Busy Busy Busy!!

Hi every one,
 huge apologies that i haven't been around in the past few days.
We are going England on Thursday for a few weeks and have plenty to prepare for, we are doing a markets and fairs over there so we had to re tag all our jewellery in English that we have left over from the last few fairs here.

I can not wait im so excited, i will try and blog as much as i can while im over there but i will have limited excess to wifi

When i return i will make a

competition

Hi everyone.
Hope we are all well.

I hope that you remember that a few weeks ago i set up a competition to win a bracelet and have had no guesses. The comp will end this Sunday so that's 5 days until you get a chance to win the bracelets for free!!
If you would like to enter leave a comment with how many beads you think are in the jar or send me a private email at anaflori51@gmail.com.

Thanks Hannah.

This sumer were going all out!

Hi all!!
Hope everybody is well!

This summer at anaflori were going all out we carnt wait to start doing craft fairs all over the place!

At the moment we finishing our tags and handmade business cards. The tags and the cards both have to be hand made because it represents better what i do, it does take a lot of time though so i will be purchasing some back up ones on the net just to make sure we have enough! I will hand them to everyone i see, as i want all to love the handmade jewellery we make as much as we do.

Let me know what you think of them!! Don't be shy to post a comment below!

 Obviously i didn't just stop there, these are our handmade jewellery tags!

I think they are grate because they are hard wearing hand made and cheaper to keep the coast of the jewellery down for our lovely loyal customers. Its small perfect ideas and touches like this that make a piece worth its while. I am so exited to get the jewellery out at those fairs now because i just love it. Like a child with smarties, HAHA
I made loads of the tings just couldn't stop

Perfect now thats what i call going all out.
But please if you wish tell us what you think and dont be shy!!
Lots of hugs Hannah
anaflori

EASTER

hi all.
So Easter is here its big!!

All the locals are celebrating and so are we! Easter in Romania is very important and its a perfect time to meet some more of the other half's family.
Lovely people they are!

At Easter we drink, eat and be merry just like Christmas in England!

I love Easter here. Painting and smashing each others eggs going to the  church at 11.30 at night to hear the priest singing and god being re-born. Its just lovely Romania is such full of culture and difference!All the celebrating will come to a halt and the summer will be well on its way!!!
hannah

CUR

 Hi everyone

I am so exited about something and i really feel the need to share.
I like to call it CUR. (Cheep Useful Recycling)

They all talk about global warming, saving water and being good to the planet. I love to do this, but some times and i'm sure we can all admit it, we slip and put something in the bin that could have been recycled or we forget to switch the tap off while we brush our teeth.You know them little things.
After all we are just all human but we try!

 so any way ...

Yesterday we visited our favorite shop that sells second hand clothes cheep its called the 2 lei shop and 2 lei is equivalent to £0.40 for example, or $0.61 or 0.46euro, REAL CHEEP.
Well in Romania some clothes are real expensive and some clothes are cheep like anywhere else in the world.

So what we like to do is (CUR) find clothes from the second hand shop spruce them up a little bit wash them and then wear them!
Its just that simple and there is nothing wrong with doing it as long as we wash them. Its so cheep and fun and we can make anything that we like and no one will have the same things as us what an amazing, affordable way to always have new clothes all the time!!

Our friends have said to us where did you get this, that, the other, and we said well when we bought it, it was a bed sheet or a pillow case or something ridiculous like that.
CUR really works and you don't need so much time, money or skill.
I spend approximately 1 hour on each piece and teat it like a hobby when i have a spare hour on a Sunday or something. 
I AM NOT EVEN A SEWING ARTIST HAHA! I am not so good with a sewing machine and doing it by hand i can not even sew straight, but i enjoy it and saving all that money to have economical one of a kind clothing is perfect!!

