I have listed some new items on our Etsy and Folksy pages, two iPad sleeves and a Kindle bag. Hopefully I will have a chance to make some more of these soon, but I hope you enjoy these for now!

The issue with Folksy has been resolved, so all the new bowls are now up there too!

I've been listing a few of David's new floral themed bowls on our Etsy and Folksy pages. The colours are lovely and they'd make a perfect gift for someone this holiday season! There's an error on our Folksy page, which is preventing me from listing all of the bowls at the moment, but I will have these up for sale as soon as possible. They are all up on our Etsy shop already, so they can all be seen there!

Southsea has finally been covered by snow, so I've used the day to list a bunch of fascinators I made for the craft fairs that we attended last week. They're on our Etsy and Folksy shops, so please go and have a browse! Later I will be listing the new recycled-tie kindle and iPad bags that I've made, so hopefully they will go down well.

Laura returned home to Portsmouth this week after being up north for our recent craft fair events. It was fantastic to spend time together working on new ideas for our products. Here in Harrogate the snow is a challenge sometimes, the pavements are very slippery but the whole town is covered in a beautiful blanket of white stuff.

Yesterday we uploaded some new bowls for sale on our Folksy and Etsy shops. There are two new flower bowls which are very bright and colourful and which we hope you will enjoy owning as much as we enjoyed making them. The Candy Flowers bowl features very jolly red and pink striped fantasy flowers and like the Flowers and Leaves bowl we think would make an excellent gift this Christmas. Please have a look at them in our shops when you have time.

After our visit to Scotland a couple of weeks ago I finished a bowl to celebrate to lovely island of Arran. This bowl is quite chunky and is decorated with an imagined view of the island in summer with blue sky and clouds. I expect Arran is covered in snow just now but if you have an opportunity to visit we would heartily recommend discovering "Scotland in miniature" for a truly wonderful experience.

Our next event will be at St Aidans School in Harrogate on Friday 3rd December. The Christmas Gift Fair will be open from 5pm until 9pm. We will be showing a selection of corsages and fascinators, our tie bags and my bowls. It would be lovely to meet you there.

Laura and I had an interesting day at the FLAIR artists and makers Craft Fair in York today. The weather was a challenge. York was covered in a blanket of snow and the temperature was very low. The fair was held in the Chapel within the historic York Cemetery which was a beautiful venue. Unfortunately it wasn't a very attractive day for people to come out but we did meet some very talented crafters and some very robust customers who braved the snow storm and the freezing conditions. Thank you especially to our friends who made a special effort to attend and give us support, it was very much appreciated.

We met Jilly Lovett a brilliant crafter who makes folk art dolls (the Johnny Depp pirates and mermaid were our favourites), berets, gloves and accessories from recycled wool and cashmere. We recommend a visit to her etsy shop.

I had two new bowls on display which I really enjoyed making. They will be available on our web shops next week. I have been working on designs which feature flowers lately and people seem to like them which is good news. While we were away in Scotland recently we noticed that on the Isle of Arran there are many gardens with fantastic blue hydrangeas growing in them I expect with all the snow since we left many of them will have gone over now. Laura and I have been working on a series of designs with hydrangea flowers as the basis so hopefully those will be available soon on out web shops too.

Laura and I have spent this week working on new designs for our products. We are very keen to work with recycled, reclaimed and pre-loved materials and we notice that there are other artists and makers out there who have the same commitment.

We particularly like Julia's Genius throw, featured in today's Guardian Magazine which is made from vintage sweaters and available from anthropologie.eu

We will be exhibiting at the next FLARE craft fair, tomorrow Sunday 28 November at The Chapel, York Cemetery, Cemetery Road, York YO10 5AJ. The fair is open from 11am until 4pm. We would very much like to meet you there if you can make it.

Last Sunday we exhibited at the FLARE artists and makers Craft Fair held at the Town Hall in Ripley, North Yorkshire. It was very nice to meet new people both customers and fellow crafters and artists. Once again we found some really wonderful creations for sale which inspired us to keep working on and improving our own products.

The people loved Laura's corsages and fascinators. The feedback we had from customers was that it was great to find something original, handmade and produced from recycled materials. My little Christmas tree decorations were popular too! We placed sweets in the sparkling little bowls and they were enthusiastically sampled (and bowls purchased). We are very happy to be meeting a need for special gifts and accessories especially as we are getting so close to Christmas now. Our range as always can be found on our web shops at Folksy and Etsy.

