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

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.

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!