Well it's almost here!

I used to love Christmas time. As soon as the lights started going on in the shops in October (!) I would start planning my wrapping paper colours for that year and making a list of gifts to buy. Lately I feel like Christmas creeps up on me and suddenly it's here and I'm not prepared at all. I wonder if it because I am so much more busy running Funky Hand than when I worked full time as an office Manager or as I am getting older I am becoming an old grouch?! I hope it's the first reason as we already have one Christmas Scrouge living in this house, Ian really isn't a Christmas lover! Hence the pleasant Christmas wishes on this post, I am trying to get into the spirit before it's too late!!

I have lots of things flying round in my head at the moment some I can't tell you about just yet..but keep an eye out here and I'll spill the beans soon. Others are all signed and sealed. I will be presenting a live show on Ideal World Shopping Channel on 27th January at 11am where I will be premiering my latest craft CD Rom Funky Daze. I'm really looking forward to sharing the fabby cards that my Design Team have been creating and showing everyone just how easy it is to create your own word books using the CD. Of course I haven't started on the demonstrations just yet..you know me I have to leave everything to the last moment to create the maximum stress levels possible!!

I am looking forward to a few days off over Christmas but I imagine it will be just a few as Ian seems to have a very large list of 'Things to be done over Christmas' whilst he is on holiday from his full time job. Though some of them are rather exciting.. all will be revealed in time but I am pretty excited about 2009 already!!

If I don't get back here again before Christmas have a wonderful time with your families and I hope Father Christmas brings you all the lovely crafty stash you have asked for!!

Anice xx

Christmas is coming.. far too quickly!

I can't believe that it's only nine days till Christmas day! I am terribly disorganised this year... and I really can't tell you why! All the presents are bought but I still haven't finished making my cards. I have to admit here..we are going to buy some cards tonight as I just don't have time to make all of them. I am so ashamed!

I have made some though so I will prove it to you by showing them to you!





I used papers from my two Christmas download collections, Funky Little Christmas and Funky Christmas Time. It was the least I could do really!!
Though I say I'm not sure why I am so behind with my Christmas prep I do have one reason..unfortunately I was ill again last week and had another rather nasty seizure. I'm in touch with my Neuro who is looking into making changes to my Epilepsy medication..woohoo what fun!

On the positive side of things my Funky Hand Design Team have had some reasons to celebrate. First up on Sunday it was Jozzas birthday. I know she had a wonderful day spent with her family, which was fully deserved as she is such a special lady.

The second exciting thing that has happened is that Kath won Card Maker of the Year for Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine. I am so thrilled for her and bursting with pride. She has won a enormous collection of crafty stash (unfortunately she has won some Funky Hand CDs as I was one of the sponsors of the competition, I told her to do what she likes with them as she already has the whole collection!) which she is offering some of as fabby blog candy gifts so get yourself over to her blog and check out whats available! Not only does she win lots of lovely stash but she also gets to join the design team for the magazine so expect to see some wonderful creations from our Kath in print!

Right I can't hang around here as I still have more Christmas stuff to try to organise and there are still orders to process to. Hopefully I'll be back before Christmas but just incase I'm not my best wishes to you all.
Anice xx

December is here already!

It's been a busy week again this week, I feel like that's how I always start my blog posts lately.. note to self, think of something new to say next time!

On Monday I was at the Ideal World/Create and Craft studios recording shows for four of my CD-Roms, It's Funky Too, Funky Seasons, V Funky and Now that's Funky. It was a long but enjoyable day, that was mainly down to the lovely presenters that I had to work with. Nigel and Stephanie were great and made a pretty stressful situation fun. I'm not sure when the shows will be put into the TV schedule, sometime in the new year I imagine. When I know, I'll let you know.

My new CD Funky Daze is proving to be pretty popular with my crafty customers, I know this because of all the wonderful emails I have been receiving from you all. Thank you so much for your positive comments I appreciate every one of them. If you have purchased Funky Daze or any of my other CD roms or download collections I would love to see pictures of your creations. Email them to me on support@funkyhand.com and I'll share them here with everyone else!

You know it was my 40th birthday last week..well thankfully I'm not the only one making that momentous age move..Ians brother Steve is also joining me in a few days time. As he lives in the US I had to get his card made and in the post as soon as possible so that was my job on Tuesday.



I have to admit I haven't created anything using my CD rom It's Funky Too for ages so after working with it on Monday at Ideal World I was inspired to get printing from it for Steves card. I used the Khaki colour collection which I thought would work better for a mans card. The ribbon is from my stash and the 'Today' sentiment are All mixed up Doodlebug rub ons in Beetle Black. I hope he likes it!

I have to admit something..I haven't even started to work on my Christmas cards yet! So that is the next job to be moved to the top of the list of things to do. How bad would it be for me to buy my Christmas cards this year? I don't think my friends and family would forgive me so I'd best get on with it.

