Happy holidays!

This morning my camera got missing. Probably those little funny dwarfs in my house have hidden it. Today it is my last day at work in 2007. Girls liked the little birds and little thoughts I had written on a piece of paper. I have lots to do over the weekend and I am actually looking forward to these last preparations before Christmas.
While driving to work today, I noticed that all the trees were covered in white due to frost, not snow. It was beautiful. White branches glowing through the dark. I hope that Christmas day will be as beautiful as today's morning.
Happy holidays, everyone! I will be back on 3rd January.

For the girls

at work. Little birds. Because we work for the protection of birds. Inspired by 13mimosa. They will receive them tomorrow, wrapped in colorful paper and together with a little thought written on a piece of paper. I hope they will like them.

A hero

It was -9 degrees Celsius this morning and guess what - it is a bright sunny day outside! I am so grateful for such days. While having my breakfast at 6:15 am, I was reading an article about Crazy Horse Memorial in Black Hills, South Dakota. It is so great to read about the things that I was able to see with my own eyes. I miss those places. Because of this article I decided to write about heroes today.

When I was a little girl I read all possible books we had at home. One of them was Winnetou by Karl May. I cried when Winnetou in a book died (right, I cried when Robin Hood died, too). Probably since then I was more or less interested in Apache and read everything on Native Americans in the books our library had held. Well, I tell you, there were just a few. I sew myself a dress made of leather (I told you this already), I walked like Indians in a book, I was quiet, I made myself a bow and arrows (no dolls, sure, I wasn't a squaw!) and I spent each and every weekend in the woods near our weekend house. Practically I tried to live like an Indian. Winnetou was my hero, I can say so. Definitely.
When we moved to our new house when I was 17, all this stopped. I had forgotten about all this for about 10 years. Then there came an internet and buying books from Amazon. I have still no idea how it came to this but the first book I ordered from them was Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz. I couldn't put it down and since then I've kept buying the books about this strange and brave man. When I visited the USA I followed the path where he had lived. It was a travel of my life. However, I have never wanted to be like him as, in my opinion, my character is too much like his already. He is not my hero but I know practically everything about him. I admire him for his deeds. How do you call a man like this? Perhaps a hero, too?
My passion keeps going on. It is in me, it is a part of me. And I am proud of this.
Do you have your hero, too?

Blue spot

Browsing through my photos, I found one of a blue spot. It is actually some acrylic color on wood. It was a small spot, made by mixing colors when we had been creating those colorful birds I showed you the other day. I wanted to use this photo for the greeting cards. I cut some scrapbooking paper instead. I pondered over so many ideas this year but chose the simplest and the most boring one. How lazy I am! :)

Snow

It is slowly falling down. Snow. It is snowing. Slowly. We've got this during the weekend, it looked like caster sugar:I had a chance to stroll through Ljubljana on Friday afternoon and it was so beautiful! Ljubljana is full of galaxies and full of magical lights. Each year it seems to be more of them.
So, I said to myself, if we can't have it outside, let's have it inside. Spring, I mean. I placed a few twigs of Forsythia into a vase and after a week, there are yellow blossoms filling my living room with color.
Anyway, as it is a holiday season, I made some of the paper stars and decorated another window in my living room. So, when my neighbors pass by, they concentrate on the stars and not on me, sitting in my chair and reading a book. A nice trick.Yet another week to go and then - it is a vacation time again!

Sunny day

Another beautiful morning. Stars. Later blue sky. Sun rays. Happiness.

I made it yesterday; I went for a walk and enjoyed it very much. I took lots of photos. Here are some I share with you, so that you too can see, how happy I was to feel the sun again on my skin. Overjoyed. And yet it is another beautiful day ahead.

Can you see the sunshine caught in the grass and branches?

The path I take almost every day. If I have at least some spare time. (The ditches are dug out so the water flows away. Otherwise our houses would be flooded!) Flowers on the threshold of winter. And blue, blue sky!

Bare branches, no leaves. Sunshine that makes trees beautiful. Mountains covered with snow. In a distance white tower of Ljubljana castle. Somewhere in between I live. In a little yellow house.

Saint Lucy's Day

It was such a beautiful morning today. My cold got better and the skies cleared. One of the most beautiful sights for me is the sky full of stars. The sight of bright Venus in the morning sky wakes me up if I am not already awakened. This morning we got some fresh air, some light warm wind. Pure joy.

It is Saint Lucy's Day today. I baked Lussekatter yesterday. These are Swedish saffron buns, kind of sweet bread. I will try another recipe next year as the buns got pretty dry, although they are still very tasty. They will be good with my coffee today. I am not religious but I like such celebrations. They derive from pagan days anyway. In these days the sun sets at earliest hour and it will be so until 17^th. I am looking forward to the weekend as I have so much to do around the house. This illness totally exhausted me and I can’t wait to go out today and get some fresh air. Though, if I am too late coming home this afternoon, I might be strolling under the stars again, this time observing Jupiter in the evening sky.

