Clear-out Coming Soon

Nobody should be misled by the hot days we are having the last few weeks, autumn is around the corner. Days are getting shorter, school starts next week and the next salary comes in September.

So today's project for me was to look for autumn and winter clothes on eBay. I do not have the patience to go shopping and look for a sweater for hours so I just click on my preferences and there I can see what I am looking for.

This also means I will need to get rid of all the clothes I have but do not wear anymore. Clear-out on the horizon!

Why Not 1.

Why not be just happy about the most simple things in life? Just like...

- Compliments about the new ring I bought yesterday
- 5 pieces of pogácsa free of charge from the baker in the morning
- Sizzling indian summer in Budapest
- The hottest (or so they say) chili paprika bush which will provide components for the gulyás we plan to cook in the garden on Saturday
- The book written in the unique style of Amos Oz
- The textile seahorse that turned into a cute brooch today
- Killer Callanetics lessons together with one of my best friends
- My friendly cactuses on the balcony that I got from the Mom of another one of my best friends
- And: why not?

Helen

You might remember the "Beautiful technology" earrings I made using blue howlit. They got soon reserved with the additional request for a matching necklace.

It took me a while but now the necklace is ready.

As you see I have no model so it was myself posing with this new piece. (Volunteers welcome for modeling! And I'm being serious now.) The length of the necklace is of course adjustable.

Today after work I somehow (...) walked into one of my favourite bead shops and they were having sales at extremely low prices on ready jewelry made using minerals. I am saving money for a holiday but I just could not resist, especially because normally they do not sell ready-made jewelry so now was the time to grab a bargain on hand-made pieces.

So it is not only Helen getting some new jewelry now, but also your La Kukac, what a wonderful day!

SOLD

Dedication

Yeah yeah yeah I know I am neglecting my blog and all that but believe me, I just wasn't in the mood of doing anything creative. Or better said, I have been creative in many other ways.

But now I have decided to dig a bit deeper into all this jewelry making and get more out of it. Now the decision has been made, I just need some time to realise it - I don't know about you, but this is always where the bottleneck is for me. So I will spend some time brainstorming and then discover all the possibilities that come to my mind and are affordable. Time to be as dedicated as possible!

Green wedding earrings

I didn't really believe I could make earrings for a wedding - natural pieces of jewelry tend to be more ethnic than that but my friend again helped me to discover more of the possibilities and what I can do. She has been talking to me about her need for a nice pair of earrings for a wedding but I tried to avoid this task for lack of confidence in being able to make something that can work with a cocktail dress.

Well, in the end she succeeded and here is the result with the matching hairband. Actually I am happy she convinced me! We agreed on using my (and as it turned out, hers too) favourite mineral: tiger's eye combined with glass beads and a piece of shell.

The happy face in the end was well worth it!

SOLD

Cross the Sea

This piece has its owner already, a lady who loves lighthouses. She asked me a long time ago to make her something in the sailor-theme so I bought the components immediately but somehow forgot about the project later on. It was already a shame so now I recovered my backlog towards her.

These earrings are 8 cms long which could be too long for a lot of people but look great with the long neck and curly hair she has.

And then when I was ready I forgot to take proper pictures so I only have this one which I took for her to give confirmation via email. But I decided to post it anyway because this story brings warmth to my heart no matter how great or not the photo might be.

Sail on, cross the sea, find your lighthouse darling!

SOLD

Back to Reality

I am back to life, back to reality - as the song says.

Yesterday I celebrated this with another piercing. They say once you start getting a tattoo, there is no more stopping to getting more (we'll see that) and more and as I see the same seems to apply for piercings. It was just a small one now but it made me so happy!

Today I celebrated the second day of this by making this bracelet. It has been a while now that I last had worked on a bracelet even though I had several ideas on my mind.

Step aside

Again so much time passed without any post of new jewelry, I know. But you must forgive your La Kukac: she is on holiday and tries to spend as much time outside and with family as possible.

Today I was walking alone with our dogs in the forest and I walked so far only listening to my thoughts that at one point I did not really know where I was exactly. It did not bother me though - I kept on walking. Anyway, sometimes a step in the seemingly wrong direction or a step back can lead us closer to our destination. Just keep an eye on the goal to achieve, on the top you aim at and never mind if you need to step backwards sometimes or to the side in order to get there.

Work learn play

There is a relatively old (1990) American movie called Awakenings, with the stunning performance of Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. Even though the main characters are played by these popular actors the film itself is not very well-known, though it should and deserves to be.

I won't tell you about the story as you should definitely see it yourself but the bottomline is that we can give value to each and every day of our life by "working, learning and playing". I think that this simple sentence tells us so much about the beauty and the meaning of life that most of the longer kind could not.

If we keep this in mind (and all of them, only one of the three does not work without the two others) we will not stray too far from what we really need to do here on Earth.

SOLD

5 Things You Can Do When Your Job Is Eating Up Your Life (And It's Not Too Late Yet)

This list might seem to be a good joke which lacks any seriousness but don't get misled by the funny way I put it. This is bloody serious: you have only one life and nobody else will have fun in it or discover your limits instead of you.