Just a perfect example this used to be a pillow case and now its my favorite one of a kind new old summer skirt
The pillow case coast me 2 Lei (£0.40) the buttons were included and i bought 1 meter of elastic for the waist which cost me 2 Lei (£0.40) plus time (1 hour)equals 4 Lei (£0.80) in total and i still have elastic left for my next creation!
Its a grate idea for kids clothing as they are always growing and getting messy so why spend a load of cash?
Perfect you try it and if you mess up you hardly waste a fortune!
hannahx @
www.anaflori.com

Egging it on!

Hello all, (again)

I really hope that we are all well!
I love painting my nails while i blog beacuse while they dry its about the only thing i can do, ha!

Anyway, what a busy bunny i have been today. Its Easter in Romania on the 5th of may so we have been preparing for it hugely. because its really important here.So today we have been painting eggs for most of the day!!

What grate fun!!

We made all kinds of patterns and i wrote my website on the back of them too!(www.anaflori.com) to get a little bit of publicity. I thought that i might as well because we would hand them out for free as we got the for free from the chickens we have and we have plenty so might as well share. Its like free advertising. Perfect for me, and the people we gave them too. Everyone was a winner!!
hannahx

Just a quick pop in.

All this work is now paying off so proud of what we have achieved!
The anaflori website is now live and active on the internet.

http://www.anaflori.com/

Please take a look and let us know what you think of our pretty little things. 
We also have a forum and about page its all very exciting!

Mays give away!!

Hi every one, so its the first of may and its time to give something away.
Would you like to own this handmade bracelet for absolutely free?

So the competition!!

Its the old "how many beads in the jar" competition.
What you have to do is leave a comment with how many beads you think are in the jar, please also add your name and your email address, if you prefer not to leave you email address then you could email me privately at    anaflori51@gmail.com.
The number that you guess doesn't have to exact, but the person who gets the closest will win the bracelet!

 But please take attention
 there are some very small ones in the jar too!
 If you are the winner i will notify you by email and once notified send me your home address and the bracelet will be sent to you completely free of charge. please note that your home address will not be passed on or abused as i will be the only one who sees it and once the bracelet is sent to you the address will be deleted. I will only ship to people in Europe, Russia or U.S.A. When the bracelet will arrive it will be perfectly packaged in the same way it would if it was a real purchase from anaflori.

Have fun every one!
Hannahx

A month in pictures.

Hi every one, I hope we are all well.

I apologize i can not upload those pictures from the last post i made.
But now i have something really special for everyone.

Oh my beads. Its nearly may! This month has gone by so fast, i would love to tell you all, everything that i have been up to and all the beading i have been doing but it would take hours of typing and reading and i am supper sure that i would miss something out.
Soo.
I will make a month in pictures post for you to look read and make your own impression about too.
here we go..

well we started the month with a little planting..

down came the rain with April showers!

after all the raining a little beading is required

getting ready for summer and the flower path is ready

we were working on building this all month long, it is my partners room for the new partridge farm business

flowers are flowering all around now yuppie

new beads for the beach

our new pet turkeys 1 day old

final stage and the doors in yes

the lilly festival in the city next to ours, what strange things were there

ploughing the fields were required

car boot sale

more summer selections

after all those things a little relaxing is needed

now starting on the website making everything pretty and beaded

i think its safe to say that summer is officially here!!!

 I hope you enjoyed our month in pictures but may will be here tomorrow and that will mean more posts new pictures, more beading and loads more fun!!

The sumer's on it's way and the jewellery is out!

Hello everyone.
Okay so here we are and the summers getting very close now!
This has given me a perfect excuse to open that big box and get all the jewellery (my old friends) out again. (I do wear jewellery in the winter too but just not as much)

 I was a bit ashamed to find some things knotted and tangled after the move from England to Romania a few months ago.
Oh well it can't be helped i suppose, i just untangled them! simple as that.

(I do have pictures to show you but, having trouble uploading them and i not sure if its a problem with blogger or my computer am very sorry everyone, as soon as i have them i will put them up to show you!)

So anyway, i love my jewellery the ones i buy and make, but i love most jewellery and that's me ha.

