About Me

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I'm a retired primary school teacher, who started paper crafting in 2008, when I had a fancy to make my own Christmas cards. Since then, I have tried all sorts of techniques and styles - and I kind of like them all. I have been lucky enough to be on blog teams and large design teams and to do a bit of freelance demonstrating - and I love the challenge of working with different products. My crafting style is very varied - from junk journaling and art journaling, bookbinding and journal making, to quilting and patchwork - and of course I still make cards. This variety keeps me interested - and my crafty stash growing!! I'm always seeking inspiration for new projects.

Wednesday 28 April 2010

And now it begins.....

Despite a most unsatisfactory e-mail dialogue with the website help desk, I have now managed to activate my website.

Having e-mailed them that I had "misplaced" my activation code, they replied that they did not understand what I meant by "mis-spelling" my activation code. The temptation was there to tell him that he had "mis-read" my e-mail, but I refrained, and explained that I was unable to find the piece of paper with the code on it. Am still waiting on a reply from that.

It did however prompt a frenzy of turning my desk inside out to try to find the blessed thing. And, hey presto, there it was - between the drawer unit and the other half's desk!!!

So I now own the domain name www.papercraftbycarole.co.uk (Don't bother going there yet as there's nothing there).

I was all enthusiastic at this point and raring to go. That was nearly two hours ago. I've now given up, and all I've managed is to get a header sorted out. This could be a long process!!

Still, the sun's been shining and I've had a good week so far, otherwise, so I'll come back to it all when I have time to play.

Cxxx

Friday 23 April 2010

Oops!!

Just a quick one!! Finally decided to start the process of the setting up the website, but can't find the piece of paper that came with the little blue book. Quite a problem, cause it has the password on it that's needed to activate the account. So, will let you know when I finally resolve this one.

In the meantime, went on a great workshop last weekend with Sheena Douglass - a lovely lady who demonstrates on Create and Craft TV. She's totally inspirational - only problem was I then spent a fortune on buying all the things we'd used during the day. Oh well!!

Cxx

Tuesday 13 April 2010

A Different Journey!!

No, I haven't changed my mind about the website - far from it. Hopefully in the next few days I'll start to get to grips with the little blue book that tells me everything I need to know, and get started.

No, I haven't done anything in the last couple of days because I took a different kind of journey - in an ambulance!!

Started on Sunday morning - beautiful day, heading for a day out with the family, when I suddenly had horrendous pains in my chest and left shoulder. Having stopped in the first convenient place (a pub car park), I proceeded to fall out of the car and spent a considerable time writhing in agony on the tarmac!!

My other half called an ambulance, and the wonderful paramedics having got me inside their vehicle, still in a lot of pain, they in turn called the air ambulance. What a kafuffle!! In the end I missed out on my helicopter ride. They were struggling to arrange for a ambulance to pick me up from the landing site the other end, and because my pain had been brought under control with a big shot of morphine, they decided to take me by road.

So, blues and two's it was - all the way to the hospital. On route my heart rate jumped all over the place from 60 up to 184 - and the paramedic was trying to get me to breathe slowly to keep it under control. At the same time I was trying very hard not to throw up.

Thanks to the crews of both the land and air ambulances for their care and consideration in looking after me.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was seen fairly quickly in A&E, followed by a further 5 hour wait in an observation ward before I saw another doctor (not great for my other half, but time was eased for me by further drugs - one of which gave me a combination of hysterical laughing and the inablility to remember what I'd just been talking about), then a further 3 hours before I was taken to a ward. After an overnight stay and a whole plethora of drugs and blood tests, the conclusion was that there was nothing wrong with my heart (thankfully), but was given no firm reason for the cause - one doctor said it could have been my gullet (ie indigestion!!) - another said it was a pulled muscle!! So who knows?

They couldn't get me out quick enough on Monday. The unit had been closed overnight - not long after I'd arrived - as one of the patients was throwing up etc. Made for a very difficult night of sleep. Hopefully I haven't come home with that little bug!!

So, with any luck my life will be less eventful, and my next post will be about my website adventures only.

Cxx

Saturday 10 April 2010

The Beginning

The purpose of this blog is to help me make sense of all the mysteries and vagaries of setting up a website. I always find writing things down helps me to think.

I currently make greetings cards as a bit of a side line - most unprofitable as I can never quite resist all the latest bits and bobs that come out. I have an almighty stash - both of stuff and cards I have made.

My lovely friends think I'm quite good at it - they're my best customers - and I have been encouraged to try to sell to a wider audience. As I work full time - and some quite odd hours, getting out and about to the craft fairs etc is not really feasible, and so I have embarked on this (ad)venture to try selling my wares on the Internet.

I have to say that I have been prevaricating over this for quite some time. It's quite something to put your creations out there - if people don't like them it feels like a personal rejection. But, now I have decided to take the plunge, I have found myself pondering on something much more complex. What do I call the website?

Having already got a logo (the one at the top of the page) that I use on my "Handmade" stickers, I wanted something either to link with it - or that wouldn't fight with it. I've been through all the obvious names, but pretty much anything with "craft" in it is already taken. I even tried some really left field ideas - "quercus" means oak (like my leaves) but variations of that have been done.

Another of my interests is researching my family tree, and I have one distant relative whose name was Aquila. Looking it up on the Internet it linked to the Bible and a lovely quote "bloom where you are planted". Great, I thought. Surely no-one would be using aquila as a website name. No such luck - 8 different websites on the first google page!! So I have decided to be completely unoriginal and stick to what I started with on my original "Handmade" stickers - Papercraft By Carole. Hopefully, it'll "do what it says on the tin"!.

Having made that momentous decisions (which also has also allowed me to finally set up my blog), I'm going to go outside and enjoy this lovely sunshine in the garden. Hopefully everything I put in will "bloom where it was planted"..

Cx