Today, I was in town at lunchtime to give Kayleigh money for my phonebill and I met a friend who was looking for a 60th birthday card for his wife, and was unable to find one. I jumped in and told him what my job was so he commissioned me to make one for him and personalise it with his wifes’ name, Angela. I asked him what her preference was in style, and he said it was cute and cuddly teddy bears; so I chose to make one of Popcorn Bear as I have a cd of Popcorn Bear pictures from Crafters Companion. Today was supposed to be my ebay day but as it was still work I set to creating one to take to cell group tonight.  It took 5 hours from planning to printing to creating and finishing. I did break for tea and coffee but skipped a meal to get it completed in time.

I can’t tell you how much I have missed having broadband since I moved into my new apartment. I can now take photos of my projects that I am doing and upload them to here more often and hope to build up a lasting relationship with many of my friends, old and new.

Today I am tidying up my craft room, don’t think I will get it finished, but at least I can make a deep impression on it and I will let you know the progress tomorrow. This is an “in progress” photo and it got worse than this before it got better! Any crafter will know what I mean…

Doesn’t time Fly? Without broadband I find it difficult to make time to update my blogs and website but I am on the case now! I have been checking out what is available in my area and hope to be connected real soon.

I have been scrapbooking a lot and have had a lot of comissioned cards to do. I have just recently got a job with a local service station to sell cards. Ebay will be next and then on to my website….

This is the latest kaleidoscope box that I have made. They are made from photographs that have been kaleidoscoped and so are all individual and make a nice keepsake for the recipient. Have one made for a gift for someone or why not treat yourself to one?

You can visit my website for other styles available here I also create unique cards from kaleidoscopes of your family, pets, friends, or whatever you want. As soon as I connect broadband at my new apartment, I will be uploading more new products. I have a load of photographs that just need sorting and the time to upload them.

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.