Like us, a lot of people are enjoying Kirsty Allsop's new television series "Homemade Home" and it is very pleasing to find that she is championing making things from recycled, reclaimed and pre-loved materials too.

While Laura and I were away visiting the Isle of Arran we spent some of our time there designing new bowls which reflected some of the amazing things we saw. The sunrises and sunsets from the beach at Pirnmill, the little village we stayed in were very beautiful. We took some champion walks along the beach and up in the hills behind the village. One of these walks took us to Corre Lochan above the hamlet of Thunderguy. The colours and textures of the scenery are majestic. We took lots of photographs of the little loch which is about 1000 feet above sea-level and when we returned to our cozy cottage we painted bowls. We hope to have some of these posted on our web shops very soon!

In the meantime we are prepare for another FLARE craft fair this coming weekend which will be held at the Chapel, York Cemetery in York. It is a really fascinating and historic location and we would recommend a walk around the grounds which may be covered in snow by the weekend if the forecasts are correct. The event is on Sunday 28 November from 11am until 4pm and we would love to meet you there.

Laura and I have been away for the last week visiting friends on the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland. It was an awsome visit, Arran is such a beautiful island. We will write more about our adventure there next week.

On Sunday 21st November we will be exhibiting at the FLARE artists and makers Craft Fair at The Town Hall, Ripley, North Yorkshire HG3 3AX between 11am and 4pm. It would be lovely to see you there.

David's Stanley bowl has been featured in a lovely Christmas gifts post by Found on Folksy! The blog, entitled 'Exclusive Gifts for Christmas', has a great collection of gift ideas for the coming season and we're very pleased to be included!

My new bowl "Paper Flowers" is now available for sale on our Etsy and Folksy web shops. I really enjoyed painting this bowl, the design is a bit of a departure from my usual style. I am developing a series of flower designs and I'm looking forward to getting started on them.

Laura and I are preparing to make a trip to the Isle of Arran on the coast of West Scotland. We are staying in Pirnmill which is a very pretty little hamlet on the coast overlooking the Mull of Kintyre. I was fortunate to spend some time on the island last year and it is extradinarily beautiful. I have a bottle of Arran Malt which is produced at the Isle of Arran Distillery. If you have an opportunity to try some I think you find it is some of Scotlands very finest whiskies. We are looking forward to a break and spending some time with friends who live there. We are sure to be inspired by the beautiful scenery and the sea, so we expect to be even more productive when we get home.

I have been away visiting Northumberland recently. Mark and I stayed at Spylaw Farm near Chatton which is beautiful and restful place to vacation. We occupied Cuddy's Croft which is a small but perfectly formed self-catering cottage for two. It is very generously and comfortably equipped with pretty much everything you could possibly need. The owners Lorna and Andy are friendly and accommodating. Lorna leaves a tray of cake and tea things when you arrive and she can provide a three course meal made from goods grown on their farm wherever possible. There are chickens and geese and sheep and lots of land to roam on. It is by far my favourite home from home.

While we were there I was inspired by the countryside and the incredible local beaches. I painted a few bowls which I am pleased with at Spylaw. The first includes a pre-historic 'ring' stone carving we found on nearby heathland. These carvings are found across Northumberland and North Yorkshire and are pretty amazing. The one we visited was near Chatton.

We did a lot of walking in Northumberland and fortunately the weather was pretty kind most of the time. On one of the walks we collected crab apples and rose hips which we brought back home. I have since made a load of Rose Hip and Apple jelly which will be given away as Christmas gifts I expect. I found an excellent recipe at The Cottage Smallholder, a web site I visit often. It is full of great tips and advice for Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-It-All types and Kirsty wannabes. I love it. The walk also inspired a bowl with an autumnal woodland theme which I really enjoyed painting. I think it has a 'nursery' quality about it and I think perhaps the lost child in me came out whilst making it!

The best walk we had was taken on the advice of our landlord at Spylaw, Andy. He sent us off to Ross Sands Beach which is about five miles from the farm. You can get to it between Budle Bay and Lindisfarne after a short trek across the bird sanctuary and dunes. it was an very windy day! The sand was shifting like a flat cloud across the empty beach and the waves were wild and sparkling. It was magical. When I got back to Spylaw, weighed down with pebbles and shells I started to paint a little bowl to remember the day by.