I love the stars and the universe. When I was a little girl I went out on a balcony each evening in the winter and counted stars. I believed that if I counted nine stars nine nights in a row, my wish would have come true. I hope at least some of your wishes will be fulfilled in the next year!

Star turtorial, part no. 2

From left to right, from up down. Click on the photo to see it bigger. Scroll down to see finished star.

Bird

I caught cold last week, so instead of using my day off from work and going to Ikea on Friday, I was lying in bed and drinking lots of tea. Yesterday I got a bit better, though I stayed at home and pampered myself the whole day. In the afternoon I finally managed to do some errands, and this is what I also did:
Inspired by Linda.
I made this little bird/purse for Urša - she is an editor of this (click) magazine. She is one of the most pleasant people I know. As she has to finish her doctor's degree, this is her last editorial year. It was a great pleasure working with her and I think that she well deserves at least one bird for her excellent job.
It is quite a nice one for my first bird and maybe it looks easy to make one but it was not. At least not for me. I know - practice makes perfect.

St. Nicholas Day

Today is St. Nicholas Day. I received some fruit and candies, and luckily no switches this year. Obviously I was a good girl this time. :)
Yesterday in the morning and in the evening the skies were red, and as the old saying goes, St. Nicholas is baking biscuits on such days. I baked Old Nicks and this is what was left of them some minutes after they had been taken from the oven:Have you received some gifts too? Have you behaved yourselves during the year? :)

A Culture Day

On Monday it was a Culture Day here in Slovenia. With it we celebrate each year the birth of our greatest poet France Prešeren. Also a text of our national anthem is written by him. I think that this sonnet tells a lot about our nation. Who we are. He was born in 1800. He was in love with a girl named Julija Primic but he couldn’t marry her because he was poor at that time. Later, when he had enough money and he was an ‘important’ person, she had already been married. He wrote great sonnets for her. He died in 1849, and funny enough, his date of death is a national holiday in Slovenia. Another day of culture.
So, on Monday there was a free entrance to most of the museums. I visited Slovenian Museum of National History. There was a new exhibition to be seen: The Secrets of the Woods. An interesting one but a lot of time is needed to read every piece of information written on the panels. I had some fun, as you can see on the photo above. My friend was a bit embarrassed but we live only once, so why not? (Perhaps wearing that disgusting mask is a cause that I am ill at the moment?)
There was also an exhibition on pieces of meteorites that fell on the Earth. I find it so special – something that was once up there, high in the sky, who knows how far away, could be seen from so close, you could almost touch it (sure, you are not allowed to).
I like visiting museums, especially if there are guided tours around as you can learn a lot of new things. The last time I was in the National Museum of Slovenia, we carried togas (Roman dresses) and went through an exhibition on Roman tombstones which had been found in Slovenia.
Well, I won’t bother you with all that museum stuff anymore but perhaps it is time that you visit an exhibition too? :)

Stars, stars, twinkling stars

Ask, and you shall receive.
I didn't have time yet to make a proper (photo) tutorial but I quickly copied instructions how to make a paper star from the book Zauberhafte Fenstersterne by Frederique Gueret. It is a marvelous book I once bought in Kunst und Spiel shop in Munich.
So, before you start this project, relax yourself a bit because you will need steady hands and peaceful mind to make a star like this. I made each point of this star from a sheet of paper size 6x6 cm. As you can see from the photo below, you have to make 12 such points for one star (six of each color). Any questions? I will try to answer them.
Finished star, though at the moment I don't have a better photo.

Name day

Today it is my name day. Like Eva, I don't have a middle name. Long time ago name day was celebrated and not birthday because many people actually didn't know when it was. For my grandmother (she would be 101 years old this year) name day was more important than birthday. As we have lived in her house for a long time, celebration of my name day stays up to this day. Like each year I will receive a delicious cake from my mum. :)

Guess

Do you know what this is?

Learning & making

Last week I received a twig of a plant I had never seen before. I knew the name but could not link it to any of the shrubs I know. Or at least I have never paid any attention to it. I couldn’t find a book in Slovenian at home (I really wonder where it is), so I had to look into Flora Helvetica, a beautiful book about the plants in Switzerland. Butcher's broom is its English name. A funny name, indeed.

For Friday’s lunch I made these, inspired by Coconut&Lime:

I made them with another filling, though. I used some chopped tomatoes and onion. Light, oh light, I miss you a lot! In the weather we have it is so difficult to take some good photos with my camera.

A few weeks ago we were making these cute birdies at the workshop we organize at work. They are meant to be for the children but usually older people come.

This is what I was also doing during the weekend:

Paper stars for my windows. On the photo they are not finished yet. When we get some proper light and sunshine, I will take a photo of them and post it.