I won something..hehehe! So,lets have a chat!

Can you tell I'm a bit excited? and maybe a bit sad as well really I think!  I received an email from my CD manufacturers before Easter saying they were having a competition on their website so, of course I couldn't resist having a go.  I have to say it was a really great competition and the way they ran it was brill..infact I've already told them that I'm going to 'borrow' it in the future for my website and lovely customers..so that's something to look out for in the future!!

Anyway I won a runners up prize, which was a lovely Thorntons Chocolate egg. Here it is..

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break, and if you have children you are probably still enjoying their company.  If you took advantage of the Funky Hand Easter Sale then, thank you and I hope you got everything that you wanted.  It went really well and we are trying to work through all of your orders and get them out to you as soon as possible.  Poor Gary my Dispatch Manager is running around like a headless chicken supervising all the packages and making sure everyone gets the right things!!

I don't often spend much time just chatting to you on this blog it's usually just the latest picture of a card I've made and I'm gone, back to work.  I was drinking a cup of coffee yesterday and I started looking back right to when I first started writing this blog in 2006.  No one was reading it of course, but I saw that I talked alot more..so, just for today I thought I would stop just for a little while and have a chat with you.  If you've had enough already please feel free to move on now...

Right, if you have hung on then I want to give you a little update on everything that is going on here in The Garden Studio and with me.

Well I'm working away on the next Funky Hand CD ROM which (fingers very tightly crossed) should be released late in May.  I don't know why, but people expect me to release CDs all the time like some of my competitor craft CD companies do but, I don't get other designers to create my backing  papers and other stuff on the CDs, it's just little old me sitting here working into the night designing them myself.  I have to admit sometimes I wish I did have other people doing them for me..but then it wouldn't be a Funky Hand CD it would just be someone elses work with our company name on it and that's not how I want it.  So, I'm afraid you have to wait for my CDs :(  When I'm designing the backing papers I design loads more than go onto the CDs..I'll design something, take an age over it, and then sit back and say to myself  'Would I use this if I was making a card or crafting in any other way?' if the answer is No..then the delete button is pushed and a few hours work can be gone but..if I wouldn't use it, why should you??  Anyway as I say the CD is chugging along and I'll keep you updated on that. With all of that said, I mean completely no disrespect to any other craft CD manufacturers, everyone has the right to run their business how they see fit and I wish only good fortune to them all. Thank goodness we are not all the same..how boring would that be?

You may have noticed that I have been trying to release more craft download collections this year.  So far there has been at least one new release each month..I've yet to get one done for April yet..but that is also on my list.  One of the reasons Ive been doing that is because we are really getting lot more customers from around the world wanting to try out Funky Hand products and downloads are a quick, easy and cheap way to see if they are interested.  Thankfully we are also finding they do like what we are doing and come back for more! So, I though I'd better up my game and give everyone more choice and new things to download more often.  If you have never tried downloading craft stuff before you could always try our Funky Freebie to see if it's to your taste. Funky Freebie? Well that's a single backing paper that is available on my website www.funkyhand.com for you to download for free.  It's linked with our Design Team challenge blog Get Funky and it gets changed every month so if you don't grab it between the 15th of one month and the 14th of the next you'll miss it!  Take a look.

OK, that's work covered I think, so how are things in my life?  Well pretty good, I don't talk much about my MS and Epilepsy as well..., it's pretty boring to anyone who is reading a craft blog and no one wants to get dragged into any moaning now do they?  I know I don't!!  My health is always in the front of my mind and I'm messing with different drugs for this and that and trying to work around everything all the time but, I always remember that if I hadn't been ill six years ago (wow is it that long ago now?!) I wouldn't even be here talking with you, Funky Hand wouldn't exist and I would still be there, stressed and bored trying to climb the corporate management ladder just like I was back then.  So, it always really depends how you look at your life.  I know there are alot of you out there that have health problems and I urge you to just concentrate on the positive things in your life and not on the 'what I could have been doing'  That old life is gone..but you have a wonderful new life now and there are always great things to find in it no matter how dark it might feel at times.

Right, I think I have wittered onto you for long enough now, and you have other blogs to go and read or even something more important to do..I can hear my year end accounts shouting me from the filing cabinet! So off with you all now..and I'll be back very soon.

Much love to you all
Anice xx