Giveaway: Handwoven Market Basket from Ghana

CONTEST CLOSED: Winner announced HERE.

In my little Pennsylvania-Dutchie town of Kutztown, Pennsylvania resides an unusual find: a great shop called Bamboula, LTD which imports handmade products from African artisans. Owner Jasperdean Kobes purchases these items directly from the artists, and uses the principles of Fair Trade to conduct transactions with these artisans. This is quite a noble endeavour, considering that half of Africans live on less than one dollar a day and are often not paid fairly for their hard work.

Bamboula LTD sells a variety of handcrafted home decor items, from pottery...

...to baskets...

...to recycled glass items....

and beyond. I own one of their beautiful market baskets in purple, which currently holds some of my huge stash of knitting yarn, and it looks so beautiful in my home. I like knowing that it was created by hand by a fairly paid artisan, and that it is sustaining her/his way of life.

Because I love Bamboula LTD's products (many of which are made with eco-friendly supplies) and their philosophy of Fair Trade, I'm thrilled to showcase this great store with K&K readers. To be honest, there's not much of an international flair in Kutztown, unless you consider Pennsylvania German to be exotic, so it's nice to know that there is a little worldliness in our rural area.

Jasperdean has so generously offered my readers one of the gorgeous traditional Market Baskets from Ghana, which is also called a Bolga basket. This would be great for holding yarn, groceries, magazines, or anything really. The leather handle makes it easy and comfortable to carry.
These are handwoven from straw by men and women in northern Ghana, in or around a town called Bolgatanga. Basket weaving in Ghana, like in many other regions of the globe, is a tradition passed down from generation to generation, so by purchasing fairly-traded, handwoven baskets, you are helping to sustain a cultural tradition.

To enter:
1. Visit Bamboula, LTD and leave a comment on this post with your favorite product. If you want to be extra nice, tell Jasperdean what you really like about Bamboula.
2. Make sure your email address is in the comment or is easily accessible via your blog profile or blog itself. I need a way to contact you!
3. For one extra entry, blog about this post and leave a separate comment letting me know
4. For a second extra entry, post my button (code is on my right hand sidebar) on your blog OR subscribe to my newsletter and let me know you've done this in a separate comment .

This giveaway is for US and Canadian postal addresses only.

You must do the first two things in order to enter ("I want to win, thanks!" comments will NOT be considered). You will have until Saturday October 4th at 11:59pm EST to enter. The winner will be chosen via random number generator the next day and notified by email. I'll also post the winner on my blog. If I don't hear back from the winner by Wednesday at noon, I'll pick another. Good luck!