So what are your options?

1. Be a Waiter/waitress or Tourist Guide in Greece

I was lucky enough to try both and it was one of the best periods in my life. I left a serious job with a promising outlook for months of complete freedom and full of discovery. It cleared up my mind and I came back knowing exactly what I wanted to do - and it was not what I had left behind - so I put my life on a completely different new track.
This was years ago and by now Greece is not the best destination so you can replace it with Mallorca or Phuket upon your wish.

2. Sell paintings in Portugal

If you work in sales or marketing, this is your chance to get back to the roots and see things from a different perspective. You will literally work for every cent. But your office will not be neon-lit anymore: you will change it for the beach or the avenue where lovers stroll in the evening. If you are lucky, singles will also stroll your way.

3. Become a zookeeper

Not the cleanest job, we must admit. But just imagine all the kids looking at you with envy and respect when you feed the penguins! Be careful, being a zookeeper for more peaceful and harmless animals is much funnier than feeding the polar bear so you might get a good use of your networking and negotiation skills you had developed in the multinational environment before.

4. Volunteer!

If you are as lucky as to be able to afford this. Use the internet, discover the opportunities and get on the road! There are so many fields that need volunteering work: disabled kids' camps, saving endangered animals, day-care of AIDS-infected, and so on, but there are also programs that offer consulting and free know-how to developing countries' rural people in the field of agriculture or small business management.
The choices you can make are countless but the result will be only one: the most useful time of your life ever.

5. Self-employment

This needs dedication just like any of the mentioned options but here we must also consider dedication in financial sense.
Make a good plan, prepare, save money, research your market - in a nutshell, use all the skills you use in the office every day. You can open a private nursery or make goat cheese - there is no limit to what a person's creative and entrepreneurial side can achieve when it is used to all its effectiveness. Probably this is the one of all the above listed ways of escaping that needs the most preparation. You will be taking risks and might not have a single day off for the next couple of months or years to come. Think about all this, discuss it with people you trust and when you get really excited - jump!

And for the rest of us, whose lives are not eaten up by our job: be nice to waitresses, tourist guides and zookeepers! They might be your boss next year!

Theoretic questions about going on a holiday with your dog(s)

We are back from holiday but I promised myself that I will share one impression with you on the blog.

The subject is: where can you go with a dog?

The answer could be simple: anywhere! This is what I see in Austria for example - it is totally normal to go shopping to the mall with your dog by your side. In Hungary you just cannot do this. Malls are forbidden area for dogs, but to make you happy some of them organize one day per year when they open their doors to your best friend too. Wow, I should be impressed I guess...

But I know, I might be wishing for too much so let's just stay outside and discover our beautiful nature together. But forget about lakes, even the most remote and empty ones have huge signs at their entrance: dogs are not allowed! Well, first of all, we wanted a holiday to spend with our little "family" together so leaving them in the car is out of the question, just as leaving the lake is. This is what happened to us at every lake during our break.

Funny thing is, in the end we could enter all of these areas with our dogs and also swam with them in the cool water. So if the people who are there or even who take care of the lake don't bother, why the warning sign?

This all also leaves a theoretic question in my head just as the "dogs forbidden" parks of our country. What is the real reason behind? Dogs are dirty? Well, I travel on the tram with a lot of people who are much dirtier than our dogs. Dogs will piss in the water? They don't even do it in front of us when we go for a walk but they search for a hidden place. Dogs spread diseases? And what about men who forget to wash their hands after going to the restroom?

So the end was happy as you see: we were not forbidden. Only in theory. As long as it stays like this, I will leave my questions theoretic too.

SOLD

Monday Again

I am sure this is an internationally known feeling: Monday.

Honestly I can tell you I love every day of my life, I am not the kind grumbling around like "oh I hate this day". But even for me, Mondays are different.

First of all, I come back to the city, this is already a big change and as much as I enjoy living in the city on the first day of the week my head is still full of the memories of the weekend. Sometimes it can be really like stepping out of one life and stepping back into the other.

Second, I get so relaxed during the weekend that on Mondays I sometimes feel like I am the one driving 50 mph on the motorway. Sloooow!

And now, with all this sunshine outside...

I know many of us feel the same way. That's it, we must accept that Mondays are like this.

SOLD

Unite

I don't know what is happening in the world these days but I bump into nothing else but pregnancy news around me. This is of course nothing bad, on the contrary, it makes me very happy.

It just reminds me of the lines Peter Falk had in Cassavetes' 1974 film, A Woman Under the Influence, when he was talking about the baby boom he experienced around him so suddenly, after years of no babies born.

I know that some of these young Mums and Dads need some support in these moments so let these two necklaces symbolize my wish for you all: that your powers unite and soon you will receive a new baby boy or girl - whenever the time is right. Do not have fear, nature knows what is best for us even when we do not know and will gently direct us all to where we belong just as it will direct your baby where it belongs: to you.

