All that You Have

It's been a while since I last posted anything here. During these weeks and months I experienced death and birth of all kinds (do you remember this post?). People died, relationships died and futures died. But as in life there is always birth, the deaths of the soul are also followed by magnificient rebirths - if you let them happen, only if you don't resist too hard to die first.

This blog might not be the same ever again as what it used to be.

What I am experiencing now is the total freedom of the mind which brings about the peace of the soul. I have taken a huge sack off my shoulders and started to breathe again and now all I can see around me is freedom and the beauty of it. This is the greatest feeling of all. Today I got up earlier and I was standing on my balcony. There was still a morning mist in the air and I was looking over the roofs and streets beneath. Such a long time since I last felt this total lightness and peace of all that was inside of me. So many things we lose on the road. So many worthless things. And there is only one thing we must preserve and keep safe: our soul. All my problems ceased to exist, all the pain is gone, the dead one is buried and all I see is flowers on the tomb while I know I still have the most important thing one can have: myself.

But don't listen to me, listen to Tracy Chapman instead... "Hunger only for a taste of justice / Hunger only for a world of truth"

by Shane Rucker

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?

At Work

I was at work this evening and it was a quite productive session. The ready pieces are coming soon!

Lazy Kukac... or not?

I know I haven't posted anything since last Thursday and it's a shame and all of that I know. But it's not because I am lazy.

I just have been focusing on different things during these days: our friend's hen party (it was grrrreat!), my friend's after-hen party, and a lot of sports. Last Friday was the first time I have ever tried yoga - hm, I guess I will stay with Pilates and Callanetics... I feel like I could work out every day and I do it as much as I can now, I am fed up with sitting all day in my office chair and becoming a muffin!

So I promise I will soon update the blog again with some jewelry, all I need to do is uploading the photos and have a rainy weekend just as it looks like it will be again.

But if you feel like reading a blog featuring some hand-made stuff, check out Viki's blog here. She is more diligent than me these days :)

My Weekend in Pictures

Yes, our Marvin learnt how to pick cherries from the tree and Indy learnt how to look for the best opportunity to collect the cherries falling off thanks to Marvin. (Do you remember my story here from two years ago about Marvin and the cherries?)

The bird cage was my idea. I was looking at it all the time during the fair because I had this idea in my mind: to hang it from the edge of the roof outside the house with a cactus and some stones inside. So I sent Peter to go and bargain for it and then all that was left was for me to bargain for the cactus.

The cherry pie was made today - I am sure it is not only us having a tree in the garden full of cherries these days.

And the car... The new best company on my trips (see my old one to which I was really sad to say goodbye here).

I hope you all had such a great weekend too!

Auction at Liliomkert

Today we went to the same fair in Káptalantóti. It was the best way to forget all the dirt of the week and clear up our mind.

The fair started a bit slowly for everybody, we made our first sale later than usual but then things started to speed up and in the end we closed a good day. Not with the usual turnover but still a good day financially, and what is more important, from a human point of view.

In the meantime I was making jewelry at the table and somehow the new pieces were the most popular ones. I sold three pieces of which I did not even have the chance to take a photo in order to showcase them here on the blog.

So instead today I show you a sculpture for which you could bid on among a lot of other things (the photo was taken at the beautiful fair site). I hope they succeeded to sell everything as the income was needed for developments to be made at the market. I wish I has known about this auction before so I could have advertised it here.

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

Country holiday

Your La Kukac is leaving for a 4-day escape to the countryside today. We will stay in a house at the end of the world: no streets, no fences, no internet. We have been planning this for months now and I could hardly wait for this short break to come.

We will do the following:

We will drive there and then around from lake to river, from river to fields, from fields to forest...

Then we will walk and have fun in the forest:

Then we go for a swim:

Then we just rest together on the shore:

And when all of that is done, we go back to the house and finish the day off like this:

Yeeeeah!

What Everybody Must Know about Hand-made and Natural Jewelry

I have been thinking about writing this post for a while but today I felt like it was time.

When people look for and buy jewelry they do it out of fun if it is for themselves just as well as if it is as a present. Jewelry is something you can live without but you don't want to. Nowadays a customer can choose of thousands if not millions of offers on the web and all over the place. You can want almost anything, sooner or later you will find the maker for it.

But if you want natural materials and/or hand-made stuff, your expectations must be a bit different. These aspects are better considered before than after the purchase. Many of them are positive ones of course and don't really wish for considering but some do.

It is easier to sum up what you do not buy with hand-made jewelry: pieces that are produced by the thousand in China, pieces that are made by machines, pieces that mean a compromise for you and that you will see on many others. What you do buy is jewelry made with care, made by taking the time for it, and most of the time pieces that are unique. In my case, you can be sure you will never bump into any duplicate piece anywhere. I can make similar pieces but never duplicates. It is a kind of principle that might sound stupid but for me it increases the value of each item. This can be one of the reasons why I am so happy when I actually meet the person who will wear my stuff - because the person is just as unique as the piece of jewelry she bought.

