House Hunting

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while will know that I am an English girl living in Bosnia Herzegovina. Why am I living here? I'm working for a UK Christian charity called Novi Most. Novi Most is all about bringing the hope of a better future to the young people of Bosnia Herzegovina, empowering them and giving them new opportunites through youth work. At the moment we (me and my husband) live in Mostar but in the autumn we will be moving together with another couple to start a new youth work initiative in a town called Jajce. We are really excited about all that will happen there - but first we need to find somewhere to live, so that's what we're doing this week - house hunting!

This cute house necklace is made by Cute Creations. I totally love her acrylic jewellery. I don't really wear jewellery like that myself but I love her necklaces so much I got one anyway and it hangs on my bookcase! It is a slice of battenberg cake with a smiley face - and it always makes me smile when I look at it. It was actually what inspired me to make this amigurumi!

why bamboo?

Does anyone know why you can get crochet hooks made of different materials? plastic, metal, bamboo etc... Do they make any difference to how what you make turns out or is it just personal preference? I've been using metal hooks until now but when I was in UK I decided to by a couple of bamboo hooks in case I ever want to crochet on a plane! No pointy metal things are allowed in your hand luggage. I've tried using them and I haven't seen any difference in the crochet but I don't think they slip through the wool as easily as metal ones so I'll probably just keep them for plane usuage. And in case you're wondering, the other strange object in the photo is a Droplet from Jam Factory - the second vinyl toy in my collection of 2!

Where is the sales fairy?

I decided to take a break from making my custom orders to make something to go into my shop. It's amazing how quickly shop views go down if you don't list items and shop views is what it's all about! I know that people like my stuff and that they will buy it because when I was featured on the storque I got 4 sales in 2 days but now it's been a while since the sales fairy visited my shop and it's all to do with views. How can I get more people to view my shop? I use facebook and twitter (although I'm not that good at twitter) and this blog but still I'm not getting enough visitors. I've bought this book - the Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin and my homework now is to read it and learn all I can to find out how to best market and sell my stuff. And if you're interested in seeing my newest item in my shop click here!

Thailand in Trafalgar Square

Yesterday was a productive day - one down and two to go on the custom amigurumis.

This picture of me was taken at the Thai Festival in Trafalgar Square, London last Saturday. There were Thai dancers and musicians, take-away restaurants, grocery shops, tourism stands, a temple and loads more - take a look at this flickr page to see more of what was going on. This lady with her amazingly long gold fingernail thingys was outside the temple.

Back home again

I'm back home now after my trip to the UK. Back home and back to work on amigurumis but I have 3 custom orders to work on all of which are being made as presents for people so I won't post any pictures here because you never know who will see them! Instead I'll post a few things about my trip to the UK.

I visited the Kidrobot store in Earlham Street, London - near Covent Garden. It's a fab shop full of cute and weird things! I bought a little zip pull thing in the Luckies Series. They come in blind boxes so you don't know what you've bought til you open the box. If you look closely at the picture you can see the little thing I got - a yellow smiley face monkey type thing! And don't you think the bag it came is awesome too?

Pop Britannia

I'm in the UK at the moment visiting friends and family - hence the lack of blog posts! As I haven't got time to make amigurumis on this trip I thought I'd do a blog post about something British instead. I had a quick look on etsy for things made using the Union Jack flag and I found this amazingly cool cushion set from the Pop Britannia range at Karen Hilton Designs. Using some of the most recognisable British icons, it comes in 4 different colour ways.

Rhubarb the Garden Designer

Rhubarb loves being given an empty backyard, an overgrown garden or an unkempt piece of land and permission to be creative. Trees, bushes, flowers and other plants when put together in the right way can make a once ugly space become beautiful. When she isn't working on a project she travels around the world marvelling at creation, getting inspiration and new ideas for designing gardens. If your garden needs redesigning - or if you just want to meet her you can contact her at my etsy shop.