Late Post

It's 21:54 and I'm tired. This has been a very productive day, having made several lanwyarns and earrings, most of which are all for others, not for me. Wonder if I'll be able to actually make some money out of them, such as my friend Roo suggests. Well, all I can do at this point is try, right? Many coworkers have already expressed interest for them, so why not give it a shot?

But giving it a shot isn't an easy as the business of beads is a tricky one. I've made myself a new lawnyarn  with little green stars. I wanted to make more, but I didn't have enough stars either in green or any other color. So I went to the bead store and there were no more stars. Actually there were no beads from any kind I used to buy a year ago. They were all new beads. So this time I grabbed a couple of beads (a coworker said she would like butterflies, so I grabbed a couple of three different types) and made some "samples" so if anyone is interested they can pick the type of bead and maybe have them in a different color. We shall see then how it goes on Monday, see if I can sell some or at least get a couple of orders. :-) Then I'll make some more and give those I haven't sold to my friend Lau, so she can wear them and "market" them among her coworkers. I can't really market them myself, for I'm using lawnyarns made out of beads you can no longer get, or beads you wouldn't get in here for I brought them from Hungary or Roo sends me from the States. Oh, the purple butterflies will be shipped to Roo for she loves purple and butterflies and wants me to make her one of these lawnyarns.

Other than that, today I posted a letter to a dear friend (hello Arjen!), as well as the Franklin Covey inserts I offered in y previous post. I also got myself three sleeping gowns. I've one, silky, in Budapest, but other than that I haven't had a sleeping gown in ages. I normally sleep in pyjamas or an old T-shirt and some comfy track suit bottoms. These are long t-shirt type with funny inscriptions. One says "espresso yourself" and the other says "grumpy but gorgeous". Well, both fit me to perfection ^_^, specially the grumpy part. Just ask my boyfriend ^_^ I'm the worse morning person in the world. I bet I'm even murder-capable in the morning.

Then, I also got myself - finally! - a printer, exactly like the one we've in Budapest, except on American code, or Latin American code, I'm not sure, it has TX instead of SX, and stocked up with coloured glue and coloured pilots for the scrapbooking/artbox supply. With nephews like the ones I have, art supplies are consuption goods, they are finished like milk glasses.

However, by 10 pm I'm dead meat, so I'll blog, try a printing and hit the bed.

See you tomorrow!

A Break from Daily Philosophy, to some Daily Life

Yesterday's post turned out hard to read, right? For posterity I may go back on it and liven it up, because personally I believe that the topic is quite interesting - you know, talking about immigration, and how nobody can actually say that they've always-always belonged to the place they live in, nor can anyone say that they have a millenary culture that hasn't changed a bit since the begining of times. However the reason for it being so dull and hard to read - I presume - is due to the lack of pictures and my trademark colored text, which I use for highlight. If you have ever wondered what's my system for coloring, if colors and bolds or italics mean something, the answer is "not really". I pick the colors when I open the palette, see what colors I've used and which colors I feel like using. Perhaps normally I tend to used green to mark myself or my personal thoughts, fuchsia for religion or divinity, red for importance of shock, often aggression and violence, dark red for gore and supernatural, and blue for the things I don't like much... though I've used blue also for the things I do like, only for a splash of color. But anyway - I just derailed there - the reason why I didn't do that was because I was blogging from a train, on my way home from Mezőkövesd, where I had accidentally left my mouse (and half my power cord too). Have you tried to use your laptop without a mouse? And get online and blog without a mouse? Some parts are tricky, like I forgot how do you shut down a window or open a new page in your browser, but the rest is simple, only tedious.

Yesterday I went to visit Mama and Papa at Mezőkövesd, but I went without my boyfriend, who has been burried in work up to his eyeballs. So, instead of driving there, I took the train. On my way there I had the mouse and the cord, and so took out the laptop, the mouse and the mobile internet and started drafting up the post without any particular embellishing. Ideas and refining would come later. At Mama's place I then took out the laptop, charged it - I had used it on battery on the train - while we had lunch and then partook in a delicious traditional meal made in a caudron, outside over an open fireplace. The expression in Hungarian is "bográcsozás". It was my first one and it was DELICIOUS! It was basically a thick soup made with pork hoofs and venison, and it tasted like Heaven on Earth.

Inspired by Dragonfly's enthusiasm for photography and her beautiful pictures, I decided to experiment around the garden and took a few (okay, plenty) of pictures myself, from which I'll show you here some.

Waterlily

Flower Alone

Careful Close up under light brise

Flower cluster

Flower field

Household farming.

Families sow their yards to produce their own food.

Then, when I packed my things to go home, the mouse and part of my power cord (the one that's easily replaceable, thanks Hyne) decided to stay there without my conscent. I knew of the mouse the moment I decided to inish my blogging on the train, because I was going to get home quite late (I was arriving at the train station at 10 pm). I new about the cord when I've got home and decided to charge up my laptop. Oh well, after the holidays are over I'll go get myself new ones to have while I go back to Mezőkövesd to get the ones I left there.

Today the day was more calm. It's a Sunday-Monday holiday called Pentecost (also Whitsunday). Don't ask me, don't look at me, I don't really know much about this. Due to this even the stores that open on Sundays were closed, and so will be closed tomorrow too, which means that I'll only get to replace the mouse and the cord on Tuesday. However, by then I might also be able to get some photos printed out.