But you must know that because humans make mistakes and machines do not, your hand-made item might not be perfect in the sense of being flawless. Every jewelry-maker aspires to do their best but we are not CNC-machines to be able to do exactly the same bend or length twice.

In the case of natural materials, this factor is even more important. Nature is perfect in its own way but not in the way machine-moulded plastic pieces can be. Please do not expect a wooden bead to look or feel like it was plastic - fortunately, this is impossible. Do not expect two beads to be 100% identical if they are made of ceramic or shell or wood and so on. The necklace of today is a good example to this: this is the whole amount of this big brown wooden bead that I could get and some are not immaculate. But I loved them and decided to use them. Still, the necklace will not fall apart because of these faults. If you look at the whole piece itself you will see that these small faults will not worsen the overall image.

As you might have already noticed I am fully against anything plastic, for many reasons. First of all, it is artificial and just as much as I don't like it around me, I will not wear it on my skin, after all it is nothing but a lot of disgusting and harmful chemicals moulded into a kind of desired shape. A plastic bracelet is no different from a plastic bag you get for free at the check-out of the supermarket.

As for my items, I am always ready to give as much information as possible. If we meet personally, you can always check my items however you want to, you can try them on, you can compare them, we can talk about them for as long as you want to, I can even make certain modifications if this is your wish. You are not just a customer but a person who holds a piece of my inner self in her hand and who values this effort.

Considering all this, what you can expect from a hand-made natural piece is to be perfect in the sense as anything natural is perfect. You can expect it to be unique, to reflect your own style and to last a certain time.

And besides all this, you can be sure that you will respect, cherish, and love this piece of jewelry more than any other you have bought in a shop never knowing where it was from or who it was made by.

SOLD

See you later

For most people a car is nothing more than an object. An object they use (abuse) and then throw away for the next object.

I never felt like that. A car is part of what you show to the world out of yourself. A car can kill you, a car can save your life. A car can give you miserable and expensive visits at the service station, a car can give you a proud smile when you say "well, I never faced any of such problems with mine". A car can even put you in a community - I suppose Alfa Romeo owners are the only ones saying hello to each other on the road in Hungary.

First of all, make a good choice - my "no plastic" slogan is valid here too. Second, take good care of it. Then - love it.

I had a great help at the second point (thank you, Peti!) which, together with the original characteristics of the car itself, made it easy to accomplish the third point: loving it.

Now it seems we must say goodbye or at least say "see you later" to each other as this white beauty moves back to my parents', giving way to another Alfa Romeo. Almost nobody, except for two people around me understood why this made me cry. I hope that my next Alfa will be just as a great friend and companion on my long trips as this "kisalfa" was.

See you later, my friend.

If you want to see some more photos and read a bit more of this super-reliable car, click here.

Rainy (and short) fair

After a Rainy anniversary, today was another similar Sunday with a Rainy fair. Even though the weather forecast predicted sunshine for the Western part of Hungary we got washed away by rain accompanied by a cold wind. The Hungarian forecasts are notoriously unreliable especially since the main Western meteorological station had been shut down so it was no wonder that instead of the warm sunny spring day this was what we experienced. We prepared for a lovely picnic and brought our favourite blanket with us as well, all in vain as we left the market at 10 am.

Early in the morning everything looked bright but the dark clouds came just at the beginning of the fair's peak hours thus making this rather a deficit-producing fair than a worthy one. Despite this, I am not sad or disappointed at all as we had a lot of people around our booth and also made sales right at the beginning. And of course, it was all so much fun again!

After the last fair I thought of making more jewelry for children and this strategy seemed to work today, young ladies got attracted to my new pieces as if they were magnets.

I also made some metal necklaces using the new medals I have just received from Switzerland, I will of course post them here at the blog shortly.

Just like last time, our neighbours were lovely people again: one couple selling antique carpets and housewares and another one on our left side selling home-made cakes. When they had to do some quick shopping I tried to replace them but fortunately they always arrived in time which was important as I had no idea about their pricing so my only task was not to let the customers run away util that. In return we got some apple pie and poppy cake for breakfast.

I hope for some better weather soon so we can return to Káptalantóti!

Rainy anniversary - and my first-ever jewelry set!

Yesterday we celebrated an important anniversary with my boyfriend so again we went back to the same place and to the same event as at that first time we met. It is the annual meeting of a car brand with around 20 people from across the country, combined with the 1st of May programs of the small village where it is all organized. The main event is the outside cooking competition which this year took place in unstoppable rain so we all got totally wet and cold but still were having lots of fun. Well, only until we started feeling that now it was really too much of rain and cold. We both came home feeling a bit sick. I drove back to Budapest where I work from Monday till Friday but today I stayed at home to get rid of the fever I have had since last night.

