating on the easier patterns, so it cannot happen that I would get it wrong and get even more sad about how useless I am. So making bracelets is now both useful and practical :-}

Inspired by Nature - Lavender

For the last two years, I have been going on holiday to a Croatian island called Brač. Living in a camp, with a sea and marine life only a few minutes walk away and beautiful white dusty paths on the other side of the camp, it has become a wonderful place for me to relax and explore. Although the landscape seems to be dry and inhospitable, there is a lot of life going on - insects, spiders and reptiles are the creatures you can come across most often and their colours and shapes are often very impressive. We found a little lavender meadow nearby, with rocky walls and olive trees growing around it, which inspired me to make this bracelet. The violet flowers of lavender look outstanding on the dry-looking green-greyish backround and I think that making my bracelets inspired by nature is a good way to show how much I actually adore it.

Here is the link to the etsy listing of this bracelet: http://www.etsy.com/listing/46834394/lavender-coloured-friendship-bracelet

My "new" table

Studying far away from home brings some unique experiences, such as living in a students' home, with it. Sometimes, as you can see in the picture on the left, the furniture is quite old

and the students who lived here before us have not been really nice to it. This desk has lost the top layer of lacquer, so the wood it is made of was bare and any sort of dirt really got into it... So I told myself I could cover it with something. I had some really good paper from my mother, the sort that cannot get wet, or at least not easily, so I used some of it together with sellotape, spent a little time on it and made the table look more bearable. I know it's got fruits on it and it is a little bit too childish and not very durable, but better than nothing and it will last long enough until I move away (which may be as soon as in a few months' time). I also put som colourful pictures from home and holidays on the notice board together with my handmade calendar and now I have a nice and colourful place to work in :)

Spring trip to Lausanne

Last week, me and my friend have made a road trip from Prague (Czech republic) to Lausanne (Switzerland) to attend a freediving pool competition. Even though we did not achieve any great results (well, sometimes that happens too!), we had a great time and I am glad that we went there. Lausanne is a wonderful city and although we explored it without a guide or much information about it, we have seen a lot of nice things, taken some nice pictures and had a LOT of fun! :)


I admired almost everything - from architecture and little gardening details to the natural beauties such as Lac Léman and the Alps. The only problem was that most people spoke French rather than English, but in the end it did not really matter. (A little bit of knowledge of German helped us on the way back when we have taken a "tiny" 200km detour thanks to my navigation abilities and had to ask a random man working in a garage to show us the way)

Orange "Christmas" bracelet online!!

So... another very very slow day at work. I work as a photocopy service in the library. I did not have much to do today, so I tried to work on my coursework and also rediscovered "The Sims" on my PC, so now I am working on a house and career or an imaginary character as well as mine... I will have to stop soon, because it keeps distracting me too much :)

Yesterday, I listed another one of the bracelets that I started making during Christmas holiday. I finished it many days ago,but only got to photographing it last week. It is orange and bright, a perfect accessory for colourful summer clothes.

The listing is available at this address http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43393341

Blanket-murderers anti-handmade rodents

Something more than a month ago I adopted a lovely rat couple, both males, who were supposed to be used as a snake food after the series of behavioural experiments were finished on them at the Science Academy. Though lovely, always curious and very interesting, we have been through all possible problems with them - from the noise they make at night to their fights over who will be the dominant one.


Because the cage they live in is a bit small, I let them walk around the room every night to get some exercise. They only walk on the armchair, play with a pillow and make a nest in a blanket that covers the chair, walk on the radiator, then return to the cage and so on. BUT! Today I woke up and had a look at them and I was terified! The edge of blanket was pulled inside and holes were bitten into it at several places in such a way, that I cannot repair it now. Apparently, after their evening games with the blanket I left it too close to the cage so they could reach it with their teeth and tried to pull it in to continue playing with it.

Well, this is what happens when a handmade item meets with pets of anti-handmade persuasion. The best idea that I got was to wash it and - after it dries - try to get as much undamaged yarn from it as possible... I know it is their nature to bite things, but I crocheted the blanket during the last year of high-school and it has taken me several months and I was really happy when I finished it and loved it... And all of that was destroyed during one night.

Orange bracelet online

The first of my creations from Christmas holiday is already at http://sillylittlesheep.etsy.com

In the next few days I would like to take photographs of other finished bracelets and list them as soon as possible.

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)