 I've decided that it's time to continue the embellishing of the apartment, and what better to make the place more lively and more of a home than to hang pictures from the walls? Naturally things are never easy, so I'll have to go over my picture archives and start selecting those I want on the walls. Pictures of us, pictures of the family - though this seems more on the line of "pictures of my family" for there aren't many pictures of my boyfriend's family around - so I'll have plenty to do from here to Tuesday. Then again, not like I can complete many of my repeating tasks from my List of 13 during this time. However, I believe it's fair to let you know that I'm getting ahead with the task of making myself June jewelry. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results yet, and basically because so far I was used to get already made chains for the necklaces, and here I have to make the chain link by link. Also, though I have wire sticks with a stopped on the bottom, there were a few only, so I made my own with bead stoppers, but they have given out sometimes.

For this set I used a picture from a book I've got recently as inspiration, but the one I'm making isn't hitting the mark with me. I guess I still have a lot to learn. :-) But that isn't taking away my desire o continue doing it, but rather make me want to see what else can I do and how can I come closer to the concept I'm looking for.

In beading, one of the biggest limitants are the materials: you don't always get to work with the beads and materials you really want, BUT you can work with anything as long as you get around it and know how to make it work. Beading, in the end is an art part knowledge and part experimenting, and that makes it more rich and more magical. Well, we shall see how this goes on in the future!

Those Small Differences

There was a time when I would have never thought I would look for bead jewelry. It was at the financial high peak of my life (understood this not as the time when I made the most money, but when I spent the most money), and I had "graduated" from what's called "fantasy jewelry" (meaning jewelry made of lookalike metals and rhynestones), and wanted to wear only real things. My motto back then was "if it looks like emeralds, then they better be emeralds". I leaned more and gave more importance to the working of the metal then, and prefered many filigree silver jewelry, quickly taking this taste even to pieces where the metal nearly worked only as the setting of a stone. However, in that time too I also developped - in accordance to this new philosophy - a liking for jewelry made of organic materials, particularly wood, but also feathers, seeds and leather.

Then, as it happens in every working environment I've known (long enough, in Costa Rica), the office black markets and secret bazaars brought back the bead jewelry. From the daughter of a coworker, who was taking classes in jewelry making, to the niece of another who had a severe illness and in her long stays at the hospital learned to make jewelry, I got back to the beauty of the plastic and glass creations that had something many other pieces didn't: they were handmade, each based on unique creativity. From these informal artisans I started filling my jewelry box with different pieces, until I found my friend and biggest handmade jewelry dealer of all times: my friend Dragonfly. As you all know by now, she's also my master in this art, and the one to first introduce me to how to work strung jewelry, and some tricks on wired jewelry as well. Then, I attented also to a one hour free class that my bookstore in Costa Rica - Librería Internacional - had arrenged for club members.

With this knowledge I set myself to start making my own jewelry, dreaming with the day I'd be like Dragonfly, and make the night before the jewelry I would wear the next day, that would fit perfectly my clothes. (That has been the case only a couple of times, but mostly on the last days of May, when I realize I don't have enough black jewelry to wear in June. Then again, every May - and this May isn't the exception - I worry I don't have enough black clothes to wear.) However, aside from the knowledge, another important thing is needed for the jewelry making, and that's the tools and the supplies. I started the way any other woman in my position would - I took my dad's pliers - but my dad didn't have threads, beads or wire. Now, in Costa Rica there's a large beadshop chain known as Zodiac (well, I know of three of their stores, one of which I haven't visited because I don't like the place), and then there was a small beadshop in the city were I lived. With different sorts of arrangements, there's always a central shelve unit where loose beads are displayed in small boxes or compartments, from where you can take them and they'll be charged by the unit, while the walls of the place are lined from ceiling to floor with bags and strings of beads, generally arranged by color, though not necesarily following the chromatic order (meaning that all blues are together, and all reds are together, and all greens are together, but it doesn't start with the reds, follows by the oranges and goes on so, ending with the violets). (Zodiac, however, started as a New Age store, with plenty of material for the Pagans and people seeking alternative routes to traditional religion, but the bead business proved to be more profitable than the spiritual enlightening.)

In here I started buying my beads, wires, cords and clasps, and ended up giving back my dad his tools and getting my own pliers. However, it didn't matter how much I searched the shelves and bags hanging from pegs, or revolved in the small boxes and bins for the beads, I never seemed to find the type of beautiful pieces Dragonfly uses for her creations. I was certain she had another supplier, so I pressed her for more information, but she said that all she did was spend a good time looking for some worthy pieces. Eventually I  invested some time to turn around each piece looking for the best ones, though when it came to the small metalic parts, I never managed to find the polished, pretty looking ones she uses on her jewelry.

When I came to Hungary, I left behind a rather large stock of beads and supplies, but trusted I would find here proper stores. Little I knew it wouldn't be that easy at all. Yeah, Hungary has that about herself: one thing is what you see on the net, and another what you find in real life. Many of the stores advertised on the net didn't exist in real life - either because the stores had closed, or because they only sell online - and their supply isn't always what you need. One of those, for instance, had a huge supply of beads, but was short of tools, wires and threads. Now, what can I do with beads when I can't string them up or wire them?

