Time to revive this blog, I think.

I had moved my personal blog to www.alisonwren.co.uk (don't bother going over there - it hasn't been updated recently, either).

Then I got busy with my business blogs and personal blogging fell by the wayside (I'm really good with my online marketing blog:  www.paprikamarketing.co.uk/blog honest).

But this week, I started a new personal blog based around gardening, Hostas and Herbs also using Blogger. And suddenly people started coming over to this blog too.

So I will start being good and add the occasional update.

Enjoying the IPL

Getting warmed up for the English county cricket season by keeping an eye on the IPL - great to have it available on ITV and YouTube.

Love watching the best players without the strain of desperately wanting a particular team to win.

Pure Bollywood, but great fun.

I won a website

Back in the summer, I registered for a competition to win a website. Was absolutely amazed when I won. (Thank you to everyone at Tiger Commerce)

Originally I had intended it to be for Celebration Print, but the package I won didn't handle personalisation. Apart from that it's a great ecommerce package and really easy to use. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone starting out with on-line selling.

So Cool 'n' Crafty was born!

It's a shop selling crafty gifts. We have aimed it at the "other halves" of keen crafters who wouldn't know their peel-offs from their punches but want to purchase something that their crafty loved ones will appreciate.

We are mostly using existing Wedding Crafter suppliers and we have all been falling in love with the gorgeous papers and ribbons.

With 3 brands to run I have been sadly neglecting Wedding Business Success but hope to put that right shortly. But not before I have 2 days off next week - can't wait!

Celebration Print

It's taken a while, but I have finally launched the first of 2 new ventures to complement The Wedding Crafter.

Celebration Print (www.celebrationprint.co.uk) makes use of the expertise we have developed in hot foil and ribbon printing providing personalised ribbons, banners and sashes for all occasions.

It's something I've been planning for ages, but needed to get The Wedding Crafter website update completed before I went ahead.

Actually getting the celebration print site up and running has been fairly straightforward, thanks to the amazingly talented Joanne at Poppy Design who did the logo and colour scheme and the guys at Perception System in India who implemented it into the cs-cart system. I was a bit nervous about outsourcing to India, but it worked really well.

As usual the hard bit has been product photos and all the back-end work - google, payments and so on.

Still loads to do but it's great to have got it off the ground.

New Friends

Last weekend saw a trip to Scotland to visit the folks - and I made a couple of new friends. I'm not usually a dog lover - much prefer cats - but Edward and Meg were great fun. I

I'm not 100% sure Mum's rottweiler, Rosie, was quite so pleased with her temporary house guests, but she was stoic as usual.

Amazingly the weather was good enough on Sunday to eat lunch outside - it didn't start raining until I crossed the border back into England.

The Trade Show

February sees the UK's biggest trade fair for the craft industry with Craft, Hobby & Stitch at the NEC, so we spent last Sunday at the show, checking out all the latest products.

Its the 4th year we have attended so we are getting pretty good at whizzing round, finding the suppliers we want to visit and keeping an eye out for interesting new stuff. My main problem is getting distracted by the gorgeous things which are irrelevant to The Wedding Crafter, but would make a great addition to my crafting stash (which is WAY too big as it is). This year the rubber stamps from Paper Artsy caught my eye and some new scrapbooking stuff from HOTP.

I did also find some really good ideas for the business (which I'm keeping to myself at the moment!) and I would really recommend going if you have a crafty business (its strictly trade only).

This weekend I'm going to the National Wedding Show to check out the latest bridal trends (and the competition) - I think I will need to book a pedicure for early March!

I've discovered polymer clay

I always though of polymer clay as something used to make those cute figures you put on top of wedding cakes (which it is).

But having bought some to have a play around with, I looked around the internet for ideas and I've found some wonderful artists who are doing amazing jewellery and other projects.

I have been experimenting with Mokume Gane using the techniques from Carol Blackburn's excellent book "How to make polymer clay beads". Lacking the patience for detailed beadwork and jewellery making, I have been using some of the results on cards. Its ages since I made any but it looks like this year I won't need to rush out to buy birthday cards at the last minute!


This card uses small discs of clay mounted over ric-rac braid on textured card (from my scrapbooking stash!)












This is a closeup of a square clay slice made from golds and browns mixed with turquoise.