Each of the bowls mentioned above are now for sale in our web shops at Folksy and Etsy.

Now I'm back in Harrogate I have been working on some new ideas. I have designed a new bowl which is decorated with pink flowers and I hope you will like it too. we have also produced an ameliagreenheart calender for 2011 which features images from some of the gifts and accessories Laura and I have been producing this year. It will be for sale at the craft Fairs we are participating in later this month and if anyone would like a copy please get in touch and we can send you one.

We do hope to be able to meet you at the FLARE craft events at Ripley, North Yorkshire on Sunday 21st November and at York on Sunday 28th November. We will also be at The St Aidans School Christmas Gift Fair in Harrogate on 3rd December.

Very excitingly, David's papier mache bowls have been featured on the Folksy blog! The blog is titled 'Paper Mache Art: Inspiring Creativity' and is about encouraging others to have a go at new crafts and learning new skills.

David and I are both very busy at the moment making products for the two FLARE craft fairs that we are selling at later this month. You can find information for all their events on their blog, and we will be there on Sunday 21st November at the Town Hall in Ripley, 11am to 4pm, and Sunday 28th November at The Chapel at York Cemetery, 11am to 4pm.

We are looking forward to both these events, but they will be my first craft fairs so I'm a little nervous! We hope to take part in more of these in the new year, both in Yorkshire and Hampshire. We'll keep you updated with any events we're taking part in.

In the meantime, it's back to the sewing machine!

David and I have completed a tie-bag kit, which is now listed on our Etsy and Folksy pages! These kits contain all the materials and instructions you need to make your very own tie-bag! We both love creating our items from recycled and reclaimed materials, so making a kit to encourage others to do the same is exciting. Hopefully these will be enjoyed by other people as much!

I was asked recently to make a large bowl as a gift from a friend. As it happened I knew the person who would be receiving my bowl and so I designed it to represent her family woodland in Sussex where I have had the pleasure of spending many happy weekends camping with Laura and her sister Emma over the years. Apparently she was very happy with the bowl which was good news and I so enjoyed painting it too!

This weekend I visited Harlow Carr RHS Garden near Harrogate with Dr Allan Hall. We had a pleasant walk through the woodland and the gardens and ended up in the the alpine greenhouse. It was there that we started talking about the beautiful spiral shapes formed by the leaves of plants such as houseleek and seed cones like those from fir trees. This has a name (of course). Phyllotaxis, from the Greek: leaf (phyllo) arrangement (taxis). These formations are amazingly exact mathematical patterns. I have been taking photographs of plants and seeds especially those with spiral and lattice-like patterns and thinking that they would be stimulating subjects for my bowls.

On Sunday, Mark and I went off to the local car boot sale at Weatherby looking for materials for the business (we found some excellent copper wire and some nice ties for Laura's bags). I usually meet someone interesting and clever at these events and on Sunday I got talking to a lady from Shri Lanka, Deidree Morrow, director of DeeSpice. She makes and markets a range of wonderful chutneys and sauces. I tasted a couple, they are very spicy but as Deidree pointed out, in Shri Lanka her products would be considered tame. I loved (and bought) her Mango Chutney. We also really liked the labels on their products which are bright and attractive. She sells her products from her webpage too by mail order.

Laura has made some beautiful new Fascinators including this one which I really love, "Pink Frayed Fascinator". The antique button in the centre is charming and you will never find another like this one, it is quite unique! The other new fascinators are lovely too so take a look when you have a moment on either of our web shops.

I have a couple of new bowls on the etsy and folksy web shops too. A customer from our folksy site received her bowl wrote back to say "....I have recently bought your "Harrogate Stray" bowl and I love it, but what attracted me to it was the painting, I think the way you decorate them is fantastic..." Well, thank you and we really appreciate your comments. My new bowls are part of a series which could be great to use to decorate your home over the Christmas celebrations. They are full of shining rainbow colours and stars and glitteriness!

This morning I have been out and about in Harrogate distributing leaflets for the FLARE Artists and Makers Craft Fairs which are coming up in November. Once again I met some excellent people with small, unique and quirky businesses. Still Gorgeous is run by Claire Whitaker and is Harrogate's first shop selling top end childrenswear, previously worn but in beautiful condition. It is the recyclers dream outlet! You can go in to buy an incredible selection of kids togs or take along some to sell to the shop.