Things became more friendly when I found my current beadshop. My only sour surprise with them was that they don't take cards, and you know I'm not what you'd call a "cash loving person". However, this is the place where I saw the bead world of Hungary. The names of the beads, the sizes, the shapes, and the colors! I had struggled so much in Costa Rica to find purple or violet beads with no avail, finding by accident  some lilac beads that stood closer to pink than to violet, but in here, filled in tubes and small packs, there were displayed many tones of purple, violet and lilac, and also brown beads of such erathy shades I had never imagined before. I noticed the lack of beads that could help me make ethnic pieces. No wood carved rose beads, not colored wood beads... two or three only with a more runic taste to them. No coconut shells, or carved wood medals, no seeds turned into beads either by coloring, carving or simply by piercing. However a world of porcelan, glass and painted beads spread before me. "Ethnic" here is different, here it's Ancient, Traditional, Old and even Pagan, in a sense different that than from the Discovery, Conquest and Colonization (known and embedded in the soul of all Americans), but rather in a sense of what we were when we had many gods and or fields were soaked in the blood of battles, attacks, wars and looting.

It's the same craft, but the techniques are different, and the magic is different too. Here, there's a different sense when you go Earthy, and primal, but even when you go more modern the feel in the making is different.

Another thing that's missing are the chains. There are not already made chains, but you are supposed to make them link by link from wire. However, there are necklace bases of thread, cord, lace and even thinner wire.

I have the pieces gathered for a couple necklaces, and am looking for inspiration for earrings as well. I haven't started any of them yet, but hopefully will have at least the black ones ready before June. Once I have them, I'll probably display them here. However, in the meanwhile, I'm happy just planning and looking around for beads and ideas and letting the magic gather up before I use it.

A Day of Small Adventures

Perhaps today is going to be yet another one of those days - like Tuesday - that I won't be sure I've lived. Damned, I need to get serious with TV shows so that I can set a day tracker in my life. Today I just kept forgetting that it was Friday, and though you may ask why do I need to know which day am I in when I'm not working, well, because others do and businesses keep different hours and Wednesdays, as I recently discovered, the movies can be seen at a reduced rate.

There was no "level 2" and nothing particular to nag at my nerves today, but as my boyfriend prepared to go out to work, I though about yesterday, and how I wanted to go to the movies (after having gone on Wednesday after Level 2), but I didn't go for I was too lazy and otherwise occupied with being lazy, watching some TV, reading some political/financial magazines and busying about the Internet; I though that maybe today would be a good day to make it up for what I left undone. As an after thought, I smiled thinking how on Wednesday - for Level 2 - I acually dressed according with the color of the day suggested by Llewellyn's Witches Datebook, without knowing. I wore brown head to toe and was looking SMASHING in it.

I had gone for the beads, as you know, but haven't bought all I needed to string up a decent set, so I thought that today was just perfect to go over there and hit the glasses and little compartments with beads and make magic. After having taken a look at my book on jewelry, it was easy to go there with a purpose, so I came out of there with a hefty bounty of many, many colored beads of different sizes and shapes, loose, packed in small bags and little tubes. The owner of the tiny place was nice to me and gave me a 10% discount considering me already a "regular". The place was buzzing with ladies so at home around beads and jewelry supplies, talking about the techniques they were most versed in, and referring to bead and supply details I have never heard before. To my amazement, I was quickly included in the conversations and was part of sharing the experiences of how we love to make jewelry, but end up with more pieces than what we can wear in a lifetime. I believe my friend Dragonfly-cr can perfectly relate to that.

From there I rushed to the movies at a close-by commercial center - just like I did in Wednesday. My mission was simple: The Raven followed by The Avengers. I thought I was going to see one good movie followed by one bad movie - but I wanted to see the bad movie to get the jokes on Internet about it. As it happens, I saw a lame movie followed by a comic-comic movie. Thor was handsome, and so was Captain America, and Scarlet Johanson's sidekick, and IronMan was the heart of the movie... though I had to keep myself in check so I wouldn't shout "Go Sherlock!".

These are my third and forth movies of the week, as on Wednesday I saw the terrible "The Woman in Black" followed by "Dark Shadows"... which was just as disappointing. It was like I went to see - and paid! - a really bad episode of Supernatural, with no plot at all, and lacking the two handsome Winchester brothers and their slash, and then went to see a washed down version of "The Monster Family meets Beetlejuice". Oh well, at least today I saw The Avengers and there were handsome guys in it.

Haven't hit the movies so hard in ages, but then again, if I don't do it now that I've the time, when else would I do it? Only, just for insurance, next time I'll hit another movie complex, so that I don't get to be the regular-regular who watches two movies in a row... like I do.

People really don't come to the movies much in Hungary. The Raven was deserted, and the premier was yesterday. Well, The Avengers was full, and the premier of it was weeks ago. Wonder how will it be for the premier of Brave.

In between the movies, I went to have some light, late lunch at one of my favorite restaurants: Leroy. Though this was the one where I can ask for gyozas - and they prepare them superbly - I wanted something new. I asked for a Miso soup - which was particularly horrendous, tasting too much of vinagre - and completed the order with a Tennessee Highball (Jack Daniels, giner ale, lime) and an order of hamachi sashimi. Believe it or not, that was my first order of sashimi of my hole life. I wanted something light, something wholesome, and what could be more wholesome, more healthy, more light than fresh, raw fish slices?