For this special day I am presenting you my first jewelry set! It is not the usual composition because I dislike things that smell from being overcomposed so it is an earrings and bracelet couple, no necklace was made. I was thinking about it but then I imagined all the three pieces worn at the same time - hm, maybe just too much... But I might make a leather necklace using the same items later on as I am sure it would look lovely too.

All the materials are natural as one can be: mineral (turquoise), untreated wood, and metal fragments and beads on an adjustable leather string in the case of the bracelet. For the earrings I also inserted crops painted in the color of dark purple onto the double metal string, which I doubled this time for a strong hold. The wooden bits were drilled on another cold and little bit of sick Sunday, my post from March here.

I am really proud of this as now I feel like I could do something that might be able to reflect the clear beauty of nature itself.

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

La Kukac on Etsy

Today finally I had the chance to update my brand new shop at Etsy.

As you know, I am not doing this thing in search of money or fame, I just feel like I can create something in the field of jewelry that might be new to many people while I feel good when making these things. I am trying to incorporate my passion and love for nature into everything that I make with my own two hands and sometimes it takes time, sometimes it takes more money than would if I mainly used plastic components.

I truly believe that the most beautiful things on Earth are natural. We, humans are flooding our world with more and more plastic and artificial stuff every day, with things we don't use, we waste energy and cut trees when all we should do is just switch off the lights and open the window.

If you like any of the pieces I make, just click on the link above to visit my shop. If you have opinion about this or any other topic, let me know by sending me comments - positive or negative can both come. Or if you just want to tell me you liked any of the posts or pieces of jewelry, just continue clicking on the "Like" button and you will make me plain happy!

SOLD

Wooden earrings in respect of the bravest friends

We had just a wonderful day today: my boyfriend and our two best friends.

Marvin is the young labrador who knows no fear. Indy is the even younger mixed breed (previously abandoned) dog who knows no task she will not perform if we ask. These two pure and honest creatures ligth up any day but this day was sunny by itself as well, so we decided to take a walk in the nearby forests despite the strong wind that has been blowing for the last few days. We wound up in a huge green field near a small village and decided to stay.

We were watching deers cross the field, we were running around just for the fun of running, taking photos of each other and just lying in the grass enjoying the sun.

The astronaut (I told you, there was a strong wind!) you see is me with the bravest friends mentioned in the title of this post: Marvin and Indy.


SOLD

My first fair

Today was an important day: for the first time I participated at a design fair not as customer but as a seller.

It wasn't very easy as my body decided that today was the perfect day for my usual migraine but I tried my best. My boyfriend was a great help, I am sure that without his energy I could not have managed to stay until the closing hour. He brought me soup and kept me alive all day long.

I also introduced my La Kukac price tags which worked perfectly and were of course matching with my green tablecloth, which is originally a big and bright scarf.

We made some sales so in the evening we celebrated with a dinner.

I am sending a big thank you to all the friends who visited and most of all everybody who bought jewelry from me. I truly appreciate your support - I am happy to know I am surrounded by such great people. Thank you for the home-made pancakes too! :)

The photo you see was taken at the beginning.

The first necklace to go hasn't even been published here so it's a real new-born. Tomorrow I am going to show you this piece.

Old-new me

I had to do it, I was so fed up and bored with my long hair and at the same time I felt like something was wrong. I made this necklace last weekend but now that I show it to you I must call it the "Old-new me necklace" because today is the day when I got back my old-new me. Old, because I already had very short hair in the past. New, because for many years now I have had long hair and I was satisfied with it, until one certain moment came.

Sometimes a feeling comes, I make up my mind and make a change which is not necessarily a change in hairstyle like this time but could be almost any kind of change. It is a matter of just some hours or days. And then I am so happy I did it!

Wanna see it? Come and visit me in Bálint-ház, Budapest, 3 April - next Sunday between 10 am and 4 pm at the small design fair!

SOLD

I love you, pink giraffes!

I will tell you today about my profile photo and the earring I am wearing of course.

The picture was taken on a summer afternoon in Keszthely, a lovely lakeside town in Hungary where I spent my usual yearly holiday with my friends. Those days it was seven of us, nowadays it is "only" four. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, just whatever many times happens among friends - it was maybe too many of us and we set off for different directions in our life I guess so we split. It was one of the best things that has happened in our friendship. I know it might sound weird, but the four of us never had such an intimate relationship before, we never saw each other so often and never had such great and honest times together.

As for the earrings, it is a typical story again: I saw the pink wooden giraffes and I just had to make earrings out of them. They pop out no matter what you wear them with, they color up any outfit and are superlight.

I love you, pink giraffes!