My first zine

I've always wanted to make one, but I was always too busy - until now, when my friend asked me to contribute. Here we go, an Independence-Day zine about Polish historical heroes, but not the ones you may already know. We are not talking about leaders, kings and warriors, we are talking about activists, teachers, feminists, researchers, and people who dared to question the existing order. My share was Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński and Irena Krzywicka:

Irena Krzywicka (1899-1994) - writer, author of "The Memoirs of a Scandalmonger", the most known feminist of the interwar period. Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński (1874-1941), GP, pediatrist, author of translations for the (whole!) canon of French literature into Polish. 

Irena and Tadeusz promoted an access to contraception and sexual education and demanded making abortions accessible, in order to emilinate the backstreet abortion industry. They ran the Dispensary for the Conscious Motherhood.

This Easter we went totally Fabergé

I may have a difficult case of book hangover

Let's burn some bras

Advent calendar

Zawsze najbardziej wkurzało mnie to, że w kalendarzach adwentowych w największym wigilijnym okienku, czekoladka jest tak samo mała i biedna jak w pozostałych dwudziestu trzech. No halo, jak się daje ogromne okienko, to chyba konsument ma prawo oczekiwać, że znajdzie w nim jakąś wygrubaszoną turbopralinę a nie kolejnego chińskiego bałwanka. Mimo wszystko, co roku na przełomie listopada i grudnia moja siostra i ja, nie zważając na kolejne, coraz bardziej dwucyfrowe urodziny, kupujemy sobie kalendarze adwentowe. 

W tym roku stwierdziłam, że czas naprawić błędy Goplany i Barona i stworzyć przyzwoity kalendarz. Paulina dostała go na urodziny, 5 listopada. Obserwowanie przez miesiąc skręcającej się z ciekawości dziewiętnastolatki - bezcenne.

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I've heard that the concept of advent and advent calendar is not obvious for many, so let me explain: advent in christian tradition are four weeks of preparation for Christmas, associated with fasting. Actually the word adventus, latin translation of Greek parousia, means literally "coming". In order to familiarize children with a concept of advent and waiting for Christmas, many families use advent calendars - a box with 24 small windows. Every window contains a small gift, such as chocolate candy. What always annoyed me the most, was the fact that advent calendars, that are sold in Poland, have this one big window on the 24th of December, but a chocolate candy there is as small as in 23 previous windows. Come on, it's Christmas Eve, the window is big, a consumer can expect some extraordinary praline in there, not a crappy little piece of chocolate. In spite of this, ignoring the fact, that we were born in eighties and nineties, we buy the calendars every year. 

This year, however, I decided that it's high time to create a proper advent calendar. Paulina got it for her birthday, on November 5th. Watching a nineteen years old, dying of curiosity - priceless. 

Ruskie balety

Wczorajsza wizyta w Empiku. Jednak "rosyjski balet" to nie to samo co "ruskie balety". 

I think I may be a pro already. Kind of.

You guys. It's the first time, I got paid for drawing. Does... does it mean now... does it mean I'm a pro? Because if it does, then I'm happy beyond belief. I made these drawings for Hostel Helvetia (which is by the way the best badass hostel in the whole city, if not the country). They want to kindly remind their guests to rate them on HostelWorld, HostelBooking and TripAdvisor. 

Chodak's wedding!

Look what I found deep in my archives. I sucked as a friend, because I didn't go to look for a wedding dress with her. You see, I'm completely ignorant about all this wedding jazz, but luckilly Chodak is not a bridezilla. Instead, I made wedding invitations. The great love started from pounding each other's heads with bamboo swords. I guess it's some kind of a mating ritual in kendo community. I was asked to draw something quirky and geeky. Not knowing what she means by quirky, I asked her for examples and I got flooded by gazzilionbytes of totally unrelated pictures. We ended up with three options. The blue one (with small corrections) won:

Forest for Wronka

My friend, Wronka asked me for a print that she could hang on a wall of her viennese apartment. I had no idea what to draw. I was thinking about an illustration to this text from a blog Pigtail Pals and Ballcap Buddies:

There was a time when you were five years old, and you woke up full of awesome. You knew you were awesome. You loved yourself. You thought you were beautiful, even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers. You loved your body, and the things it could do. You thought you were strong. You knew you were smart.

  

Do you still have it? The awesome.

Did someone take it from you? Did you let them? Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough? Why the hell would you listen to them? Did you consider they might be full of shit?

Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model? Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold? Are you freaking kidding me?

Look at her. She is full of awesome. You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back. All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.

And on the following night I had a dream. I don't really remember what was it about, but there was a deep, old, wise forest, a unicorn and a girl full of awesome.

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Moja przyjaciółka, Wronka poprosiła mnie o grafikę, którą mogłaby powiesić w swoim wiedeńskim mieszkaniu. Nie miałam pojęcia co narysować. Myślałam o ilustracji do tekstu, który znalazłam na blogu Pigtail Pals and Ballcap Buddies:

Był taki czas kiedy miałaś pięć lat i budziłaś się rano pełna wspaniałości. Wiedziałaś, że jesteś fantastyczna. Kochałaś siebie. Uważałaś, że jesteś piękna, nawet jeśli byłaś szczerbata, twoje włosy były w ciągle potargane a z umorusanych tenisówek wystawały skarpetki nie od pary. Kochałaś swoje ciało i wszystkie te rzeczy, które potrafiło zrobić. Uważałaś, że jesteś silna. Wiedziałaś, że jesteś bystra.

  

Wciąż to masz? Wiesz, poczucie wspaniałości.

Czy ktoś ci to zabrał? Pozwoliłaś mu? Oddałaś to bo ktoś powiedział, że nie jesteś wystarczająco ładna, szczupła, bystra, dobra? Czemu do diabła miałabyś go słuchać? Wzięłaś pod uwagę, że ten ktoś może gadać kompletne bzdury?

Czy to nie byłoby głupie, gdyby ta dziewczynka za pięć albo dziesięć lat zaczęła się nienawidzić, bo nie wygląda jak zagłodzona modelka z Photoshopa? Albo, co jeszcze bardziej dziwaczne, gdyby doszła do wniosku, że powinna być raczej seksowna niż mądra, piękna zamiast odważna? Serio, żartujesz sobie?

Popatrz na nią. Jakie ona ma poczucie wspaniałości. Ty też kiedyś to miałaś. Może dalej je masz. Może jesteś w trakcie odzyskiwania go. To, co wiem na pewno, to że jeśli nie budzisz się co rano z poczuciem wspaniałości, to dużo tracisz.

Następnej nocy miałam sen. Nie pamiętam dokładnie o czym on był, ale wiem, że był tam głęboki, stary, mądry las, jednorożec i dziewczynka pełna wspaniałości.

Waiter, there's Johnny Depp in my tea!

Okay, let's say, your friend has her birthday. And for sure she'll get tons of books, cosmetics, jewelery and accesories. And let's say you want to be original. What do you do? You give her a set of hand-made Hollywood tea hotties, to help her with a teabag and well, keep the tea hot and sweet, as hot and sweet as Johnny, Bradley and Ryan can be.

If you happen to like this idea, HERE you can download patterns to make your own Hollywood Walk of Fame. I don't really remember how thick the paper was, but I guess it wasn't thinner than 200-250 g/mm.