Friday, October 29, 2010

Friday is my day: Roroism

Jaa
Today we will fly to Luxembourg and meet Rado from roroism.etsy.com
She makes lovely folk, nature and ethnic inspired felt asseccories.
Enjoy your day!

Heather and Pink - Folk Flower BROOCH

My day is Friday by ROROISM

This entry could be so many different things if posted only about one and a half month ago... I was still a student, still lived in Stockholm Sweden and it was summer... Now not only that I have moved to Luxembourg's countryside, we had an autumn hit last week and yes – definitely I am mainly pregnant these days... Everything is jus new and different – my house and studio is still 'under-construction' not sure if there is any routine yet or “typical roro day“;-) but let me try...

Hello!

I am Rado of roroism (www.roroism.etsy.com) I am born and raised in Kraków, Poland – settling temporally in a different parts of Europe for last 2,5 years. I am a cultural anthropologist and fashion studies master. I am also one-man company and I work mainly with felt and folk-art inspired colors :-)

Autumn is here... it's still dark when we wake up, lots of fog and hoarfrost these days. Mornings are a bit spooky then... forsythia couldn't cope with it – it started to bloom beneath the autumnal foliage...

After packing lunch and waving goodbye to fiancée who works in the city I have my coffee/breakfast, sofa, news/book time – the sun is entering my living room at that time.

After breakfast there is always some hose work like laundry to do...

Then I move upstairs to me not fully furnished nor nu-packed studio

There are usually some pics to edit, listings to publish and recently some orders to pack fortunately:-) After hectic times of moving and furnishing I am creating again – some folk necklaces, ribbon earrings and new mini pansies...

In a mean time I often run up and down – to garden pick yet another 'last' cup of raspberries, trimm aster flowers, or to the kitchen to make myself tea or work on lunch/dinner – for example seasonal pumpkin cream soup:-)


Around 4 pm I go by bus to 'la ville' – city of Luxembourg where I go post office, do some shopping, meet my fiancée at university campus and we walk together to the bus station:-)



Friday, October 22, 2010

Friday is my day: Alibli

Jaa
Hi, today we will fly to Italy, pretty Venice and meet Alice from alibli.etsy.com
She creates beautiful jewellery. Have a lovely Friday!




Hello everyone,

I am Alice, you can find me on Etsy in my little shop, alibli.

I was born and raised near Milan, Italy, but I have been living in Venice for about one year now, since in September 2009 when I signed in for my master degree in History at Venice university.

Living in Venice is… kind of odd. Sometimes this town reminds me of Disneyland, but sure this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

People here don’t open up to strangers much and I come from 300km away: I am percieved as a srtange exotic creature!

Venice is a very silent place too: no cars and busses under your window at 6 in the morning. This can be a real problem if, like me, you didn’t set the alarm clock… you’ll end up getting up terribly late.

Today is firday and I don’t have any class at university, so I can devote my day to being creative and working on alibli.

10.30 am

I lazily wake up, have a shower and eat some breakfast: today I have vanilla yogurt with cereals, a few almonds and white tea. As every average Etsy seller I have breakfast in front of my laptop, answer convos, make a treasury. And just like most Etsy sellers I can’t resist macro shooting…


It’s mid october, but it’s a beautiful sunny day, here is the view from my kitchen window


I will spend the rest of the morning crafting and I’ll need a lot of tea to get through it (I am addicted)


11.30 am

Yesterday I sawed a few pieces of silver and I want to finish a pair of earrings I had in mind for a while: open hoops with a dangling silver leaves… I am personaly quite happy with the result!

1.00 pm

It’s past midday when I am finished crafting and I still need to prepare the orders I that came in last night: I print invoices, prepare boxes and packages.


The post office is two minutes from my house, but I won’t coming back home until this evening, so I get ready for the afternoon to come. I just have the time to eat a fruit before going out.

I live in an island called Giudecca, it is suoth of the main body of Venice (I mean the “fish shape” you see on the maps). Giudecca is a really calm neighborhood (a bit too much, maybe!), tourists don’t come here so often and houses are more recent than in the heart of Venice. Here you can see a little square (“campo”) and a alley (“calle”) just next to my house.


2.00 pm

From Giudecca island you can enjoy one of the most gorgeous views of Venice: this what you can see right from the post office!


I need to go to the university library this afternoon, so I take the boat ( line number 2) to cross the Giudecca channel that separates the island from the rest of Venice.


I can’t walk you with me inside the library, I need to look for some books about Byzantium influence in Italy… I know it can be soporifc to most people!

4.30 pm

After searching for knowledge and making tons of copies from books (most of them seemed to have been left untouched for decades) I am going to meet a fellow etsian. Her name is Davinia and she is an incredibly talented bead maker from Belgium now living in here.