Oh, last thing before I let you go..one of my lovely Design Team members, Ruth, is celebrating 5000 hits on her blog with some very tasty crafty blog candy. Get yourselves over there and get involved to have a chance of a nice surprise coming through the post. Find her blog here TipTop Toppers Things Blog.

Right that's it for today, speak again soon.

Anice xx

Busy, Busy, Busy!

What a busy week I have had! With my birthday party last weekend, launching my new craft CD Funky Daze on Monday, my 40th Birthday Tuesday and then trying to pull everything together for the four recorded shows I am filming with Create and Craft on Monday coming, my poor head is in a spin!

The launch of Funky Daze has been fantastic! Thank you very much to everyone who has visited the website, sent messages and of course purchased the new CD. I am so honored that you lovely crafters have taken the time to give me your feedback and spent your hard earned crafting cash with us. I appreciate everyone of you. Thank you.

One of the most popular things on this new release has turned out to be the Word Books that you can print yourself. I thought I would share my first one with you which I made as a joke after I had initially designed the pages to see if they would actually work!

When I was a little girl, with a name like 'Anice' I could never have anything with my name on it. You remember when you had one of those ceramic tiles that went on your bedroom door with 'You name's Bedroom' and a picture of a car or a flower on it. Maybe if you are a youngster you wont remember this is the mid to late 70's I'm talking about..anyway. My brother Gary had his on his door but I always had to have GIRLS bedroom, because you couldn't get Anice of course and there was no such thing as getting them hand made specially! This obviously was a big deal to me..as I am still talking about it now 30 years later!!



(reads 'Once upon a time a long time ago....)



(..there was a girl born who was given an unusual name.No one could ever remember what it was and no one could ever spell it. The worst of all the girl could never get anything special, like a mug, with her name on it. She always had to have GIRL instead. It wasn't until many years later that she found a way to change this forever...)




(Learn 2 craft and make it Yourself!)

There I've got it off my chest!!!
Speak to you all again soon.
Anice xx

Hurrah ! two reasons for me to celebrate.

Hello everyone!

I'm in rather a good mood today for two reasons. The first one is..it's my birthday! Though I probably shouldn't feel that happy as I am turning 40 years old. I've received loads of fabby cards and presents and I'll pop back over the next couple of days and share the lovely cards that I have received and thank everyone properly.

The second reason for my good mood today is that I have finally launched my brand new shiny craft CD Rom Funky Daze. I thought I would share a few of the wonderful cards that my Design Team members have been frantically making for me ready for launch..this is just a small sample of the wonderful work they have produced. Pop over to my website www.funkyhand.com and take a look at the gallery for Funky Daze to see everything they have been creating.

















How lucky am I having such talented Design Team members?

Now I'm off to have a fun day to celebrate my 'life beginning' as I keep being told by well meaning friends !

Speak again soon
Anice xx

Oh dear my birthday party..

It's not my birthday until Tuesday so last night when I had all my friends around to my house I was just celebrating that I am still 39! Yes I am not particularly happy that I will be 40 on the 25th but there's nothing to be done about it so I decided to have a few friends round to eat, drink and be merry. Now I did over do the 'merry' part I think as I have had rather a headache all day but it was lovely to have all my friends with me to celebrate. The only problem I discovered this morning is that I don't actually have any photographs of my friends at my party! I'm going to share a couple of photos I do have but it looks like I was all alone..I promise I wasn't!! Hopefully other people will let me have copies of their pictures which may actually look like there was a party going on!!

Here's me before everyone arrived and before I had a drink!



and the dreadful moment when I had to have a room full of people sing happy birthday and blow out my candles..



It was a really fun night and it's times like that, that remind me what wonderful friends I have. Even if I can't show them too you!!

Things have been the usual busy around here..I do have a new CD to launch but there was a little hiccup with the manufacturers earlier in the week, which I wont bore you with! I am crossing my fingers that I will be back here on Tuesday telling you all about Funky Daze and that it will be available. I can't wait to share the wonderful creations that the Funky Hand Design Team have made with the new collections..they are totally inspirational as ever.

Even though it's my birthday I will be pretty busy this week as I have alot of card making demos to pull together ready for my visit to the Create and Craft studios on December 1st. I will be spending a day there recording four half hour shows, one each for my craft CDs It's Funky Too, Funky Seasons, V Funky and Now that's Funky. I'm really looking forward to doing them and I imagine they will be added to the Create and Craft schedules in the new year. I'll let you know more details when I have them.

Oh finally before I leave you this post I must send my best wishes to Enfys from my DT..it's her birthday today. I hope you have had a lovely day En.

Well I hope you have enjoyed your weekend as much as I have enjoyed mine..speak again soon.

