Moving home has been hectic and still not managed to unpack all crafting stuff.  I was previously in a 3 bedroomed extended house and now in a 2 bedroomed apartment with open plan kitchen and lounge. It is very nice and I like it much better but it is hard trying to fit all my crafting stuff in. I will have to stop buying for a while!  The shock of it! I will get withdrawal symptons.

Having no broadband yet is also making it difficult to update my sites and blogs, but I will get there soon.

Today would have been my cat Nikki’s birthday, had she lived. She died of a blood disorder in August 2007. She was born 28 2 03 and was given me to comfort me after the death of my daughter, Nikki, in January 2003. I intend making a scrapbook page or two of my cat Nikki this weekend and will post them on here shortly. Just a few pics in rememberance:

Personalised cards have been taking up a lot of my time lately, here are a few and more can be viewed in my shop here.

A Pearlised card has been used to create the A5 birthday card. Pictures of Keith and his Great Grandad were sent to me to create a card as a birthday and a keepsake card for Keith. The likeness of the pair is very prominent and Keith is very proud of his heritage.

Here are a couple of kaleidoscopes of Keith and his girlfriend, Karen. I will be creating a keepsake card soon. and will post in my blog when I have done it.

This card was made for a birthday

I enjoy making these cards and the purchaser or receiver is always inthralled by the idea.

Here is another one I made for an 18th Birthday.  All the background papers are made from kaleidoscopes made from sections of the original photo.

This one was for the parents to give and then I made another one from me and also one from my daughter. Here they are:

Just to show, I do make other style of cards……  Take a look in my shop Top It All 

I have been creating a few different boxes for keepsakes lately. Kaleidoscope pictures of personal photos seem to take over a lot of my card and keepsake crafting.

If you send a photo by email to me I will create backing paper and kaleidoscopes to decorate a box for you to give as a gift or put your gift inside. You can purchase them here

This one is for a 21st birthday and created with pink images for the backgrounds and toppers in blue.

The bottom of the box, above

This is the top of the box, above.

Twinkling H20 pigment paints have been used to enhance the box.

Exploding boxes are very popular in the crafting world just now. There are lots of different variations that can be adapted to the particular occasion.

This is one I made for a customer for a wedding present. The gift was a cheque which is always welcome, but it is much nicer to have something that you can keep and can be useful as well! By putting the cheque in an exploding box with personalised pictures, the couple have a keepsake of their wedding; the box can be used to keep memories from the day, such as confetti, table confetti, small embellishments from the cake etc.; and also is a talking point as a reminder of the day when kept on the mantle piece. The initial surprise of the the personalised kaleidoscopes is a joy to see on the recipients faces, too! This particular one had 3 lids to enable stuff to be stored easier but it has a nice exploding effect if only one lid is used. No two boxes are the same….

You can buy your own unique box in my shop here

They a made around the photographs, so  no 2 are going to be the same.

I have been so busy making personalised cards and gifts for people that I have not had time to update my blog for a while.  It all started back in June when I made this birthday card for my daughter:

I put this card on my website here  and then in July I had a call from someone who asked if I could make one similar to this but using pictures of her daughter. Well, what a brilliant idea, I thought! Why did I not think of it? Well I made a couple of cards for her from the photos that had been emailed to me and from then it has snowballed…….

Pictures of the Kaleidoscope cards were put on my website and then I have been unindated with orders ever since, some from people who saw the actual items and some from the website.  I made the gold one as requested first and then I thought I would make a coloured one to match the photo sent to me.

I made matching background papers to compliment the designs and just had a brilliant time creating everything. I then thought of making an exploding box using the pictures. This was the result and I ended up with more orders for this style of item:

I put this box in my shop here and orders came flooding in. I will add a few samples of my work over the next few days. I am open for orders for any of the items, take time to look through my site for similar items, it will keep you busy for a while, especially if you follow the links to the complete folders of all the pictures!

Guess what I found in my laptop case this morning? Well, the title gave it away, so if you did not get the correct answer, shame on you! This pesky little bat crawled out when I opened it.

 I took the case outside to take a photo and to let him go.

Then when I got home, the cats had found it and were playing with him. I don’t know if they have damaged him, as he did not fly and he was squeaking a funny noise.

I said I would shout, “Hip, Hip, Hooray!” if I found my camera, well, guess what?  Yep, I found it! It was in a bag I hadn’t used for a while, and I found it while looking for something else.  Now I can take photos of daily events and my crafting again.

Whatever happened to July?  It seems to have come and gone and I never noticed! Had so many problems with Stephen’s vpn and accounts package that I have not had two minutes to spend on my own blogs and websites.  I am following  Ed Dales 30 day Challenge this year and although not up to date, I am diligently going through it and will definitely finish the 30 days although I know it will take me longer.

My craft room often resembles a crash site, but at least I have a dedicated space that I can work in. I still keep buying things with which to make some lovely projects and I cannot wait until the time when I will be spending the majority of my time crafting. I make a lot of commissions and am currently working on Christmas themed cards at the moment. Lost my camera, which is very infuriating as I used it daily, to take photos of my family and also for my craft business. Everything is upside down at the moment so when I tidy up, no doubt I will come across it, then I will shout “Hip, Hooray!” I will then take a new photo of my craft room. This one was taken in February and I am forever changing things round and buying new stuff.

My craft desk.

It was Abbey’s 7th birthday on 16th June, but due to Fathers Day being last weekend we held her party on Sunday 22nd June. I was comissioned to make High School Musical cards for the family for her as that is her current favourite, and I have excess papers and toppers created so have been making extra ones to put in my shop. You can view some of the cards here. I have been experimenting with making my own kaleidoscopes and backing papers to match the topper and I am pleased with the outcome. I will be making more from now-on and then I will give some away as freebies in my shop newsletter.