Her shop is next so San Marco, so I enjoy a 40 minutes walk in this labiryinth called Venice (if you’ll ever come here remember: only comfortable shoes!)

I am wearing a sweatshirt and a jaket… while the gondolier is in his t-shirt only, that’s a hard job.


5 pm

Here is Davinia and a few of her gorgeous creations.


6 pm

After bead shopping I need to cross the town again.

You can find many vegetable sellers in the “campi” (squares), I’ll need something to cook dinner tonight, so I stop at this colorful stall. I buy artichauts, pumpkin, fennels, apples and bananas.

I’s another 20 minutes walk from this stand to the boat… I’ll better fasten my speed.


7 pm

There is still a bit of light and, as soon as I get home, I can’t resist experimenting with my brand new beads while listening to some music (as you can see I am a headphones fan). While I craft I turn on the computer again, I just can’t stay away from it for too long.


8 pm

I finally start cooking while I talk to my mum over Skype; she is always super sweet and she doesn’t mind talking to me while I am busy doing something else.

Tonight we’ll have pasta with artichauts (cleaning them is none of my favorite hobbies, still they are so good!) and lemon… yummy! do you want the recipe?

9.30 pm

After tiding and cleaning up the kitchen there is still some space for work: it’s time for glue, sissors and paper, I need to finish a bunch of handmade boxes for alibli. This is quite a relaxing job, I can do it while watching a film (I just downloaded “Leaves of Grass” with Edward Norton, let’s give it a try).

12 pm

I check my Etsy again, then I am finally off to bed. Honestly, the film wasn’t any good…

Good night!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Friday is my day: Woolmint

Jaa
Let's go to Estonia, the land of sweet Kalev's blueberry chocolate and meet Anniki from woolmint.etsy.com
A shop full of warm and beautiful knitwear to warm you and/or your loved ones in these coming cold days. Have a soft Friday!


Hello, I’m Anniki from Estonia, but you can call me just Ann, as most of my foreign friends.

I live in a small resort city Pärnu with my son Oliver, who just turned 5.

I’m not a morning person at all! Waking up is rather hard to me, and I usually postpone as long as possible. Oliver wakes before me, grabs something to eat and watch cartoons until I join him.

8am

Usually I get up 7am, because I have to be in the office 9am, but today I’m free and I can enjoy my sleep an hour longer. I’d like to stay in bed more, but Oliver has to go to a friend’s birthday and we must wrap the present and buy some flowers.

9am

I had a shower and I enjoy my coffee in front of computer, reading news and browsing Etsy.

Later I get dressed up and try to make myself look like a normal person, not the one who just crawled out the bed with messy hair and closed eyes :)

By the way, drinking coffee is my bad habit, because everyone should have one, at least that’s what I’ve been told. And I drink a lot… 10 cups a day, sometimes more.

10am

Oliver is ready to go to birthday, while I still can’t decide what to wear. All girls know the feeling, right? It’s one of those mornings when nothing fits, so finally I go for a pair of yeans, comfortable shirt and my big knitted shawl, because the weather in October is quite chilly here.

10.30 am

We’re finally waiting bus to go to birthday.

11am

I’m free for 3 hours! I have my breakfast in my favorite café – Ahoy sushi bar. They serve mostly sushi, but in the morning they offer delicious and healthy sandwiches and of course – coffee!

11.45 am I go to the office, because I need to send some urgent e-mails.

I work as a journalist in regional newspaper and often participate in different European political, economical and social events, like seminars, workshops, conferences. Some of them are very strict and require information for security clearance and that’s what I came to send.

That’s how my desk looks like; here I spend 5 days a week.

And this is fresh newspaper. I mostly write about economical and social issues, but as I’m the youngest in the team, they sometimes ask me to write about fashion too, like today.

Our office is greatly located on the main street of the city, and my two favorite (yarn) shops are just 20-50 meters away.

12.10 pm

I visit farmer’s market to buy some flour, because I bake bread myself, but turns out there isn’t flour this time.

But it’s fun place to be, because every time there are some entertainers, this time folk dancers.

Next to farmer’s market is located the craft gallery, my favorite place in this city! I visit it often and I know most people working there, but today I just step in to take a photo, to show you how amazing this place looks like.

12.45 pm

I’m back home for 45 minutes, before I have to go and take Oliver. I use this break for finishing a pair of gloves, which are meant to be a gift to a friend’s wife. And I promise to myself that I’ll never knit gloves again, because making fingers takes so much time (a day later I’ll start another pair, despite of my promise).

14pm

I pick up Oliver, who enjoyed the birthday and we go to visit my best friend Piia. She’s renovating her apartment and asked if we can stop by and help to clean a bit.

Of course we can, vacuum cleaner has always been my friend!

