The Hand of Fatima Design N.Y.C.: London Town I- BUST Mag Craftacular

I was so, so lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the London BUST Mag Craftacular. I have to say, BUST Magazine is an amazing monument to women, it has given indie designers and crafters and musicians such exposure and mad LOVE.
When I heard about this opportunity, I just had to try to be a part of it. London plays a role in my family history, when my family's country went into revolution, they became somewhat "stuck" in London. They were visiting my aunt at university in England, and word came over the radio that homes of government workers had been seized and all kinds of stuff, so they never returned. For about two years they dwelled in an apartment with friends on Edgeware Rd. I went to this place and stood looking at the building. How strange and far it must have been to have to call this European city "home". Edgeware Rd. is beautiful, I have dubbed it the "Middle Eastern Upper East Side". Anyhow, my wonderful partner and husband stayed behind on this trip, and I was accompanied by two people that might as well be blood family, my Renee and Alejandro. Renee also left her husband (my brother from another mother) Ayman with the baby (who is 3! lol). It was a blast, but something about European cities makes you want your man (or woman), they are designed with romance.
(Me, Shadia, Renee and Alejandro smoking sheesh on Edgeware Rd.)

My family there, Shadia and Baba Mansour took care of us one day in a beautiful house in Wimbledon. Wimbledon itself is green, hilly and quiet, it has an overwhelming English charm, and this gorgeous creeky old house the Mansour's live in is overflowing with character, Baba Mansour collects antiques and grows everything in the garden which is abundant with green vines, apples and even figs! Figs in London!! I felt like I was in an British mystery show in that house, I loved it. We ate in the garden and he told us all jokes and stories about is childhood.

Well, I love London, I love, love, love it. I went all over from Camden to Brixton, I stayed in Limehouse and invented different characters and we did comedy skits on a double-decker, it inspired us to dare, as people are less stressed it seems, more willing to just chill.

I have some pics to share from the most curious museum, the Wellcome Museum. Renee and I were waiting for the red line @ Tower Bridge station, where I spotted the add for the museum exhibit with a Victorian wax anatomical figure cut open. "We're going!" I told her...Renee, a nurse, was just as equally curios. This place has everything from chastity belts to Darwin's walking stick. It is a GEM!!!

(these were designed to look Madonna-like to be more accepted by people, can you see it??)