I usually pop in to Leng's Green Grocers when I'm at Cold Bath Lane in Harrogate. It is by far the best in town. They have excellent locally sourced fruit and vegetables, much of it organically grown, reasonably priced and always good quality. Usefully they also have milk and eggs and other basics. Pete Scholfield has a web-site where you can shop on-line which is probably good too, personally I prefer to visit his friendly shop and today I bought some fresh beetroot, I just have to decide what to make with it now.

The Cold Bath Lane of Harrogate area is teeming with brilliant shops. I Like eggcup and blanket Interiors which have a great selection of home goods and gifts. Our friends at 3rd Edge Hairdressing recommended I visited Dragon Embroidery who produce bespoke printed and embroidered teeshirts, badges and the link. Brian at Dragon Embroidery is hopefully going to make us some embroidered ameliagreenheart teeshirts and sweatshirts which we can wear at craft fairs and markets and will probably offer them for sale too.

Time seems to fly by....This past weekend I was working on two commissions for work and the beginning of the week has been absorbed with thinking about new ideas and products for our web shops.
One of the commissions was for a house number sign for a 'Wendy House' in Weatherby. The client gave me a few pointers and left me to have a go. She collected it yesterday and later sent me a text message "....we put up 3a and it looks great! The colours are perfect and we love the design you chose. Thanks very much!" It was lovely to have some cheery feedback.

The second commission was for a large bowl. I so enjoyed making this one and when the purchaser has collected (hopefully pleased with it) and given it to its intended recipient I will share a photograph here on the blog. Actually I will miss it and would like to make another for me!

We should have some new 'seasonal' gifts available in our shops on etsy and folksy later and we will update the blog when they are available. I'm having a rainbow moment...so all the new designs are with rainbow coloured stars and inspite of myself they also seen to be a bit glittery but I actually love them and we hope you will too!

Feedback from people is interesting. The smallest comment can sometimes seem so negative even when it is almost certainly not meant to. One comment I received about my bowls was about the roughness of the finish. I suppose it is the tactile nature of them that I love the most and it is quite hard to get that across in a photograph. Of course being at craft fairs makes that part easy because people pick the bowls up and seem to actively enjoy the textures and odd shapes. It's the same with Laura's Tie bags...once you feel the luxurious silk of the (ex gentleman's tie) fabric they are hard to resist! The point is that feedback is always a good thing. I especially like it when people say something like "this is good...but it would be even better if you..."

I have also been visiting galleries, homes, gifts and craft shops in Harrogate distributing leaflets to promote the up-coming FLARE Artist and Makers Craft Fairs in November. Along the way I have been meeting interesting and wonderfully creative people. It has been a pleasure.

At Sutcliffe Galleries in Harrogate I was blown away by some extraordinary 'pictures' in 3 dimensions by Jon Mittan. His work is still life of vegetables in very classical style but presented as 3D photographs. The work has to be seen to be fully appreciated and I would heartily recommend a visit to gallery to get the full effect. Sutcliffe Galleries also has some beautiful paintings, Raku pottery and jewellery by local artists and it is very friendly place to visit.

On my travels leafleting I also met Garry Faulkner who has literally just opened his new shop Home and Garden in Montpellier Mews. The store is filled with an exquisite selection of goods, decorations and accessories for making a home really special. There are all sorts of unusual and tasteful objects any of which I would love to have in my home. It would be the perfect place to find a modest wedding present or a 'moving in' gift. I will definitely be returning to browse.

This morning I met a remarkable lady who runs a beautiful boutique gift shop called The Stalls in Bower Street, Harrogate. Her shop sells a lovely range of handmade and crafted gifts, all modestly and reasonably priced. There are felt bags, jewellery, photographs, cosmetics, cushions...lots of incredibly original things. All worth the short detour from the main shopping area (The Stalls can be found just behind the bus station). Natasha Harris was the perfect person for me to meet today, very positive and kind and encouraging. I felt elated, which sounds a bit over the top I agree, but chatting to her about her business and how she collaborates with local artists made me feel good about what Laura and I are trying to achieve.