Well, I didn't regret my decision. The order contained three thick slices of hamachi  - which I understand is white tuna - fresh and juicy, served with the mandatory ginger shaves, some wasabi and a siding of cucumber. The pieces were simply exquisite, and each nearly melted in my mouth as I took a bite from them. Perhaps it's not the cheapest thing one can order, but it was amazing and absolutely worth it. Then of course, maybe a Tennessee Highball wasn't the proper drink for it, but it was all amazing and got me out of the fiasco mood after The Raven and ready for the Avengers, even if I had to deal with Ms. Johanson's annoying acting. There goes another actress falling off the wagon, forgeting the requierements of her craft in the name of a fame gained on their physical atributes... Pitiful.

At least the sashimi was good.

So, adding it up, I tried new things and I hit also the old ones, and from all of them I reaped fabulous experiences and a great chance to relax, lay back and enjoy life, because that's what it has been given to us.

The Little Passions of an Artisanal Jeweler

A friend of mine suggested the other day, that I should try and make a living our to making jewelry. The idea - truth to be told - seems somewhat farfetched for me. Me? An artisanal jeweler? Not that I look down at such a beautiful job, but more like I'm not sure about my skills at jewelry making, nor would I know how to start such an enterprise. Could I even start selling them? And if I do, could I keep up the pace with the making of the jewelry? Could my creativity run far enough to make enough exciting necklaces, bracelets and earrings? My handwork - crude as it is still, goes mostly to please my friends, making them humble sets for birthdays, Christmas or some particular occasion, and even so, to make a set for a friend I often spend months and months trying to come up with a good idea, with something inspiring, trying to get a concept of what that person makes me feel, what I think of them, beaded up and strung up. Then there's a hunt for the beads and parts I need - which never, EVER, goes as easy as I'd like it to go.

This was my jewelry making box back in Costa Rica.

Even this contained only a small part of my supplies.

Most of the time my problem is that I can't find the pieces I want, or that I would like a particular piece, a particular design, and all that ends with me thinking that I should take a course of goldsmith and silversmith, and other similar crafts that would allow me to not only string or wire up beads and other elements into handmade jewelry, but also be able to make the pieces - beads, medalions and such - to make even more personalized and organic pieces. Then, however stupid it might sound, I tend to think of the jewelry I make, as a form of magic. In a piece I craft - even if it's composed of synthetic pieces - there are thoughts about the person I'm making it for, and good wishes. Wishes of happiness, of peace, of health, of success, of love, joy and such. It's not like they are magic charms that would bring upon them love or money or any of those things, but they carry my energy and my love and good wishes. Though I could imagine making them simply hoping that the person who wears them will have happiness in their lives - while wearing or not the piece, that shouldn't matter - could I keep it up if I'm doing it for a business?

My jewelry supplies now.

This is all.

I particularly like the porcelain beads.

I've bought a cardboard box and a pair of pliers perhaps some two months ago or more. They stayed on a shelve for a while. I wasn't feeling like making jewelry, though I love making it. I dreamed of making lovely, chunky ethnic-like pieces - much like those Dr. Bones uses in the series - but never got around to make them. After over three months, I know only one beadshop... and that's more than the number of yoga centers or scrapbook stores I know. That one beadshop - though magical - is so tiny they don't really cater for extravagant pieces to string up ethnic pieces.

The beadshop was full, however, of beads and supplies I have never seen before. Wires of different thickness - and I mean, different sizes measured by a tenth of milimeter difference! Then beads beautifully displayed in tiny test tubes and little glasses. I found tubes of purple beads, which I haven't been able to find nowhere else, and all sorts of glass medalions and such. Then, the other day - right after yet another disaster experience - I decided to go soothe my soul at the beadshop. I remember a remark my friend Patricia added to one of my posts about a necklace (a "Mother Earth" necklace, actually, which I included because the design was so beautiful, organic and nearly primitively religious, I felt it related well to the topic) and though about trying to use it as inspiration to string up my own Mother Nature necklace. Well, there were not enough supplies there for that necklace, and some of the wood beads that would have worked where outrageously expensive, so I simply went around the tiny place carefully looking at the supplies. Then, before I new it, I was packing up a small wood plate with metal compliments, a couple more of pliers, some wire, a 7 compartment case, earring hooks and an assortment of glass and porcelain beads. The pieces by themselves didn't speak to me about no piece to be made, I just bought them because they were pretty, and I have never seen anything like them in Costa Rica.

I'd like to start making some jewelry again, as not only I love new jewels, but I enjoy making them very much. However, there are still many supplies to be gathered for that, and many experiences to be collected to fuse into my next pieces. Handfuls of my handmade jewelry stayed back in Costa Rica, and only some pieces made it here (particularly my black creations, as I need all my June Jewelry with me, for they are otherwise hard to find), but a new place and new experiences need new pieces. Who knows? Maybe in my next piece I'll find the commercial inner jeweler in me, but until then, my handmade spells remind free of charge and gifts of the heart.

Don't Forget Your Emergency Quirks!

There's something - probably something small that nobody would notice - that you can't live without, something that you must do or put on, or have around for the world to be ok. For some people it's the morning coffee, for others the handcream in the purse, or the working radio in the car. Some must have clean underwear on all the time, and make sure they always do by keeping an extra pair in their bags or cars "just in case" (like in case they are not spending the night over at their place, but partying with friends, or in the case of ladies, for the unprobable event of an "accident"). One of the most common such dependence is the mobil phone, and so people get insane if they don't have their phone at hand, or their laptop, tablet, smarphone or so. I've known also cases of people who can't be without their car keys even when they are not driving it.

