Talk to me about kitchen electrics. Are there any worth bringing with us? I'm just now sorting through my kitchen and we have a juicer and a blender I'm loathe to part with. Would these still work ok if we used them with an adapter and transformer?
I admit, I'm a big fan of Williams-Sonoma and the high-end stuff they have. What would the equivalent in the UK be?
I brought my KitchenAid mixer and Brother sewing machine. I purchased a heavy-duty transformer for £50 and had an electrician make a special plug for it (cheap). I've used it for 9+ years here with no problems. I would say this in terms of expensive kitchen electricals (ie. juicers), it's worth it to bring your own in a shipping order (goes by volume, not weight). My mixer cost me originally about $300, here it over £350 = roughly $525. That's a lot of money to re-invest. You can put that towards shipping!
I also brought linens, esp. towels; loads of books; lots of kitchen items (pans, utensils, crockery, etc.); DVDs (found multi-region DVD players for cheap, also work on computers); laptop and other small electricals (not hair dryer, though); Christmas decorations; although no furniture.
In total I had about 50 boxes and it was cheaper than replacing all those things.
As for you jewelry-making, my mother does the same and is constantly moaning about the lack of supplies here (and the really HIGH costs). I would stock up now and ship stuff, esp. the gold/silver wire which is outrageously priced here. Also, she says some type of solder is unavailable here? Oh, and the tools are really expensive and not as varied here? **according to my mom** The few times I've been back she has asked me to bring some of these items because she is so frustrated with the lack of choice and/or the high import taxes to have them shipped to the UK.
Scotland doesn't have the same availablility for stores, etc. as England, although it has improved greatly since I moved here. I'm especially excited that a Whole Foods is supposed to open up in Glasgow later this year.
We also have Costco in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen--they carry more US stuff now and their prices are pretty good.
The only other thing I would say is be careful on shipping items after your initial shipment. I sent another shipment with some xmas items later (smaller shipment) and customs tried to impose commercial price equivilant tax charges on my used items (they were charging more in tax than the items were originally bought for!!!). I had a HUGE battle with customs until they finally relented. If you ship most of it at once, then you can sort it all here.
I went through the boxes again after not seeing the items for 3-4 months and realised some of the stuff I no longer wanted/needed (ie. candles, extra clothing, misc items). I'm just happy I had my "home comforts" with me to start my new life in the UK (long ago now).
Good luck!!
