Hi I'm Ally, and I'm here to share the reasons why you should be playing the ukulele right now.

It took years of fruitless recorder, piano and violin lessons before anyone noticed that I was in no way musical. I'd grown to hate music lessons with a passion and so the suggestion that I could teach myself something was very appealing. However I'd struggled with the guitar for about a year and so I was pretty certain that the ukulele would just be a more fiddly version, but I thought I'd give it a go. I cannot stress this enough; the ukulele is totally self-teachable. There are so many wonderful websites and forums which can help you, as well as specialised blogs and youtube videos. I try and regularly share my favourites on my blog.

this was the first thing that drew me to playing the ukulele. I'd seen a gorgeous baby blue ukulele and I just couldn't believe that they were so cheap. So many musical instruments seem very elusive to me purely because I know that if I want to start playing the saxophone I'm going to have to shell out £600 and then pay for lessons, and yet here was this little number for just £30! I figured that for that price I could afford to fail, and if I did at least I would have something pretty to put on my wall. 

Of course they are, I they're pretty miniature guitars in beautiful colours. It was their prettiness that originally drew me in. However after a couple of years I wanted prettier! I wanted stars and hearts and florals and a gazillion patterns that would set my heart a flutter. But, for some weird reason, I couldn't find a patterned ukulele anywhere. They just didn't seem to exist. And so I decided to set up shop selling beautifully patterned instruments and that is how the Ukulele Workshop was born!

I think my favourite thing about running the Ukulele Workshop has to be doing custom work. I don't charge any extra for custom ukuleles, partly because the word 'custom' often makes people back off and hold onto their purses worriedly, but also because I just love working with people! Whether it's transferring someone's favourite cartoon character, their favourite photo or even a sheet of their handwriting onto a uke; it's all just so beautifully personal and makes for such a nice collaboration. 

So I hope I've convinced you! Get strumming cut out and keepers!