There are a lot of things we need to carry around constantly, and feel bad if we don't have around, in a sort of abandoned, lacking state. Thanks to bags (or "being bags the culprits") women tend to carry insane amounts of things around that are all "of life or death importance", and which basically "keep the civilized world as we know it". My friend Dragonfly once posted in her blog pictures of the content of her bag, and I believe I replied back then with similar pictures. The experiment was interesting because we all had the chance to take a peek at what's pulling down our shoulders everyday. May men know it or not, many women actually talk sometimes about what they carry in their bags. (So, no, it's not a seven-seal secret, it's none of your business!) From the mandatory make-up bag (which contents vary depending on what you consider more important. There was a time a friend of mine and I carried two make-up bags: one with make-up, creams, tweezers and such, and another full of medicaments. From your everyday Ibuprofen for menstrual pain or headache, to prescription drugs the doctors sent us to manage the effects of the stress we were being subjected to - and my mandatory asthma medicines and supplies - we had a little arsenal that bordered illegal), to your agenda, a book to read (or kindle!), journal, wallet, public transportation pass (if you live in a place where you need or you can have one), glasses, sunglasses... there's a world in there you carry because you either peruse it often, or "just in case", and in those cases, even if you don't use them, it feels good to be prepared.

A common case with women is carrying around tampons and panty liners, or sanitary pads. You may not expect your period to come that day, but simply having these items in your bag with you everyday makes you feel safe and ready to tackle any situation. Also, there's actually a very good feeling when you can help someone in need with part of your supplies. Be able to help out a friend or a colleague at work with a painkiller, or a tampon, or with the emergency candy or snack you've been carrying for a moment of desperate hunger away from any food source (such as at a meeting, an important seminar or while waiting for something. Also at the job, when something urgent comes up and you have no time for lunch or dinner). If you can afford it, a granola or a cereal bar, maybe a pack of oreos, and a juice or a small bottle of coca-cola can be the difference for your friends, your colleagues and you. And how hard it is to carry a granola bar or a small redbull shot in your purse, or a bottle or water? Specially when now everybody carries a bottle of water and drinking it at meetings have become perfectly natural.

Yes well, though I consider all of those very important, and usually carry them around, there's one thing I always have to have and always carry around and even keep "emergency" spares in my bag: earrings.

I've got my ears pierced when I was twelve. My friends helped me get my ears pierced, and it was a life changing experience in my life. I had all kinds of earrings and all sorts of ear problems, such as the usual piercing inflamations and allergic reactions, and had the chance to wear some of the trendy earrings of that time (you know, that not-expensive trend that usually takes off among the youth) and made my first handmade earrings our of paperclips. My parents weren't really about ear-piercing, but once I've got them done, they were really supportive and did the legwork back them (way before the internet days) to get me good earrings, so I've got my first silver earrings (one pair because my folks didn't have much money in those days) and later on a couple of dolphin shaped gold studs.

Later on I bought my own earrings - usually of lesser materials and even plastic - which got me a really bad allergic reaction, after which I stopped using earrings for so long that the pierced holes disappeared. Around eighteen, I wanted to use earrings again, so one day I took one of my earrings, pressed my lobes between two ice cubes, and when the cold pain numbed them enough I pierced them through. By the way, I have really think earlobes, which is good if I want to use heavy earrings, but which is a pain for piercing.

Going through the self piercing - and that was quite a task that left me gasping for air after the deed was done - kind of made me more conscious about what I put in my ears and how I treat my earrings. This time around I was careful to follow the rules, and sought mostly to use noble metal earrings, such as gold, silver, platinum and surgical steel. I learned that the quality of the earrings mattered more than the quantity, and that I would win nothing having 10 thousand earrings that would infect my lobes, but it was better to have 10 that  were safe.

Naturally my collection of earrings grew through time, and certain "not-so-safe" pieces also made it into my collection, such as my coconut-shell earrings (though I replaced the hooks on one of them, for those I use to make earrings. After making many of my earrings, I've noticed that these hooks are quite safe. You can also buy surgical steel hooks for crafting. If you do jewelry either for yourself, for gifts or for sale, being able to offer earrings with hooks made of this material is a very big plus!), or beautiful wood carved earrings that come with hooks of unknown origins, and then are all those that have been made by the talented Dragonfly, and those made by myself.

Somewhere along the way, I became so attached to earrings, that the sole idea of leaving home without earrings is unthinkable. I have, and I've spend half a day in hell, constantly grabbing my lobes and feeling literally naked. I can go a day without my cellphone, I can go a day without my diary in my bag, or a day without a book (a very, very boring and horible day, but I can do it), but I can't go a day without earrings.

The few times it has happened, I've ran to the nearest store to buy myself earrings - anytype of earrings! - as long as I could feel clothed again. The same happens if I accidentally lose an earring: I search for the missing part desperately, holding the naked lobe, and if I don't find it, I break into the closest store and buy a new pair. As result of these terrible tragedies, I started carrying in my make up bag at least two - but often three - pairs of earrings. Why so many? For precaution. I've the little pearl studs that go with everything and are very discreet. Those are the main selection for any occasion, and mostly formal cases. Then I've a dangling green pair - very beautiful - that's still discreet, but a little more playful, less elegant, but casual. Finally I carry a couple of 1.5 inch silver hoops. Those are the elegant and sexy pair. I reserve those mainly for the cases where I need a quick makeover on my attire, and those kick up the look, add elegance and make a statement - something that doesn't work with everybody, but women with olive skin like me, can pull out wonderfully.

