about us

Karma Living encapsulates the cultural charm and inspirational beauty of our natural world and presents unique, ethnic arts and crafts for your home. Karma Living focuses on developing countries and is committed to buying at source in an effort to reduce poverty by encouraging local trade.

The Karma Living product range encompasses the very best of world arts, crafts, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, woodcarvings and jewellery, specifically focusing on hand made, hand painted and hand crafted pieces.

Karma Living currently buys from many countries in Africa including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and other areas of the world such as South East Asia.

Karma Living donates a percentage of each sale to worthy causes set up within the country of origin with a focus on aid and food programmes, education and sponsorship schemes. Please go to the Karma Giving section for more information.

Your Purchase

A large percentage of the Karma Living stock is bought direct from local Zambian artists and craftsmen and women living in the capital or more remote rural locations. Bianca and Patrick O'Connor, cofounders of Karma Living regularly visit Zambia on buying trips to meet with the artists and buy stock direct.

Their method is no more advanced than simply turning up to many of the cultural villages or roadside stalls and chatting to the locals about their skills, crafts and goods on offer. Much of the day is spent discussing price; "Haggling" has become an enjoyable and social element of the Karma Living philosophy. There are no middlemen which means once a fair price has been agreed, the money is paid in cash direct to the artists and the goods are loaded onto the truck to be crated, fumigated and shipped to the UK. Every piece is unique, and every piece has a story to tell, please register for the Karma Living newsletter to hear more.

Caring For Your Product

Each Karma Living piece is a unique, hand crafted item made from natural materials, and therefore some pieces may contain natural blemishes, size and colour variations, knots and indentations.

Most of the Karma Living fabric and textile ranges are made using natural vegetable dyes and it is not always possible to maintain a colour consistency when purchasing a number of textiles items. We would advise you to avoid getting any textiles wet as the colour will run causing considerable aesthetic damage to the product.

Every effort is made to ensure that each piece arrives safely in the UK. Due to the change in climate or humidity some wooden items will require further care in the home.

We strongly suggest that where possible you avoid placing all Karma Living wooden crafts in front of or near direct heat, including radiators. The wood may shrink and cause a piece to crack or split. We also suggest each piece is treated regularly with a wax or wood polish to avoid further cracking.

You can purchase wood care kits directly from Karma Living.