We have our lunch there and work for hours. Oliver is such a big helper, he always likes to do practical stuff, like building (or destroying) something.

17.45 pm

We’re finally finished and it’s time to go home. But I’m too tired to cook and too hungry to wait getting home, so we grab some cocoa and chicken chiabattas from the gas station. I know, not the healthiest choice and usually I prefer to cook myself, but today is exception.

18.30 pm

We’re finally home and I fell asleep in front of TV, while Oliver is watching cartoons again. Later we build Lego trucks together. It’s something I like to do, and Oliver likes to play with them.

In the evenings I usually knit too, or draw new design sketches. At the moment I design knitwear for Koigu and it’s a challenging, but very interesting project.

Twice a week I have my Italian language lessons and then I don’t arrive home before 7pm, and twice a week I do workout, but Oliver comes to sports club with me usually, so we can still be together.

So it’s normal that our quality time starts somewhere around 7pm every day.

Before going to sleep, we make some tea and enjoy it with a cookie. Oliver loves tea and this is our tradition to have a cup together each evening.

21pm

Oliver goes to bed and I go to concert with friends. Grandmother looks after Oliver while I’m gone, it maybe happens once or twice a month. When I arrive home, it’s already a next day.

I’m happy you spent this day with me!

It’s not our typical, regular day with work, school and workouts, but believe me, our typical days is more boring too :)



Friday, October 8, 2010

Friday is my day: Renathe Schneider

Jaa
Hej! I dag...sorry... Today we will hop up north to Sweden and meet lovely Renathe from RenatheSchneider.etsy.com who creates the most fun and cute resin jewellery. Have a fun Friday!



Hi, I’m Renathe and I live in this old house in Örebro, Sweden together with my husband and our two small dogs. I hope you will enjoy the visit :)

Ginger, our senior dog usually wakes me up in the morning. Today I heard her walking around anxious to get outside at 7.15 am. Thank god we have a fenced in yard. All I had to do this early in the morning was to take her downstairs, open the front door and let her out.

Afterwards we took a nap in front of the TV in the living room.

8.30 am

Drinking my coffee by the computer. Checking my email, Facebook, Etsy, blogs, local newspapers and twitter. I love to tweet and found so many nice people there to follow and chat with :)

9.30

Lazy Fidella is awake.

I have never been a breakfast person, not my husband either but the dogs likes to eat.

They are spoiled and like their food homemade and get bored very easy ;) They rather starve then to eat the same thing every day.

Ginger has kidney problems and need a special diet and medicine. There is only one brand of that special diet to buy here. I tried it but after two days she just refused to eat it and I totally understand. It smelled horrible! She likes my homemade food better and there are lots of recipes on the internet for kidney diets. Today she is having chicken meatballs with mostly rice and vegetables.

I usually hide her medicine in something yummy like a small piece of ham.

But, she is not always that easily fooled…..

After breakfast my husband takes the dogs out for a walk and I go downstairs to my work space. I had started the day before with casing dead insects so I finished the last layer today.

Back in my office, editing pictures and listing new jewelry. Right now my office is a part of the living room because we are renovating.

This is how my regular space looks like at the moment… Still a lot of work to do! Actually there is always a renovation project going on in this house since we moved in three years ago. We just bought a new window to put in instead of the smaller window to the right in this picture.

2.30 pm

Multi tasking : Eating lunch, writing a shopping list and talking to my mom with the speaker phone at the same time.

Hurray! New supplies arrived! Another dead fly in the window.

(The flowers are there to dry out so I can use the seeds for next year)

Taking a trip to the shopping mall.

Haha, it looks like we went all the way to Germany to go shopping but no. Only a few minutes away ;)

We needed more building materials, a new phone and food.

Back home and I took the dogs out for a walk. I never take both of them at the same time because they are so different. Fidella likes to walk fast, always looking out for cats to chase and loves to play with other dogs we meet on our way. Ginger walks slooooow, can stay and sniff in one place for ever and don’t need that much exercise any more. And she doesn’t like to play! She let other dogs sniff her but if they start to play she gets grumpy.

7.00 pm Happy Hour!

I made Caipirinhas this evening :) Lovely! Me and my husband was sitting down talking, drinking two each and the dogs got their dinner.

Cheers!

It was my turn to make dinner. We have an old wood stove in the kitchen. It makes the kitchen warm and cozy and it’s great for cooking. We hardly ever use our electrical stove this time of the year. Tonight I made a potato and leek soup and we had fresh baked bread that we bought earlier.

12.00pm

After cleaning up in the kitchen, twittering, checking Facebook, blogs, Etsy, the news…. This Friday ended as it started. Me and Ginger in the couch watching TV and napping until I went upstairs to go to bed.

Thanks for reading about my Friday and I hope you all will have a great weekend :)