Hello again...

Wooden setting carved with knife by Giannis and earrings by Stella

Hello again. It's been so long since I wrote anything here...I don't know quite where to begin. In the summer it gets so hot here in Halkidiki that I really didn't feel like making soap that often. I made a couple of batches of soap that were intended, as usual, for our personal use and as gifts to friends and there were even some soaps left for the local arts & crafts fair.

I took part in it for the first time last year, with my friend an fellow crafter Stella and her mom who is a painter and a crafter too. Since my last post, I was more involved with my other hobbies - crochet, tatting and jewellery making, so it was my handmade, crochetted jewellery that I took with me to the fair, allong with some castille soap which has cured in time for the show.

wooden olive tree-miniature
 carved with knife by Giannis and earrings by Anna& Stella

There are a lot of tourists at that time of year here, so we did good and I was able to see other, proffesional  soap makers from all over Greece, exchange experience, learn by observing the way they pack, market and exhibit their products.

 Overal, it was an OK experience, but as an expat who happens to be married to the only living Greek with small familly and only a few cousins, I also got to observe from the side the way that Greek family, cousins, godfathers, neighbours etc interact and support their own, being such a tight communitty. That sort of gave me a pang in my chest because it reminded me how I miss my familly and friends from Serbia and at that moment. It is at moments like these that I feel somehow disconnected from the people here, even though I am an active member of our communitty.

Windmill made from reused bottles

Check our page on Facebook to see more of Mr Giannis wood carvings, crafts made of reused material, Stella's and my own hadcrafted jewellery and Filio's paintings. You can read more about my adventure in jewellery making and other crafts on my other blog Bubbles and Baubles