It has been a busy week. I went to Beverley in East Yorkshire on Tuesday to a workshop run by Business Link: "Social Enterprise, is it for you?". It was an excellent event facilitated by Paul Nevin who has run successful social enterprise businesses in the past. Laura and I have been discussing the possibility of setting up a social enterprise business in Harrogate. It is a long-term plan but something we would very much like to pursue in the future. We will be sharing more about this venture shortly. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in our thoughts so far, we do have a consise business outline which we can send to you for review, feedback and suggestions. Send us an email request at ameliagreenheart@yahoo.com

I spent another brilliant day on Wednesday working at Henshaws Yorkshire in Knaresborough helping to prepare gifts to exhibit at their forthcoming Christmas Gift Fair in December. There are details of all their arts and crafts public events on their website.

Today I have been beavering away at making our new Christmas decoration bowls which should be on sale in our Etsy and Folksy shops at the beginning of next week. In the meantime we have added two new items: a large bowl entitled "Queuing for Tea in Harrogate" and a new design "Harrogate Stray in Autumn" which was inspired by walking across The Stray recently and the amazing colours of the autumn leaves.

This evening we have finally registered our web domain name. Now we have a very, really very basic web page which can be found at http://www.ameliagreenheart.co.uk/. The web pages have been created using Great British Business On-Line (GBBO). During the next few days we will be making the pages look beautiful and we will let you know when the site is looking good. For now the contact page on the site has all the basic information for getting in touch with us.

Best regards, David

One of our bowls, Night Trees and Stars (which is available in our folksy and esty shops) was featured on a very cool blog over the weekend: The Simple Melody which was very kind of them.

I will be attending a Business Link workshop tomorrow in Beverley, East Yorkshire: "Social Enterprise: is it for me?" I have been thinking about how we could incorporate a 'social enterprise' element to our business in the future and I'm hoping that this workshop will be a good starting point for considering this idea. We will keep you in touch with our plans and I will write about the workshop when I have a moment for anyone who is interested.

Our friend Linda Henderson suggested we look at a social enterprise project on the west coast of Scotland near Skye (where she lives) called Rag 'n Textile. I was very impressed with the work they are producing and will definitely keep an eye on what they are doing. Thanks Linda.

Finally we are hoping to be joining a Christmas Gift Fair at St Aidens High School in Harrogate on December 3rd. It is an evening event which should be really fun. We will post details when (if) our place there is confirmed. Best regards for now, David

We had a great day at the made-it Craft Fair in Weatherby Town Hall. Laura wasn't able to get up to Yorkshire today but she was definitely there in spirit. Mark Griffiths kindly came along to give me a hand and we are very grateful for his help. The visitors to the fair really loved Laura's Fascinators and Tie Bags and we made some good sales of those and my bowls.

We launched a new product for Christmas which we will have up on the Etsy and Folksy shops very soon (well as soon as I have replenished my stock!). The new bowls are small paper clay bowls which are designed to hang on the Christmas tree as decorations which can also hold little gifts! Look out for them, the people at the Fair seemed very pleased with them and we hope you will be too.

There were some brilliant exhibitors there with some beautiful and innovative handmade products for sale. We especially liked Skiprat Creations who make original, contemporary furniture and gifts handcrafted in Yorkshire from reclaimed or recycled materials and recommend that you take a look at their shop on Folksy. You will not be disappointed.

Our stall was next to an excellent and very creative photographer, Brian Hull who combines his love of history with a very professional and creative approach to the images he captures, so definitely check his web site Quadriform out.

Finally we would really like to thank Debbie and Kirsten who organised the craft fair for inviting us to join this one, it was a really valuable and very enjoyable experience. They are holding several more made-it Craft Fairs leading up to Christmas and you can see the details at their website.

Great news for us today. We will be exhibiting at the "made-it" Craft Fair in Weatherby Town Hall, Yorkshire this coming Saturday, 25th September. The event starts at 10am and ends at 4.30pm. We would love to meet you there. ameliagreenheart will be selling a selection of our gifts including the lovely tie-bags and fascinators made by Laura and the bowls I make.

We have also joined Twitter! I went to a Business Link "Be Inspired" Seminar last week in Doncaster. The speaker was Emma Jones. She was lovely and inspirational! A great combination. She has a website called "Enterprise Nation" which promotes homeworking and small businesses. Definitely worth a look if you are running a small business from home. Emma is very keen on social networking as a way of connecting with people who need whatever service or product you are selling. I have enjoyed twittering so far. I must admit that I have avoided it until now but actually it is such a good way to keep in touch with new ideas and share what you are doing with like-minded people. If you are interested in following ameliagreenheart on Twitter search for us via our email ameliagreenheart@yahoo.com or our name ameliagreenhart (yes spelt that way on Twitter).