 But this time i really want to know about you, do you love jewellery, how do you feel when your wearing it, does it change your attitude/feelings in anyway. I also want to know whats your favorite types of it. Everyone is so quite out there, please don't be shy please leave a comment and tell me what you think about jewellery!!

Thanks Hannah

When does the supermarket open?

Hi again,
happy st Georges day for yesterday everyone!

 I just tought it would use this oputunaty to express something that is very inspiring and a beautiful way of life.
When i was livving in england we always bought everything from the supermarket, it got so bad that if it closed just for one day we would buy double the amount of stuff before.
But now being here its so different!!!

We plant, raise and make everything we can. From redesigning clothes from old ones to making furniture out of left over fire wood to raising animals for meat we also make jam, our own juice, rugs and eggs. And its not just us.
Its so nice to live a life of almost complete self sufficanty, however not easy at all we have to make an early start to water the plants check and feed the animals, cook (all home made of course) and the day goes on in fact its endless.

But....

I think that doing things things this way is a .lot ore healthier, nicer and proper shall we say. Because we know where our food comes from, we learn how to do new things and were staying out side in the nature almost every day. Also by living this type of life is less stress full and we are supporting local businesses rather that the hugely monstrous ones beacuse we buy things local and not processed.

This life, like this to me is perfect!

The odd one in!

Hi everyone!

I stumbled across something yesterday that i found very interesting. We were standing at a buss stop and we asked a guy about what time the buss was going to arrive, as we had already missed two and really didn't want to miss this one. After he told us he started talking about work and jobs and how they are very hard to find.
Well to be honest i felt a bit sorry for him at first until it came out that he was a self employed fully trained plasterer and could probably work a lot and earn a lot of penny's for what he does.

But...

It was then that i realized life is what you make it and we can do things but we some times we have to change our way of thinking, all my life i have never been negative about jobs, money, life and how tough it can be even if i have just £1 or $1 in my pocket. I suppose that i see things as more of a challenge and don't really see the negative things as a bad thing but like a hurdle when running a marathon or something, and at that moment i felt a wave of proudness of my self, it was a very good feeling.

 I always felt this non- negativity but i never realized how much of a good thing it was before.
No body is perfect and especially not me but i thought it was vital to blog this because if we all start to think a bit more like this then we will all be a bit happier i think!
so stay happy

Hannah.

Wire of inspiration!

My wire of inspiration is something that i like to look at day to day it not only gives me a healthy push with my work, it also gives me a smile and makes me happy!

As a fellow crafter i love this little wire (raped coat hanger)and really hope that this will inspire you to do something similar. I do mine with natural things because that is what inspires me the most for my jewellery and my life!

You could do yours with anything that makes you simile, to be perfectly honsit the one very important thing that gives me inspiration and makes me happy and flower as a tulip(if i was one) is the sun shine, but i couldnt manage to get it on my wire you can possably imagine why! Well i had ideas about light bulbs and putting orange gliter in side but turns out that every time i open them they all crack and smash all over the place.

So i thought about using jam jars with paper inside of the but i didn't think that it looked so effective!

Its best to just go with what you feel and try to express yourself into something that will make you happy
 once a day when you take a glance at it.

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think i would love to know!!!!

Working like builders!

Hello.
Im sorry but havent really had chance to make much of a blog today beacuse we'v been soo busy building my partners eco partridge farm, building in the past week or so. Were nearly finnished but we had to build a room from scratch for his new business so its all been a bit crazy, im used to threding wire and beading but in the past week iv been mixing concrete, how strange! Absolutly loving it though. Just for the pure fact that its something completely diffrent that i wouldnt usualy get a chance to do! 

It's just lovely

So i told you that i would give you a sneek peek preview on the old new stuff that im working on well here it is i hope you enjoy the will be going on esty very soon!!

