She spends her spare time as a very active pensioner also in a nearby day care centre for senior citizens. It was there where a few years ago she found a love of making most diverse handicrafts. “I visit the day care centre in the Gosposvetska Street. There I was taught basics, and later I was so much attracted to the handicrafts that I’ve let my imagination run wild,” Mira explains.

In winter, Mira devotes most attention to making of various Christmas decorations, and before the springtime her home turns a real ‘hatchery’ of Easter eggs. “I always choose the most beautiful table napkins. But sometimes a beautiful napkin doesn’t look beautiful after I roll it up,” Mira reveals the secrets of her work. By practising much, she has found out which combinations are good and which are not. She rolls up the napkins and sticks them on models; finally, she dresses the models with various shiny decorations and strips.

In the same way, she also decorates various little bottles and boxes, turning them from waste packaging to little decorative boxes for storing earrings and similar things. When Mira opened one of her wardrobes, we saw a mass of various objects which, thanks to her, took on new look. As the vital pensioner explained, she very much uses various waste materials, as her female friends also bring her various little boxes, bottles and other objects which she dresses colourfully.

“It takes quite a lot time, but in reality, this is how I occupy my mind especially during the winter. In fact, I make different things throughout the year: in winter, I mostly make little stars and other Christmas tree decorations, and for Easter I make eggs,” says Mira.

How does she come up with patterns or ideas? “You need to know how to combine the colours, and this is simply what you can or cannot do. Some people are good at it, others are not,” says Mira, who before her retirement worked in a sales department, and before that owned a business as a needlewoman, so it is clear that combining colours and precision have ever since been an open book to her.

Mira also likes to make flowers of artificial silk, and jewellery. Great skills are needed for making of flowers, as petals – Mira usually makes them out of silk scarves; some also use tights – are very small in size. “I cut silk scarves into pieces, then I bend a wire and sew the pieces together. I need four silk pieces to make one single petal, so making of such flowers takes me quite some time,” Mira explains.

Ksenja Tratnik, translated by D. M.