More netting

Here is another necklace I made during the week. Light green with white Toho beads with Czech faceted glassbeads in the middle. Must be very nice on tanned skin, so fashionable in summer.

New display

I took one week holidays, and my brother came from Germany. We spent all the days at the beach. He left very early this morning, so today and tomorrow I'm at home, before going back to work.
I went downtown shopping, and found a small necklace display very cheap. They had only this small one in black, but they will bring larger displays and in white as well. In the meantime I bought this, and tried it out with the Atlantis choker.
I definitely need a bigger display later on, as this picture might give the wrong idea how big or small the choker really is...

Atlantis set

I worked on this netting set for many hours, but it was well worth it. It looks so regal both against the well tanned and the fair skin.
In creating this set, I used Japanese Toho beads, the most even beads to work with, which give this set a very delicate and classy look.

For interest in this set, or the single items, please send me an email at marika dot charalambous at gmail dot com.

Musings on how people affect us without realising

I was reading the other day a thread on a jewelry forum about 'how did you first get into making jewelry?'.
I started thinking back and then I realised that it all happened thanks to a particular somebody, quite by coincidence.

In my previous job I had a colleague living in South Africa and once when she came to the Cyprus office, she brought a couple of girls some 'native' gifts. She brought me a (loomed, later I figured out) bracelet that I quite liked and had it on for a while. The beading was so nice even on the bracelet, and I became quite curious as to how it was done. I started researching on Google, and the rest is history...

I'm sure she doesn't even know that I have to thank her the many hundreds of dollars that I spent on beads, threads, books, magazines, findings, and on the countless hours I spent making jewelry piece after piece... all thanks to her giving me that bracelet which she must have completely forgot about in the meantime...

Another example of one of those major synchronicities that change the course of our lives, while at the time it happened, it seemed ah so innocent :-)

Potawatomi weave

I started working with these ugly colored beads a few days ago and I kept ripping apart everything as I didn't like the colors at all. Finally this morning while browsing through an older Bead&Button magazine, I found the weave for a choker, called Potawatomi weave, and it just all clicked. I started it in the morning, then I went with hubby to the beach, and in the afternoon when I came home, I finished it. Now that it's done, I don't find the yellow-petrol color so ugy, it actually starts to grow on me, lol.
And with this, one more done for my challenge! I used the weave from Bead&Button Feb.03

Spring roll

I started this bracelet months ago and I eventually got bored of it. Spirals do tend to get boring after a while, as they progress so slowly...Today I decided I will finally finish it, so here is the result. Easy spring/summer colors, going nicely with a tan (which I hope to get tomorrow as it will be my first day at the beach this year!).

On synchronicity again

At the recommendation of a friend, I ordered a book called Life Lessons by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
I started reading it this afternoon and I am already halfway through it. It is a wonderful book, full of insights about life, love, death, all there is. It is not something new for me, as I have read several other great books basically telling the same things, by Wayne Dyer, Dick Sutphen, Rosemary Altea, or the wonderful Conversations with God by Neil Donald Walsch, of which I actually finished the first in the series of three yesterday. If there is anyone who has not read yet Elisabeth Kubler-Ross or Neil Donald Walsch's books, I highly recommend that you pick them up. In there you will find the greatest truths about life that you already knew but you didn't know you knew them.

But why did I pick this subject for my blog entry?
Today something - I could say - funny happened at work. The secretary was away for two weeks on holiday, so all the external calls were transfered to my phone. Today she was back, but the IT guys forgot to transfer the main line back to her, so I got a phone call from a woman with a funny accent. She was sort of confused, and didn't even know whom she was calling. Had no idea how she got our company's number, but there she was. She apologized profoundly for the call and asked if I knew a Hungarian musician in Cyprus (pianist I think).
I was totally surprised of her inquiry because there she was, a Hungarian calling the last minute I was still able to pick up the main line - me a Hungarian as well.
I told her I don't know any Hungarian musician in Cyprus, but funny enough, I am Hungarian myself. Now in Cyprus Hungarians are quite rare, it's not like you walk on the street and every third person is Hungarian. Anyway we got into talking and at some point the line got cut. I thought that was it, but then after a few minutes she called again and we continued talking. Even after she understood I could not help her, she called me back to talk with me more in Hungarian. We really connected for a few minutes. This encounter make a rather dull morning at work become something special.
I was totally puzzled by this particular occurance and as I know there are no coincidences in this life, I was wondering what was its meaning. Then I shrugged it off and went about my business as usual.
This afternoon, at home, while I was reading the Life Lessons book, I came upon a particular paragraph which I will cite here below:

"There's no such thing as an insignificant or accidental relationship. Every meeting, encounter, or exchange, with everyone from a spouse to an anonymous telephone operator, no matter how brief or profound, how positive, neutral, or painful, is meaningful. And in the grand scheme of things every relationship is potentially important, for even the most trivial encounter with a passing stranger can teach us a great deal about ourselves. Every person we encounter holds the possibility of sending us to happiness, to a loving place in the mind[...]."