I love love love! this style beacuse you can make it with kind of beading it doesnt just have to be with hearts. We can do it with pearls, crystals volcanic rock ect endless list of amazing things, we can even make this style out of our home made beads...
Psssstt, the chockers are coming back in fashion and i want to capture it !!!

Found it love it!

I have found a style that i can use for with everything its fun, serious, elegant and flexable perfect for me, i had been doing the style for a long while but i didnt realise, but i suppose things can be like that sometimes. Right there in your face but you don't realise it untill a long while after, its silly really ha!

I will upload some pictures on monday to reveal!!!

Ploughing and sewing was the thing today, we spend alot of time and energy planting something simalor to rapeseed. It was really good fun and a really early start, wasn't easy though considering we had to do it by hand and the heat was strong 40 degrees celsius in the sun. What an experance with the tractors going up and down in the fields, was a beautifull scene to look at, I tell you this beacuse its so inspiring how people can be so self sufficient here!

This vintage bike is rather inspiring dont you think! What a beautifull day too!!

A bit stuk of image!

Today i thought that i was going to have a break through, wow how i was wrong!

Iv been making my jewellery for 4 months now but I have realised that my jewellery is a bit mixed matched, all nice but it doesnt belong to the same group or style, i.e.  preppy, rock chick, vintage, ect. the thing is with me, i am very versatile i would neaver turn down: a sip of champagne, gardening, playing sports, dancing and other things, basicly i will all ways give anything a go once. Also my wardrobe is the same its a bit of this a bit of that, but for me it works and always has done i really hope that i can find a sort of style of jewellery to class mine under i just dont know what, beacuse i want to make bunting neacklaces, i have swavoski crystals and funn diffrent coloured beads on elestic strings, but is it too versatile? 

I just carnt help it, i enjoy it so much but end up making all diffrent kinds of stuff. Maybe you could give me some advice beacuse its driving me insane! Iv had to have a hot chocolate to calm the nerves!

The doggies of our nation.

Today i came across a fantastic conclution!

The doggies of the Romanian nation, there are all diffrent types of cutie little dogs but we there are some street dogs, the don't usualy harm us only if we provoke them (just like all dogs really)
However over the last few months i have observed how cleaver the are and i have come to conclution.
there are 3 types of behaved dogs:
1. The gangster, will peep out of his sleeping eyes to see what going on around him!
2. The foodies, eill snatch any type of take out food directly from your hand!
3. The biters, no not people car wheels! but not when the cars are stationary,
 when its moving!!

These things are ture trust me but they are all still so cute and make up the comunaty that we live in.

The most amazing book!

Last week i started reading a book called "The handmade market place, how to sell your crafts locally globally and online" by Kari Chapin.
THIS BOOK IS AMAZING!
Its really nice it memtions all sorts of tips and things to do when your starting your handmade business or just crafting for fun. Kari Chapin also explain ideas and things to do when stuck for insparation!

Before i started reading this book i was a little tierd of tring to get in to the local fairs beacuse i was a little stuck for inspration, but i still loved what i did and still love it now! The only diffrence is that now i have loads more ideas after being left inspired, and the most important thing is that now i know that im not alone and there are many people doing the same thing out there 
which i find hugely empowering! Im still reading the book but im sure that il finnish in a day or two. 

Hi there, im new at this blogging but i thought i would give it my best shot anyway!

I started blogging so i can express my adventure’s with traveling and making jewellery.

In october i moved from my home town Nottingham in the UK to Romania, well my partner is Romanian so i thought well, i might as well give it a go! So off we went on our new adventure (was kind of new for him too, he was in the UK for 3 years) with our a bottle of scotch and our 6 suitecases that i couldnt carry and kept droping all the way though luton airport Ha!

When we arrived on the other side of europe every one was really nice and happy to see us, luckly they still are now, but we have had some adventures in the past few months and i think that was just the start.
In December i opend my handmade jewellery buisines and its going quite well, here i have plenty of inspiration around me to work, but im still setting up. So il keep you posted!
Hannah x