I'm enjoying working at Henshaws Yorkshire in Knaresborough. I am there one day a week and learning to handmake paper with my colleague Helen. I have met some brilliant people who have given me some fantastic ideas for my own work and who make me laugh and dance and sing. What a great bonus! I would like to have a go at making paper for ameliagreenheart product labels. I was thinking it would be interesting to make it out of leaf fibre and I plan to try oak leaves first. I have been talking with our very good friend Dr Allan Hall about trying to make paper from woad leaves. When we can find a source for these we will give it a go.

On my train journey to and from Knaresborough I have been reading a very interesting book "Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-It-On" by Adam L Penenberg. It analyzes the power of 'word-of-mouth' recommendation and gives examples of the rise of some of the businesses we all use such as Google, Facebook and YouTube. I am finding it very engaging and funny sometimes. I especially like the description of how the website "Hot or Not" came about and how it became an interweb phenomenon in a very short period of time. If you haven't come across it yet where have you been?

Seriously though, it is a good read. It reminds me of the buzz I got from reading Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and "Freakenomics" bySteven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

We will also be exhibiting at at least two more craft fairs this year: The FLARE Artists and Makers Craft Fair at the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) Ripley in Yorkshire on Sunday November 21st (from 11am until 4pm) and The Chapel, Cemetry Road, York on Sunday 28th November (also from 11am until 4pm).

FLARE are also holding a Craft Fair at The Tithe Barn, Church Lane, Nether Poppleton, Yorkshire on Sunday 14th November between 11am and 4pm. We are really looking forward to these events and hope to see you at them too. Best regards, David.

Hello! I've just finished listing another of David's rock pool bowls on our Etsy and Folksy pages. I love these bowls and how they capture the feeling of looking through the bottom into another world that rock pools give you as a child. There is another bowl ready to be listed tomorrow, so look out for that!

I've been busy for the last couple of days trying to work out how to make an iPad bag out of ties. It's proving to be more difficult than I had imagined, but I'm getting there slowly. I've also made a couple more regular tie-bags, which I will try and list tomorrow. Again, not enough hours in every day!

There are some more of David's bowls listed on our Etsy and Folksy sites!

Hello, I have now listed three of my new tie-bags on our Etsy and Folksy sites! I have some more in production that I will put up soon and many more planned!

Hello.
I have also been away. Mark and I went to New York for a week and had a great time there. I found some interesting and inspiring ideas from our visit which I hope we can translate into new products very soon. I have put some of my photographs on my Flikr page. I especially loved a quilt I found at the Devils Kitchen Market. They style is known as "dollar" or "penny" quilt and the one I saw was made from 1930's family fabrics. It was lovely.

Since we came back I have been working on a few new bowls. The Stray in Harrogate is an amazing open park space surrounded by trees. It is not really exaggerating to describe it as awesome. I will certainly be making some more because I really enjoy painting them and I'm hoping that other people will enjoy them as much as I do. So I have been producing bowls inspired by the trees there and there are two new ones for sale in the shop.

Last weekend we visited family staying at Flamborough Head in North Yorkshire for their holidays. We walked on the beach and I took loads of photographs of rock pools. I have started making a new range of Memory Bowls based on those.

We are hoping to be attending and selling our gifts at a few craft fairs and markets in Harrogate and North Yorkshire and in Portsmouth leading up to Christmas. We will keep you posted.

Yesterday I visited a car boot sale at Weatherby Racecourse (looking for silk ties for Laura's new tie bags). It was a beautiful day, lots of people and stuff. While there I met some people who have recently started a business "Your Gift Box". They prepare brilliant gift boxes for all occasions. I especially liked the box for a student starter which had a variety of little gifts to get a uni newbie feeling good about being in Halls for the first time. They will personalise the gift box to suit the person you want to gift. It's a really nice service. They don't have a web page yet (but I think they are planning to) but you can get in touch with them by email ygb1@hotmail.com or 07806 754648.