I'd like to hope that those few minutes on the phone brought the woman just as much joy and few careless and loving minutes as they brought me today.

When these kinds of synchronicities are happening to me or around me - and lately they have slowly but surely increased in number - I believe that I am on my right path, and God or the universe or whatever you want to call it, is telling me to go on, on this path, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my spiritual journey and in my life.

My first book review for June

Here is my review for June's Bookmooch TBR club. Just fnished the book and it was great!
To give you a glimpse of what the book is about...

Sherry Moore is blind, beautiful and has a gift. She can see the deceased's last 18 seconds by touching their hand. And she uses this gift to help police solve various crimes...

Read the rest in my review.

New blog layout

So, after months of the 'good old layout' I've decided to change it. This when I saw the new blog of my friend, Alex.
I quite like the result. Much more 'me' than the old page.
Which wouldn't have been possible without Alex's great help and cute heading picture, done just for me!!

Zebra stripes

I started it yesterday and finished it this evening. Although it's a very basic stitch, for me it's something quite new as I haven't worked that much in flat peyote before. The idea of the two drops peyote and the toggle come from Bead Patterns magazine #4 (Crystal 2-Drop Bracelet). The design and mistakes are mine entirely. And oh boy can one see the mistakes when watching the enlarged picture :)
So number 3 is completed as well. Now just another 500 more to go *sigh*.

Bracelet added

I was looking for a bracelet pattern to complement the necklace, and I found it in Horace Goodhue's Indian Beadweaving Patterns, a very easy and quick one to do. Now I can also safely say I did two projects already from books I own.
Athough I shouldn't be that smug just yet, as doing easy pieces will NOT get me stretching my boundaries and learning new things *grins*.
I've taken another picture with the set, hope this is better than the previous (?).
The muted colours of the beads in this second picture are much truer to the real colours than in the previous pic.

New jewelry resolution

I have tons of jewelry books and magazines, so I've decided to make one jewelry item from each. It will be a long project, but this way I can learn lots more than I know now about jewelry making, I can stretch a little bit beyond my comfort zone and hope to improve.

The first is a netted necklace from Bead Patterns Magazine #1. It's called Crystals'n Lace necklace by Sandra Halpenny.
I'm not very good at taking pictures, that's another lesson I still have to learn, but for now, this is it. I'll update the picture with another one when I manage to take a better pic. I might make a matching bracelet as well, we'll see.

Cool widgets at Bookmooch.com

Bookmooch has become a big part of my life. It is an international book trading site, which allowed me to increase my number of books at home with at least 500 additional book. I keep nagging hubby that it's time to soon buy a house, the 135 m2 flat - for the two of us, I might add - is not enough anymore. One room is full of my books.

Having said that, I love how Bookmooch is evolving. John, the genious behind Bookmooch added a cool new feature, 'widgets', little scripts that you can play with and add to your site.
What else is there? For now, the latest book(s) that you added to your boomooch inventory, with cover or without, latest book(s) that you added to your wishlist, or that you recently aquired (traded, or mooched, how they call it on the site).

For example, my latest 10 book that I added to my wishlist, which I'm hoping to get eventually, are these:



If you are into reading books, and think about trading books with people all over the world, by letting go of your old ones and getting some new ones to read in return, check out bookmooch, and visit my page as well *wink*.

News from a friend...from beyond?

It is no big secret among my friends that I am deeply interested in spirituality, in a life beyond death, reincarnation. However, I do try to keep this part of myself to me, and not talk much about it.
Today though, while reading We are their heaven, by Allison DuBois (the medium who inspired the same name famous tv series), I realised something that really shook me up, although it happened 2-3 days ago. I just didn't pay attention to it at that time.

A couple of years ago I met online a person who would become a very dear friend of mine, maybe one of the best friends I had, ever. We wrote each other emails every day, talked about his family, I talked about mine, he was sort of a guru in Excel programming, taught me pretty much everything I new about creating VBA macros and helped me quite a lot with my work. Every morning (as he was living in the States) I was rushing to get my emails at work, knowing that i will get one from Tom. And there it was, indeed. All his emails started with 'Good morning, Sunshine'. Nobody ever called me sunshine before. Now don't get me wrong, our relationship was not only 'platonic', but there was never ever any allusion of anything else beyond being best friends.

After about 3 years of being that, he told me one September that he found out he had cancer. He was devastated, and so was I. He tried every cure, alternative thing that he could, he told me all about it, and he was so positive. Actually I don't think I met a more positive person in my life before or after. He just wouldn't give up. Nevertheless one day, early next year, his emails stopped coming. I visited his website, tried calling him, but nobody would answer. After a few months, his number got disconnected. I knew he passed away, but of course, nobody ever contacted me to tell me he died inded. How would they, nobody knew we were friends.

Since I am so interested in the paranormal, I was always asking him to talk to me, to give me a sign that he is ok, any way he could. Nothing happened.

