Overwhelmed

These days, I find myself overwhelmed with everything on my to-do-lists. We're back home for a little over 1 week now, and it seems like the tasks have been piling up while we were gone.
I have spent several hours cleaning the house, doing laundry and vacuming, and still I can't seem to manage to get it all clean and fresh. I love the sun, but sometimes it seems like it's just pointing out everything that needs to be done in our home. And all the cleaning time is consuming my creativity time. Everytime I get at the attic, to do some beading, I realise I have to clean up there as well, in order to get the creativity going. But then again; if I am going to clean up, there are so many things in the house that needs to be done first...... It's a vicious circle I tell you!
I have to get 4 jewelry items done this week for Swap-bot, so I have got to break it! (the circle I mean, not the jewelry....)
I have to make the photoalbums from our vacation.
I have to start up an Etsy-store
I have to sort out my jewelry for a store that wants to sell them
I have to take pictures of my newest items.

Tonight I am going to spent some time in the sauna, and get a massage and a facial. Perhaps that'll help to get a little bit more grounded.....

New Beads!

So, as I promised earlier, here are the beads I bought in Thailand:

Glass - stone - crystal - pearls - I love them all...

And now I just have to figure out what to make with them...

Back home

Koh Racha Island

I am back! Did anybody miss me?
We had an absolute amazing time! We have been on some amazing beaches, lagoons, islands and waterfalls. We did some touristic things, you can hardly go to Thailand without visiting the River Kwai and the bridge. It really was touristic, but I didn’t want to miss it. We took tons of pictures, we got massages and a haircut, we shopped, snorkelled, hiked and took trains, buses and planes. It was a very busy holiday but it was the best one ever!

Now about that shopping: I had to leave some things in Bangkok to get everything home (didn’t had the chance to mail some things home). So I had to leave my stinky sandals there, in order to get my beads home. What is it you say; Beads? Yes beads!
I really wanted to shop for some while we were in Bangkok, but there are quite some jewellery and gem scams over there, so I didn’t want to ask around (I am a bit of a woos sometimes). On one of the last days we were in a large shopping mall and on the very top floor there was a tiny store with some seed beads. I bought 2 bags and asked her if I could buy some more somewhere else. She said we had to go to China Town. And so we did.
For the rest of the day, Dull only saw my back and the only thing I could say is: woohoo!
I’ve never seen so many beads on one location. Booths filled with pearls, glass beads, crystals, sequins, buttons and everything else that’s bead related. In total I bought 4 kilos of beads…. Pics will follow soon….
There were a lot of fabric booths as well, but I figured that shopping for beads was all Dull would manage to handle, so I didn’t take a look at them. It would have been impossible to take fabrics home as well. But I am definitely going back some time to shop the right way. (I’ll probably take an empty suitcase with me).

I am starting some new projects this weekend, I have lots of ideas, but have to do some laundry and cleaning up before I can get started….

Raft Houses

Eastern Promises

We are still in Thailand, only 4 days left, before we're going home.... We are having a great time! Only one day of rain and bouncing coconuts, and the rest is sun,sun,sun!
I am getting a little bit homesick now, though.... I know it's crazy, because it has been such an amazing holiday, but I miss my parents, inlaws, my sis and of course I miss our two cats as well. Tonight we'll fly from Phuket to Bangkok and saturday we're going home. We are going to do some serious shopping in Bangkok,clothes and souvenirs for all our relatives and friends and the last day we're going to spend lounging by the pool for the last bits of total relaxation and a little bit of suntanning.
I will post some pictures when we are back at home, we shot some lovely ones....
Take care!

Vacation!

Suitcases are packed and we are ready to go! Thailand: here we come!
Maybe I get to blog while I am there, if not, you will read me in 3 weeks!

Headache Night & Garden Delight

Wednesdaynight was a terrible night. I felt drouzy & lousy all day and I was very happy I could go home after work. At home it got worse and worse and even a little couchpotato-ing didn't make it better. My head was aching in the worst way. So I went to bed early and was relieved to notice that it was all gone in the morning. I really hate these headaches, it makes me grumpy and whiney and I don't like the person I am with a headache.

I took this picture of my feet when I was couchpotato-ing, I love the vibe of our livingroom on this picture. And Yes, there are still Easter chocolate-eggs on the table, there are hairs from the carpet on my sock and I am wearing a terrible trainingpants. But I did feel comfy and happy with my man, that's all that counts, right?

I woke up the next morning relieved to notice that the headache had left the building (or just my head for that matter). So I took some vitamins and got to work. When I got home in the afternoon it was time for a 'walk' around the garden. There is a nest of bumblebees in the neighbors backyard, I think they are a bit scary, but they did excellent work for our plants!

It seems like our olivetree is going to give some olives this year! That's a first I tell you!

Our Grapevine is also producing some grapes this year, when we come back from our holiday I'll have to start plucking the smaller ones in order to get some lovely large grapes! This is also the first year we will be getting grapes from this bushes. We've got a red and a white one.

The blackberry has really gone wild this year. I don't know how happy I am with this thing, because it seems to pop up everywhere and the thorns on this baby are massive! I really like blackberries though. When I was a little girl we spend our holidays at my grandfather. We always went on blackberry hunt and made jam and sauce of them. After my grandfather picked out the worms that floated up when you cook them, yuk.....

And last, but certainly not least, the tomatoes, chillies and peppers. I got these just from scraping a fresh pepper and a tomato. I dried the seeds on a bit of kitchenpaper and just put them in the soil with some foil over the top of the pot. For the peppers I dried two whole red chillies until the seeds were loose in them, I then cut the chillie, take out the seeds and put these in the soil as well. I sliced the dries chillies and put them in an airtight container, I use them in curries and such.

The herbs have gone wild as well, I got bushes of them now.. I might have to start drying en deepfreezing them when I get back from my holiday...

Swapping...

Some blogger I am!
I have started swapping at swap-bot.com and mailed my very first package last weekend. When I left the postoffice I realised I forgot to take pictures of my creations.... So I can only hope that my swappingpartner likes it and will make a picture for me...
It's not the first time I make a new piece, (wear it,) sell it and then come to realise that I haven't taken a picture of it. I always regret this, but I can't seem to get myself to take the picture as soon as I finished the thing. There's always a 'good' reason: it's dark outside, it's cloudy so I can't get the proper lighting. The batteries ran low on the camera, the memory card is still in the laptop, and so on. The thing is; I really love to read blogs of artists who post (lots of) pictures of their creations, and this was one of the main reasons for me to start blogging: to show off the things I make and do, so if people ask if they can see my work I can point them to my blog.
Now I have posted 37 blogentries, and only 3 of them contains pictures of my creations: the Travel pillows, the Bubbly Necklace (sorry, I haven't told you yet that this will be it's name...) and the Silver Ring.
So this will be my Half-New-Years-Resolution: I will take more pictures of the things I create!
Please point out to me when I have posted, say, 3 blogentries without any creativity pictures!
And now, back to work....