Earrings are a must in my bag and my life, so I make sure I'm well provided with them.

What about you? Any funny thing or ritual you can't leave home or start your day without?

Pandora

Last year - I believe - I heard for the first time about the Pandora bracelets. The idea at first was funky and fun: the idea of making your own bracelets, and by then I have been going around with beads making necklaces and earrings for myself and my friends. There's a certain magic in wearing a piece you've done yourself, that's unique and nobody else has. But also because you know what it took you to make it and it's a piece with even less compromising than pieces bought done, where you either love the whole thing or you'll have to settle for the parts you like and leave with the rest.

Pandora kind of opened this up giving you the option to decide each part of your bracelet, picking the beads and the amount of beads, as well as the bracelet string, where you place the beads you've picked. I definitively had to check that out. So after lots of looking around and searching, I found a store in Costa Rica where there place was set like a quite expensive jewelry store, with counters displaying the beads. And well, it is expensive. Beads go from $21 to $1155, and the bases can go from $90 to $5780. Naturally, the prices depend on the pieces, but with this prices, and considering that a base gets filled with 15 to 20 beads, on the cheaper end you can end up with a bangle that takes you back $675 (the cheapest pieces are too thin so I counted a piece of $21 base, 15 thicker beads of $32 and five thin ones of $21). So I ask, does it worth it? Does it worth wearing a bracelet composed by yourself for so much money?

The answer for me is "no". Thing is that to express your individuality, your creativity and make fabulous jewelry for yourself, there's a huge and quite inexpensive world out there of glass beads. Look for a local craft store - google it if you have no idea where to look for! Or ask around - or go online. You can prepare a simple base with a craft thread (looks much like fishing line!), or with leather strips, waxed thread, or silk thread, like the one used for Chinese or Celtic knots! Your imagination and just a little bit of practicing can help you create your own bracelets mixing beautiful knotwork and beads.

On Amazon.com you can get a bag with assorted beads for as little as $5, and they work beautifully with your imagination and give your creativity a boost without being held down by what your wallet can pay for. Even more unique, could be the bracelets you make out of pieces of your old jewelry, or pieces you've picked up from the street. (I'm one of those people who can't help but pick up pieces of jewelry I find on the street, like half an earring, a pendant for a necklace, a broken bracelet... if it has something beautiful in it, something usable, I pick it up, bring it home - nearly cook it to get it clean! - and then store it away until I decide what new fabulous peace will that forgotten, fallen piece of jewelry become. In a way it's also a way to honor the previous owner. Whenever I've lost an earring or a necklace, or any piece of jewelry, I'm sad for a while, and miss it a lot. The thought that somebody found it and liked it an made something pretty out of it gives me a certain comfort. I don't know for sure if that happened, but I like to think about it, so I also do that for others: pick up their fallen jewelry and give them a new, loving home ^_^)

Possibilities are endless, and you don't need much training or many supplies to make a bracelet. Then, if you would like to prepare something a tad more elaborated, you can always ask at your craft store (if you found one) for classes on how to work with pliers (it's really simple and all it takes is practice! I myself still have some work to do to perfect my technique, but that doesn't keep me from doing the job!). This way you can buy a length of chain in any color you want, or just the wire and prepare the chain yourself, and then add the beads to it, either by keeping them in the line with the links, or by dangling them from the links like little charms. The posibilities are only limited by what you can come up with, and how much you want to do it.

So, the next time you walk by a Pandora store, don't frown at them. Go inside, check the store out, the beads, and get inspired! And why not? Maybe you'd like to treat yourself, buy a bead or two, and go home, take out your silk thread, your wire, your leather strips... whatever your imagination calls for, and make yourself unique, beautiful jewelry that reflects the awesome, beautiful person you are inside.

Vacations at the "La Española" Island

This reservation certainly wasn't like any other I've ever done at any other place. Booking.com should, perhaps, be a bit more clear about things... or should the hotels? Well, as you might guess, a non-really-geeky person like me, needs, NEEDS! her daily fix of internet connection in any shape of form available, so it is a mandatory requierment for any, ANY reservation I make, that the hotel has wi-fi or any other form of internet available, preferably one where I don't have to wait for some sweaty ass tourist (even though I'm a tourist myself), to detach their fat asses from in front of the communal internet, which usually has a large screen and everybody waiting can see what you are doing on-line. Not like I do any unseeming stuff (except when I scout yaoi mangas, which I have been doing quite often recently), but still. There's an option for that, which Booking already clicks for me "wi-fi", so when I did the reservation for the hotel, I was under the naive impression that I could come up to the room, log in and tweet to all my friends and followers that I'm nice and fine and made it to the hotel just dandy. You know, the regular stuff you do within 140 characters on Twitter.

It wasn't so. I do got informed of this after the reservation but before the trip, however I was told that wi-fi was freely available at the common areas. Oh well, we might manage, all I need is Internet and get online to breath my daily dose of Mb. However as we actually arrived to the hotel, what would you know, but you can't actually get any Internet if you don't pay for it! US$6 for 24 hours. Ok, ok, it's not so. Once you can link up on the bar for 10 minutes without paying. Dude, really, what the fuck can you do in 10 minutes on the net? Check on the news? Google something? My Kindle wouldn't even be able to download a sample from the lastest book samples I've requested! (Which do not take 60 seconds to download, btw...) So, really, 10 minutes? If you wonder what sort of cheap ass motel are we at, no, we are not. We actually have reservations at a big chain hotel, which is why this whole picking and pulling with the tourist is so offsetting for me. But I shall not complain, I've my internet, right? Already reported to Twitter and Facebook, like any dutiful little cybernaut, and now I'm merrily blogging my head away while my sweet boyfriend sleeps.