He never left my mind, I still keep thinking of him pretty often, but not in the way of looking for a contact any longer, just with simple nostalgia of great past times and sadness that they are no longer here...

A few days ago, out of the blue, a friend sent me a message which he started with 'how are you sunshine?' I froze. All the memories came flooding back and I tried to stop the tears. I think I even told him that nobody ever called me sunshine before, except a friend who died a few years ago. But still, I didn't think much of it.
Later on in the day, somebody else in the office called me out of the blue 'hello sunshine'. I was in a hurry to a meeting though so I didn't give it much thought.

Tonight, while reading the Allison DuBois book, after my meditation, while in a calm state of mind, it hit me. Tom finally managed to come through to me, by the only way he knew how to make me understand it's him: by calling me sunshine by two people who would not normally call me so.

I now know that Tom is in peace, and happy, I guess, and I got a first personal confirmation of what I so much wanted to get: that the world beyond really exists, that death is not the end.

Is it strange that this happened so soon after my reiki 2 attunement, when my energy level has been raised a notch? I don't think so, but is good to know that, indeed, it works :-)

"The Smoke Lives" The Bookmooch TBR Club Blog

As a member of Bookmooch.com, THE international book trading site, I joined a TBR (to be read) group, where we agreed to each read (at least) 2 books each month, and review these books online. For this purpose we have created a blog, where we all upload our reviews for others to read. I have already done my two reviews for May, if you want to check them out, along with a lot of reviews form some great books, visit "The Smoke Lives" The Bookmooch TBR Club Blog.

Reiki lvl 2

Today I had my lvl 2 reiki attunement. Well, a re-attunement really, as my first lvl 2 attunement was back in November. It was sort of a 'rushed' session with another reiki master, not mine. Having just missed the class with my reiki master as I was abroad for work at that time, and as I really wanted to send healing energy to my mom, who was not very well, I had my attunement then. However, when I got an email a week ago from my reiki master that she is offering level 2, I jumped at the opportunity to be re-attuned, as the atmosphere in the class is great, and she is teaching us a lot of things related to reiki and energy.

They say reiki can change your life, well it definitely changed mine! Two weeks after my attunement early November I quit my job where I was employed for the last 10 years, then found another job, quit that as well within a month, and early January this year I found a third job, where I am currently employed.

I haven't thought of it like this until now, to connect all these coincidental changes with my reiki attunement, but today as we were talking in the session with the other students, I realised that it definitely shifted the energies around me. I let go of what was old and not needed anymore in my life and started searching for something new, that is closer to my purpose. Well, I'm not sure if I found THAT, but I definitely found a job that is merely 3 minutes away from home, which is an improvement over the old, I'd say, lol!

Now let's see what turmoil this re-attument will bring during the next 21 days of cleansing.

A little chain

I made this bracelet in an hour this evening. I took the idea from somebody who showed a similar bracelet but one row only. I doubled it up and here is the result.

The Golden Compass comes out as a movie!

If you've read Philip Pullman's trilogy, then you should be thrilled as December 07 it will be out as a movie!

In the meantime it seems that I found my little demon, lol!

Chainmail again

After almost a full month of abstinence, here I am again making jewelry with rings.
This bracelet took me almost a whole day, it was not difficult, but too many small rings to pre-close and add. It is a japanese pattern, called 6 in 1.

I did spend a nice time doing it and chatting with Alex, who was standing by me in my time of Bookmooch sorrow *grins*, so I dedicate this bracelet to Alex. I will definitely remember our giggles and Machiavellian plans when I am wearing it, lol.

What else has happened since I last updated the blog?
Not much really. Last Friday was my birthday, one last year closer to 40 *sigh*. Not everybody that I expected from congratulated me, but everybody who really matter, did, so I'm quite pleased :)

New musings - on spirituality

It seems that I am going in circles - at times I am very engaged in making jewelry, at other times I only think of reading a good book. But pretty much all the time I am preocupied with something else - spirituality.
Although I have many hobbies, these three seem to go round and round in circles, and they are those that I never really get tired of.

Ever since I stumbled across astrology a few years ago, when I learned to interpret my natal chart, and learned something new about myself in the process, I discovered a completely new side to life, which I was not aware of at all previously. I am by no means a religious person, actually all my life I was an atheist (that comes with having previously lived in an (ex)communist country, I guess). However I started discovering new depths to life which intrigued me, and made me want to know more about them.

Thus started my journey in discovering myself, my spiritual path.
I learned to be open minded about subjects such as reincarnation, the survival of soul when the body dies, and I started learning how to see auras, how to meditate, learned about astral travels and OBE, and generally let new things enter my life without preconception and judgement.
Also learned (or I am learning) to let go of what is old in my life and doesn't resonate with what I feel currently anymore. This means physical clutter, mistakes, people and old notions. It is not easy, but definitely necessary. And unavoidable.

While browsing the net for spiritual subjects, I met some wonderful people along the way, on different forums and user groups. One of them is the Mystic Familiar forum, where there are a lot of people on the same spiritual journey as I am.

But more on this later.