White rose

It is not a hard task to find out what inspired this pair of earrings: the spring currently in bloom of course.

But also I wanted to work with a different material and it has been a long time since I last used textile ribbons so when finding these roses I already knew I had to make something special of them as soon as possible. And just as quickly as I made this earring it also got its new owner.

I hope I will find more such pieces later on to work with, it is so much fun!

SOLD

Little fish

Last week at a small local market I discovered a lady selling minerals and many kinds of supplies a jewelry-maker needs. She is only there two days a week but we already had a short chat about what we are doing and how great it is I found her, from my point of view because she sells at lower prices and at the same time a bigger variety of minerals than what is available at dedicated shops.

The shell fragments I used at making this pair of earrings are also from her. The inspiration clearly came from the sea: the tiny fish, the color of the sea, and the shells in it.

Yesterday a young lady around 12-13 years old was hesitating when choosing an earring from my items and this little fish earring was also among her favourite ones but in the end she chose the "[...] don’t shine like your possessions do" earrings. I also see this extremely light pair as one made for a younger audience who can perfectly wear cute and funny pieces.

Swim little fish, swim!

SOLD

A successful day

So we had the fair at Liliomkert/Káptalantóti this morning, accompanied by our dogs. In the early hours it seemed like we were out of luck as we were out of sunshine but just as we made our first sale (the Egalité key charm), the weather started to change its mind and from then on we had lovely springtime.

Our neighbour was selling delicious homemade sweets but we met several other friendly people like it always happens in Káptalantóti. We even got presents from our fellow exhibitors. It became clear that Marvin, our brown labrador was the most popular item we brought to the market (though not for sale) but fortunately also the jewelry was selling well so we can absolutely say that the day was successful.

It was very useful to talk with the customers and see what they liked and what they did not like. I will try to take all these into consideration as long as it does not amend my main focus.

I hope to go back soon with some new items and meet even more of you there!

Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) the day was so busy that we simply forgot to take any photos so please instead check this superlight sunshine-yellow hoop earring which I made only some days ago.

Fair at Liliomkert

There is a fair in one of the most beautiful regions of Hungary that is a kind of bio-market and though theoretically it is legal, it faces a lot of harrassment from the authorities because of its philosophy. And despite all of this, the market is thriving and growing. Once you go an visit it, you will want to go back every Sunday.

The place is called Liliomkert and is located in Káptalantóti, near Lake Balaton, among the hills and fields of the wonderful Káli-medence (basin).The fair is organized every Sunday morning until 2 PM. You can watch a lovely short video on Liliomkert by clicking here (length: 1:37).

The main idea which I always agreed with is that we need to stop pouring all the plastic/fake/unhealthy/overtreated food and things of all kind into our lives and must make a step back and eat whatever can be found in bio-gardens, eat real meat, taste cakes made by our grandmothers and recycle whatever we can.

So far we have only been visitors/customers here but today I am proud to announce that this Easter Sunday I will also take part and exhibit my jewelry for sale in Liliomkert.

It is the most beautiful market I have ever been to. You cannot imagine just how happy I am! Come and visit me and all the people there, I am sure you will also make a lot of friends and understand why it is highly important to cherish markets as this as long as we can. See you this Sunday in Káptalantóti!

SOLD

Something purple

I made this charm months ago for Bozsomati. The instruction I received was "something purple".

I am not a big fan of charms or anything that is for making a phone look more beautiful.

A phone is to make calls on it and nothing more. For me it is not a piece of fashion, not part of my outfit, and most of all not a status symbol.

For many long years I used to have the ugliest but most useful phone. It was made of metal and rubber to make it water-, dust- and LaKukac-proof, and it managed well with my manners as falling out of my hand on stairs, in the bathtub, out of the car... But one morning when I woke up I saw that during the night somehow it ended up in a glass of juice which still to date I cannot imagine how could have happened, above all because I have been "straight edge" for the past 12 years. This was our last morning together.

Since then I have had another phone that I can throw from here to there without any problem.

But I accept that nowadays people want more from their phones, for women mostly it is to look nice and sytlish. So why not making a mobile phone charm that has "something purple"? After all, it is not for me!

SOLD

Piles

Do you know what it means to collect and pile up things and stuff in your room, your home, your life? It means you can lose them any day, this way or the other.

Do you know what it means to collect and pile up memories and happy moments in your days, in your years, in your life? It means you will never ever lose them, not even when you finally close your eyes not to open them up again. These memories and happy moments might pass but will live on forever, they will never be gone as they have already happened therefore cannot be taken away any more.

You better lose your stuff to start appreciating what cannot be lost.

Stop piling up and start living, please.

SOLD

Sarah

Sarah is the name of this earring.

The only reason is that I opened up the Bible at the Book of Tobit, at the chapter of the Blindness and the Test (or probation) of Sarah, as you see in the picture.

I have not read them yet but tonight I will.

As they say, the Bible should not be read as a usual non-fiction novel but by reading it by chapter, wherever you open up the book. I wonder what it has to say now.

SOLD