Cards by Gilly Diary

Well! Christmas has come and nearly gone. We hope you all had a very happy Christmas.

We have all been very busy preparing the Cards by Gilly Handmade Card Store and Cards by Gilly Handmade Cards Unique Store for 2007. We have some exciting ideas in the pipeline. Watch this space!

We would like to wish one and all a very happy and prosperous New Year. Keep in touch!

I occasionally make a card that I then don’t make again. I may not make it again for a number of reasons, but usually because the card materials turn out to be a bit too complex to use, are not available in reasonable quantities, or are too expensive. These cards are made to my usual high standards of quality though.

These special cards are my “One-of-a-kind” cards as they really are unique and special.

I have now lauched my new site called the “Unique” store for making these cards available for sale on my web site.

During the next few days I will be setting up the process for customers to buy these unique cards.

Visit my new Unique Store: Cards by Gilly “Online Unique Handmade Card Store”

Please check back here for details.

Visit my Olnine Store: Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store”

Just got round to finishing a few flat versions of 3d Christmas Cards for the Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store” .

At the moment it seems to take a bit longer to produce a flat versions rather than the normal 3d version. I need to practice!

I have also designed a new Christmas card for the Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store” . I know I am late getting these up on the internet for this Christmas but it is good experience and I am look forward to a happy New Year in 2007.

I am starting to think about Valentines and Easter now.

Visitors to my Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store” will notice that some of the images need rescanning as they were made with a camera when the old scanner didn’t work or was erratic.

The above image is of an all white card. My current stock of cards are high quality but mostly have a 3d effect. Even the new scanner produces a shadowy image which doesn’t do justice to the 3d cards. Rescanning these cards though is easier said than done. In order to get a good scanned image I need to produce a special flat version of each card so that it will scan nicely.

Today we sat down with the Neil our Web Master and sorted through a few links to put on my Diary. We checked out each site and put the links on the diary sidebar. Neil tells me that this helps visitors to the site get what they need and help get cardsbygilly noticed more on the web.

Anyone visiting the Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store” during the next few days will notice that we are changing over the thumbnails images in the Card Store.

When we first set up the Original Online Store we experimented a bit with different image sizes and styles of thumbnails. For the original site 200 x 200 pixel cut outs from each card seemed to work quite well we thought and was quite attractive (example below).

However, now we have implemented the new design for the old style 200 x 200 cut outs didn’t seem to look as good. We have been looking at the styles and sizes again and for the new layout we are now using 100 x 150 pixel thumbnails of the whole card (example below).

We think this looks much clearer. Clicking on the thumbnail will now take visitors to a larger 200 x 300 pixel image of the card together with the description of the card.

Yesterday we sat with Neil at Shortdark to work on some of the technical bits of the site operation and layout. Wow, some of the technical stuff in the code is he does is so cool. There are still a couple of things Neil is going to look at to do with where buttons and links are on the web page, but overall we are all very pleased with how the site looks and works now. We are going to get on with our own creative stuff for the Cards by Gilly “Online Handmade Card Store” now.

I love music!!! I play the piano, guitar and occasionally the bass (not very often!!).
My favourite band are BON JOVI. I think they rock… and seriously kick ass!! They never cease to impress me with the albums they release.. The latest album is Have A Nice Day. I actually went to see them on the tour for this album. I went to the Manchester show (at the City Of Manchester Stadium, UK), which was as always superb… a great concert.

I’m a football fan!! I support Bolton Wanderers, so for me last nights Match Of The Day was a “must see” programme!!!!!!!!!!
It was pretty good to win 4-0, as we haven’t won in 2 matches and back up to fifth in the Premiership table.
Our next match is away at Villa Park (against Aston Villa).

Before setting up the Online Handmade Card Store I was heavily into making cards. These are mostly one off cards. I display and store these cards in a purpose designed display cabinet which I take to craft fairs, shows and markets. Having now set up the Online Handmade Card Store I am now looking into the possibility of making these cards available to buy through the Online Handmade Card Store and Blog. Neil, my friendly Web Master at Shortdark is now advising me on how best to move this idea forward.

As a maxim for setting up links in my blog, Neil tells me that it is better to link to other sites where appropriate, for example link to google than to say google is here. I am learning more about how to include helpful things in my blog and I am sure there will be more things in the future.

I have learned how to link an image (see below) back to my Online Handmade Card Store. As we have only recently started doing things online we are finding the technology really clever!

Click on this link to visit my Online Handmade Card Store