I’ve got some lady pains right now, but found that Tom made me some lunch while I was in the bath and left it in the fridge so I could eat it whenever I needed to.

Such a sweet man :D

<3

Hooly poo. Looking at the weather forecast. My original plan was to go out and buy some last supplies before heading back to Sweden tomorrow (including a predator toy for Sami), but I will have to cancel it and just stay inside.

So today will just be me packing probably. How exciting. :(

Will leave for Sweden tomorrow at 5am, take a bus to heathrow, take a plane, then another plane, and then in the evening I’ll be home. Wheeee :D

Oh, btw. Yesterday I went out to a fantastic restaurant with Tom as a last nice proper dinner before I head back to Sweden. We chose a taster menu where you get surprised with loads of different flavours and presentations of food. This was an italian restaurant, so it was all italian inspired tasters. Absolutely DELICOUS. I’ve never had a taster menu in my life. It took us 3 and a half hours to eat it all. :) It was 13 different plates in all.

One of them was duck liver milk. It was…. interesting… To say the least. I can’t help but wonder HOW you milk a liver? I’ve heard that they feed the ducks something strange until they EXPLODE… This surely cannot be true!

I haven’t brushed my hair yet.
I slept in that shirt.

Oh well. At least birds like me.

Even though they are a little mentally challenged. Ruffles (green one) saw his reflexion on the mirror. He’s been trying to fly into himself 4 times now.

Wohoo! Thanks to the people on the etsy forums.

The obstacles were many! But finally, I have my first item on show! Woo!

I am all too aware that the photograph is horrendous. I will try to get hold of a better camera, or even better, pay Mithi sometime in the future to do some photographs for me, if she has the time.

But am proud to have my own etsy shop!

http://www.jenniegyllblad.etsy.com

It’s a bit bare at the moment. No personal banner or special avatar that would promote the shop. I just wanted to get one item up for sale before tackling all the other issues. A bit uncertain what to do about the shop banner, seeing as this is my handcraft shop and not my art print shop, I probably should have photographs of my jewelry in the banner, but all the photos are of course crap! Agh!

Will probably end up just drawing something.

… Did have an interesting end.

Me and Tom were at home. It was an evening and we were both tired. Doorbell rings, RPG friends are outside, wanting us to come down immediately! And so, we were off to a local pub. Cider tastes like horse pee, but I am always openminded enough to try new tastes. Especially when it comes to alcohol, because people won’t believe me when I say I don’t like the *taste* of alcohol. (Cocktails taste brilliant because they are fruity and exciting and hide the alcohol)

Anyway! During a conversation we were chatting with our buddy Phil about how to meet new people and I suggested that we find a historical sword fighting club in Bristol, since I believe that the best way to meet new friends is to list what you are interested in and then see if anyone else shares those interests.

I wasn’t really sure we would find a swordfighting club here, since I’ve never heard of one for these (almost) 3 years I’ve lived here. But later on, a quick google search got me this:

Historicalfencing.co.uk

Quote:

“Our current syllabus teaches armed and unarmed combat in the English, German and Italian traditions.  We use longswords, sword & buckler, side sword, rapier, dagger, messer, sword & shield and broadsword combat.  We expect all our students to train with a variety of weapons and to both and train and spar in equal measure.  We train primarily with steel weapons and armour is always worn for sparring.”

How could I have missed this until now!? :O

Me and Phil will go check it out as soon as he finished his Vampire RPG (which happens to be on the same day as the training).

Yarr! ZWEIHANDERS! Hrm.

But with different colour now. Yarr.

The one on the left is for a necklace. Yarr! EAT YOUR VEG!

Hopefully you can see what it is. My first attempt at making veggie earrings. Not sure about the colour yet, as it seems a bit too dark maybe, and I am considering the option of varnishing all the jewellery I make.

Now we come to the hard question! Who the heck in their right mind would walk around with broccoli hanging from their earlobes!? … I know I would. But in a sense, I seem to be designing stuff that I love myself and would gladly wear, instead of actually thinking about a target market.

Ah well. At least I’m having lots of fun, and in a worst case scenario, I’ve also got tons of jewellery. :D

I am so focused on setting up shop and seeing if it works, that it’s all I talk about! I’ve been obsessing over it for several days now, but am learning so much that I think I’m actually getting a hang of it.

There are plenty of other online shopfronts that can do prints for me, just like lulu, cafepress etc. But I am leaning more and more towards the possibility of just printing myself, thus cutting out the middleman and the commission costs.

Of course, by printing it yourself, you have a lot more to think about and organise. Here are some of the costs I need to figure out: Paper, Printing at a local shop, Postage (envelope and protective things to avoid the print getting damaged. Should I just buy lots of card and stick the print between two sheets?), Optional Framing…

It’s quite daunting to be honest. But at the same time I am very set on actually making some sort of living out of my passion for drawing (and making stuff). Was it Tom(?) who said: “You’re not trying to earn lotsa money and get rich, you’re trying to earn enough to put food on the table.” During a discussion about my problems in actually charging people for my services (naughty). And it’s true what he’s saying. I’m not into this to become rich. If I was, I’ve made a really bad profession choice! :D I’m just trying to earn enough to feed myself, Tom and the birds and enable us to stay in the flat we’re living in at the moment.

But as it looks now, unless I become more product savvy and better at what I do, I will have to get a part-time job to survive. Don’t want to get a 9-5 job! Had a year of that experience. Not nice. Bad bad.

Well, anyway! Been discussing stuff with Zara (who’s an amazing illustrator) and have received tons of useful tips. For example: Illustration Friday, which is a site where illustrators do weekly challenges. No money involved in this, but it’s a great community and apparently fantastic for networking. So if anyone is reading this and wanting to get noticed with their drawings, click on that link.

Back to making some lunch I think!