Anice xx

Scrapping Exhibition memories

Here I am again saying sorry for the length of time between my posts. Sorry (head down in shame..again!) It's a bit busy here at Funky Hand Towers as we get ready for the launch of the new CD Funky Daze, preparing for TV shows and exhibitions. I now have a delivery date for the CD so..we are racing to get everything ready for the launch on the website. As soon as I have a confirmed launch date I will share it with you here.

Hopefully Funky Daze will be something you will want to add to your crafty Christmas list.

Even though it's pretty busy here I still have to find time to do a bit of crafting dont' I?..or what's life worth eh??! So here is an 8"x8" scrap page I created from scrapbook papers included on the new CD.



It's quite a simple page but I wanted to scrap my memories from the trade exhibition that I did early in the year. It's a picture of me waiting nervously on the stand just before the show opened on the first day. The 'Exhibitor' sign is from inside the badge I am wearing in the picture and the ribbon with the exhibition name on was cut from the ribbon on the badge that is holding it around my neck. The title lettering is also from the CD and the small lettering is Doodlebug All Mixed Up rub-ons.

Right.. can't hang around I have orders to process and more demonstrations to try to design. Talk again real soon.

Anice xx

My crafty customers and an update on my C and C TV shows..

One of the many great things about running Funky Hand are the wonderful crafty people that I get to meet be it face to face or virtually on forums and blog hopping. I'm lucky enough to have some really fantastic customers who, I am honored to say, seem to like my designs. Every now and again they will send me images of cards or projects that they have created using Funky Hand papers and I am always really excited to see what other crafters are inspired to create. Sally very kindly sent me some images of cards that she had created using papers from my craft CDs Now that's Funky and V Funky and I thought I would share them with you as they are great designs.. Thanks for sharing them with me Sally.





On the Funky Hand front everything here is ticking along as usual. The new CD is in production as we speak so I should have delivery timings any day now. I have a new download collection waiting in the wings to be released later in the month so all my designing is up to date..for a nice change!

I know I told you that I recorded some pre recorded shows for three of my CDs for Create and Craft in May and they were on your screens for a few days in August before they disappeared. I've had a few people asking me about that and where they went? The situation is that the recorded shows that I did had some additional items included on them, paper packs I think, for sale that unfortunately were no longer available to Create and Craft to sell..so the shows had to be taken out of their schedules. I will be returning to the Ideal World studios at the beginning of December to re-record the shows again which should be on your TV screens in the new year,hopefully. I'm working on some new demonstrations for these shows and my wonderful Design Team have worked their usual magic and made some fab cards and other projects so hopefully these new shows will be worth taking a look at.

Speak to you again soon.
Anice xx

We're back in business!!

I must offer apologies to all the readers of this blog who have been missing out on the right hand bar with my lovely picture in and all the other interesting links to my DT blogs and favorite sites for a while. That's if you have been viewing it in Internet explorer.

I have to put my hands up and admit that it was because I embedded details about Twitter into a post a little while ago and I didn't do it properly..sorry. I didn't notice the problem before now because I don't use IE when surfing the internet.

Can I say a great big thank you to my fab customer and reader Trisha Platon for bringing the problem to my attention and to my wonderful techie guy (or code monkey as he likes to be called!) Ian who has spent the last few hours trying to find what I had done and mend it.

There Ian is that enough recognition for your efforts?

I'll be back with some crafty stuff in a few days, enjoy your Bonfire Night!
Anice xx

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

It's my Dads birthday today so I thought I would share the card I made for him now that he should have received it in the post.. crossed fingers!!



My Dad isn't really that interested in crafting..but he doesn't have much choice when I run a business in the crafting industry and my Mom is a crafting/card making Queen!! He always says the right words when he receives a card so we let him off!! This card has been made using papers from my soon to be released all NEW craft CD Funky Daze I can't wait to be able to share the wonderful creations that my Design Team are already creating with it. I'll keep you posted on the release date.

November is a pretty busy month on the birthday front here at Funky Hand, apart from my Dads birthday today there's also three birthday girls in my Design Team as well. Kath, Enfys and Allison are all celebrating this month so don't forget to pop over to their blogs (you'll find them in the side bar under my Design Team list) and wish them good wishes. Oh Kath is celebrating a special birthday this year as well, of course I'm not going to tell you a ladies age, but it deserves a message on the 7th on her blog!

Actually Kath isn't the only one with a 'special' birthday this month..I have one as well. Yes, it can't be over looked anymore on the 25th November I will be turning 40 years old. My goodness, when did that happen? I mean I'm sure I only turned 30 a couple of years ago..obviously it was a bit longer ago than that!! So I haven't fully decided how I am going to celebrate here but pop back closer to the time and I'll let you know..maybe a little sale might be in order..who knows!!

Anice xx