The city so far has been... interesting. It is certainly upsetting the amount of people outside the hotel harrassing you into shoe polishing (Dude, I'm wearing linen shoes! What do you want to polish on them! my boyfriend also had some unpolishable shoes...), and guided tours on horse pulled charriots... and when the "no thank you" isn't enough -  in Spanish, so that they see this is another Latin American fellow they are harrassing - comes the "I need to eat" line. Dude, me too! We don't have a DIME on their currency... or any currency other than Costa Rican colones, which we need, thank you very much. So, what do you want? They are rather unbeatable, and I honestly sulk that my boyfriend isn't a little darker in complexion and less... European looking. That was unpleasant. It was also quite unpleasant to notice the whole seashore littered. Dude, people come here for the beaches, so even if you can't swim in these particular shore, you should make sure there aren't banks of garbage floating on the water, and all sorts of stuff lying around the shore.

Historically speaking - and my history knowledge is very unreliable! - this was the Island to which Christopher Columbus arrived in his first trip, believing he had arrived to India. How far he was from the truth! The island was first called San Salvador (Saint Savior), because it appeared on the day the crew was going to dump him in the water and turn back. Later on it was called "La Española", meaning "The Spanish (woman)". The local natives, the "tahínos", were exterminated, leaving the island with no local people. The current population is also somewhat different from the Latin Americans you can see in other places, as in other countries the mixing of Spanish and Native blood is far more common, as well as mixes of white and black, black and native or all three of them, giving fabulous mixes of caramel skin or olive skin, high cheekbones, large eyes, small noses and abundant, straight, strong, pitch black hair. In here, missing the native component, most locals are rather a black and white mix, with milky caramel skin, curly hair and very prominent black features such as the magnificent cheekbones and expressive faces, and hairier limbs.

We haven't seen much yet, and honestly we have only one full day left - tomorrow - but so far, so interesting. Naturally, and as expected, I've got something pretty. ^_^ Once, in making a research on gems, I cam across a gem known as "larimar", which can be found only in Dominican Republic. Back then the research was tied to Pagan practices, and I taped a list of gems and their magical properties (many of which are often present in folklore, such as stones used for protection and things like that). For this particular stome I don't remember any of the properties, as what caught me was it's uniqueness: a gem that can only be found in one place and one place only in the whole planet: here. Abundant back in the day, though never used before as a gem, it was discovered as so recently  - in 1974 - by a man named Miguel Méndez, who started a local project to use it stone in artisan creations.

In colorings that remind of the sky or the ocean, the larimar (called so in the honor of the founder's daughter, Larisa, and the sea, "mar" in Spanish), is usually blue with white ribbons and splashes that give it often a "sky like" look. Like a sky with clouds. Once here, I also discovered that it can also contain brown (that's like the crust part of the stone), which can give it really interesting shapes and forms. Mine was actually the smallest ring in the store - interesting for my hand isn't so small, and judging by the finger I'm wearing it, this should be at least a 7, and most women I know wear ring sizes 5 and 6, many even 4 - but also one with brown, which not only gives me a wider range to combine the piece, but also rips it from the sky-like look and lends it an ocean floor look. I totally love it. :-D

Well, I should get going, wake up my snoring boyfriend, and though the lunch time is over, maybe do our first "service room" order and fetch some lunch. It is late, for lunch (though I've met people who take lunch well past 6 pm), it was so hot earlier we could hardly think of eating. Yes, that's yet another great thing about this island: I bet in here you drop pounds off your frame like nobody's business! If that's what you are interested in :-D

Oh, one last thing: at the Airport in Costa Rica, I discovered a magazine I've never seen before. It's "Latina", a magazine aimed at the Latin and Latin descendent women living at the States. Guess living in a Latin American country you kinda lose out of sight the issues connected with our etnicity. Then, did you know that the "white-latin" mixes are called "beige". I don't think I like that. That's like being called a "blah" color, when there's nothing "blah" about us. There were quite a few very interesting articles, though when it came to fashion, the proposals were so bold, so sparkly, so flashy and so revealing, I found myself reaching out for comfort into my Hungarian heritage mumbling: "I'm European, I'm European". I'm Latin, only not THAT Latin. I like skirts at knee lenght, clothes that do not try to choke my body and quite muted colors. Still, the finding was interesting.

Welcome June

The Wheel of the Year keeps turning, and we've hit June already. Like many, we marvel as not long ago it was January and we were rising our glasses of champagne (or our beer jars, each to its own), cheering for 2011. From a composition of long and short days, some where the hours seemed eternal, others where the minutes were simply not enough, from bill to paycheck, from pushing the cart of our projects down the road of the calendar, to the checklist of things accomplished and things to still tackle.

It is summer for some, a season of long days, full of sun, full of heat, short and vaporous clothes and the mandatory bottle of water, sandals, dark glasses and hat, threat of heat waves and all the nasty things it can make to you. For others it's the season of thunder storms and hurricaines, tropical storms, rubber boots, trench coats and umbrellas. For yet others it's the time of winter.

For me June is the month of my birthday, but also my Black Month, and today is the first day of it.