Apologies for not posting here for a while, things have been a bit hectic. Not only am I discovering that running a business takes more time each day than there is available, but I have also bought a house in the last week. There is a lot of work to do to make it what we want, and I'm now on my second day of waiting in for the removals men who are supposed to be coming to take the rest of the seller's furniture. The house also has limited Internet access for the time being, so I'm not able to get much done!

On a more relevant note, we now have a Folksy page! Folksy is a great British-based website where artists and crafters can sell their beautiful handmade items. We're still working it all out, but we have an ameliagreenheart page and are in the process of putting all our lovely things up for sale there.

I have also acquired a good selection of ties and am still trying to perfect my tie-bag technique. I will put these up on our Etsy and Folksy pages asap.

Oh well, back to stripping wallpaper!

Since getting back from my stay with David in Harrogate, I've been trying to organise myself a space to work at home. It hasn't gone very well so far. I have good intentions of clearing our spare room so that I can have a proper creative "office". I am easily distracted, so having a dedicated space will be invaluable.

Today I've finally managed to make a successfull prototype tie-bag, after much sewing and unpicking of various other attempts. I had the idea to re-use the material from gentleman's ties while I was in Harrogate, and this is the result so far. I plan to keep experimenting with this and trying different sizes until I find a few styles that I'm happy with. Being a perfectionist doesn't make this process go quickly!

I've also been sewing a collection of labels to put on my items. I've used the cotton padding from inside the ties as the base - another opportunity to recycle! Tomorrow I'll be attaching these to the items I've already made, and probably sewing a few more. I feel this will become a never ending task...

I have also just added an Etsy tab to my Facebook page, and will be doing the same for the ameliagreenheart page shortly. This will update automatically with all our new listings and posts (hopefully), so should save a lot of time!

Today I've started make the bases for a whole new set of bowls and I've begun the process of producing papier mache pulp. I decided to make little video clips of how they are made and then when I've finished I will stick the clips together and post a video onto the blog. We have a few really interesting product ideas which we are both working on now so that we can expand our range and open up our creativity. So we will keep you posted and updated.

I also called the Henshaw Arts and Crafts Centre we mentioned on Sunday and spoke to someone about volunteering there. I have an appointment to meet with them in a couple of weeks time when I get back from my trip to New York.

Thank you to the friends who have sent us messages of support and interest in our shop, this blog and our Facebook page. Best wishes, David

We have been pretty busy since our first blog post setting up various administrative documents and trying to complete various tasks for the new business. Google's GMail seems very helpful. We are loving the shared documents and calender functions.

If you use Facebook to keep in touch with friends please have a look at our page ameliagreenheart. We will have updates on there as well with information about our products and the Etsy shop.

We were inspired by Lauren Lukes' website. This is a lady from Jarrow, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne here in England who has a blog where she gives tutorials on how to recreate the make-up secrets of the stars. It's fascinating and very entertaining. We love it and neither of us wear (much) make-up. Follow the link, you will not be disappointed.

Anyway we are planning to try to post some videos on this blog to show you some of the products we are making, share some of our ideas for new stuff and introduce you to people we meet along the way.

Today we met some very nice people who run a retro clothing shop in Knaresborough Riot Vintage, and we had a great time trying on clothes and boots...There were some great fabric designs and ideas which we will think about for our products. David sacrificed a fabulous pair of cowboy boots (admittedly size 6 and a bit girly) to Laura. They were purchased as part of her forthcoming birthday celebration. If you find yourself in Knaresborough this shop is well worth a visit.

While we were in Knaresborough we also visited Henshaws Yorkshire

which is a centre that supports people who are visually impaired,

have learning and other difficulties. The Arts and Crafts Center has a gallery, workshops, a handmade gifts shop and a very pleasant cafe. We walked through sensual garden which is beautiful. Most of the Centre was closed today but we were able to peek through the workshop windows and into the gift shop. The goodies glimpsed definitely ensure that David will be returning during the week to have a proper look, get inspiration and meet some of the people who work there.

Finally a note about Freecycle which is a brilliant idea usually available through Yahoo Groups. Most areas and towns have a local group with a message based website where people can share things they no longer need with their community and ask for things they need. No money is exchanged, items are shared for free and it is amazing how generous people are and how pleasurable it is to offer something you no longer need and give it to someone who does. Today David collected some plain cardboard from a lady who offered it through the Harrogate Freecycle group. We are going to use it to make business cards and gift tags for some of our products. Thank you Pat!