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.

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.