It's kinda funny that after several years going through this, the first day is always kinda hard. Casting away all color, picking out only the black, getting into that mind, striving to get all my stuff organized, worried I'll have not much to wear and so on, then only to end the month wishing I could keep the "all black" yet another month with me. Black is certainly addictive.

Perhaps this month, if time proves enough, I'll try out my hand at sewing a few pieces I feel like I need, but I can't find in stores. Yes, sewing. Now, unlike common believe dictates, sewing isn't always cheaper than buying clothes done, as you must consider that you probably can't get the supplies (fabric, needles, threads, buttons, etc.) as cheaper as the factories for you don't buy on bulk. Sure, sewing can be cheaper in certain cases, but not in all. However what sewing does have - if you have the skill, and the skill is acquired by practice and will to improve - is the chance to get you exactly what you want. Sure, in the begining you can start working out of patters from Internet or magazines (like I do ^_^), but with time you are able to lower or push higher the waist, make the dress longer or shorter, tighter or more flowy, change the sleeves, change the neck or clivage... possibilities are endless, and they are not tied to fashion or disponibility on the stores, nor you have to wonder about making sure to boil the clothes before wearing them for only Hyne knows where they've been hiding before you purchased them, or who had them on.

Haven't sewed in a while, so we shall see what comes out of my next project - if I man up for it. However, what I did do was starting a project of jewelry. Yes, more, jewelry! ^_^ Didn't take a picture, but yesterday I dared to try out and make a spiral pendant for a "floating" necklace (I call floating the necklaces that are made with transparent thread, thus often it looks like the pendant is magically suspended from the collar bone dip), inspired by a teenie piece I've got one day with a magazine. The original is a simple, inexpensive necklace threading on some of this transparent line four iriscident beads and in the middle of them a wire spiral with iriscident beads. Things like this make me think that, when looking for inspiration, every source is a chest of treasure. Also made a pair of pendant earrings. A project I haven't finished is an eight thread necklace, which I plan to mix and twist to create a thicker effect later on. That one is yet to be finished.

This is my June, so far. How's yours?

Handmade Gifts

I may have not been able to send my Christmas Cards this year (and I not to myself that I will plan this better from now on), but I did manage to make some jewelry for some of my friends. Here are the pictures.

Nautica: Blue and Gold

Heart-in-Heart Lace Choker and matching Heart Pendant Earrings

Sunbead Flower: Amber Glass Flower necklace and matching earrings

Angel: Blue bead, pearl-like beads and wire angel "concept" with wing earrings.

A Murano Heart on Mother's Day

Today is mother's day in Costa Rica. I was supposed to go pay my bills but everything is closed, or should be, so I don't even bother going nowhere. Will have to run into a bank sometime these days before one of my cards goes bonkers on me and reaches "beyond due-days". I might be kind of crazy spending sometimes, but I'm very conscious about the pay dates. However I've work to do, related with the thesis. Hopefully my thesis-mate will be calling me during the day to work out details about the second chapter in order to conclude it and get on the third.

As most Saturdays, I woke up early to talk to my boyfriend, but today, while I was doing that I was also making my mom her present. Hell, hope he didn't feel offended because I wasn't paying him that much attention, though I tried (to pay him attention, not to offend him!).

The necklace I did to my mom was a pendant necklace with a medium "Murano" sky blue glass heart I've got at the local bead store. To make it a but more special I laced the necklace chain with small blue beads. The style is that of a rather short necklace, something of a choker, but it doesn't sit tight around the neck, but rather hangs down a bit resting the glass heart three fingers under the small hollow spot at the base of the neck. I loved doing it, it was fun, but the most important thing is that my Mom liked it.

"I love it! And I love blue so much!"

I know that. My mom has given me blue things for birthdays and Christmas regardless of the fact that blue is not my favorite color, but green. I guess mom forgets, and so she picks things she thinks of pretty, and being blue one of her favorite colors, she often picks blue things because she saws them as the most beautiful things. ^_^ This makes those blue things special for me, and that blue beautiful for me.

My mom is great. ^_^

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms out there, real moms, surrogate moms, adopted moms, spiritual moms and also my Aunty Zsuzsa too!!!!

Creative Moon

Sometimes, when you do something, like jewelry or any kind of art or artisanal activity, you see something and it gets you thinking. You want to try it, you want to use it, and your mind swirls around it until you find a way to harness it and make it yours.

A shape I love, just like Dragonfly likes, well, dragonflies, is the Moon. I simply love the Moon so much I believe in a past life I must have been a wolf. In the town I live there's this bead shop were I go to get my supplies for my jewelry, and they had these transparent half moons I just couldn't stop looking at. I didn't bought them for a long time because I had no idea how to use them. They were rather big, and I couldn't imagine any way to arrange them without making them look like I just took them from some cheap chandelier from some five-star hotel. (I've been in one too many conferences and seminars to notice that the "beautiful chandeliers" are all plastic and often dusty. All it's pieces can be bought at any bead store.) However, then one day I noticed these metalic rings. At first I had no use for them, so I didn't even picked them up. Later, however, I put both shapes together, and it seemed like something I'd like.

So far I've never done anything dangling from a necklace, and certainly have never done earrings this massive. However, the more I thought about the shape, the composition, I knew I had to try it out. So today, I went back to this bead shop and bought the supplies. The making wasn't easy, and this first attempt have a few problems about the linking, as the hole on the ring is too small for two loops to fit it, but I'd say the result is pretty. What do you think?