Feb 29, 2008

North-East Business Awards result


Hi Everybody, We didn't win the Internet and ICT award last night but we did get a very nice certificate with FINALIST. We were very proud of ourselves as there weren't many girls there and out of 11 awards and 33 shortlisted people there were only 4 women. Only 1 woman won an award, congrats to her. We had a delicious dinner at the Gosforth Park Hotel and we were all feeling slightly jaded today but we kept carrying on. I should be in bed now but I just wanted to write this post first.
It was really exciting when it was our turn. I had to go up on stage with the other entrants and we had a watch a 45 sec film about each business, so pleased the dogs Pops and Lulu were on the film too. We then had a quick speech and the award was given to Northumbria University. I don't think you can compare our businesses and as they turn over 25 million a year, we didn't have a look in. Not to worry congratulations to them.


We have also been shortlisted for another award in the Final of the North-East Business Awards. This does not have regional catergories so we have been short-listed straight into the final. The award is for best Cultural and Creative business in the North-East. We are up against Stage Coach the threatre school and a local art/coffee shop. I think with winning awards it is luck and up to what tickles the judges fancy. If we don't win we will get another certificate to hang on the wall in the office.

Feb 5, 2008

We have just added Video to the site

We have just started to add videos to the site. We are adding small video demos on how to use some of the products. Charlotte has been learning how to add the videos and has had great fun in the process.
It is much harder to add video as opposed to still photography to the site. You need good lighting and the right equiptment. She started off buying Sony handycam video recorder, it took ages to choose the make and model as there is so much mind boggling info about each camera. She then had to add some hardwear to her computer this was an ilink cable port, this was very easy to do and only took a few minutes. The reason she added an ilink port was so that the quality of the video was better than using a USB port. The she bought some good lights which cost about £350 and some software Sony Vegas movie software. All this investigating took about 1 month but eventually she managed to work it all out and has had a great time putting the videos together. We have started off with the product how-to's and then we will be starting the on-line craft course, showing customers how to make projects, these will be free to view, we will email when they are ready.
If you have any questions about how to get video on your site, do post here with any questions and We will be very happy to help.

Create and Craft TV great success

We have made a few appearances on Create and Craft TV this year already. Charlotte went down to Peterbrough to do two live shows. One was straight after Christmas on the 3rd Jan and the other was last Friday 1st Feb. She was so pleased at the reponse to the new CD 'The Crafty Images Emporium CD'. Sales were great and the feedback has been very positive. We really wanted to give good value for money with this CD. On the Cd is 200 printable sheets of high resolution images. They can be edited so you can print off the images you want rather than having to print off the whole sheet. We feel that other CD's on the market do not give you value for money, they either offer many images of low res and are not much good for printing off or they offer not many images and they are repeated in different sizes. I don't know what anybody else thinks out there.
We have been asked to go on Create and Craft again in March for a pre-record which means we show you how to use the CD again and the show is repeated. I think we will also go on using out papers too.
If you do not have SKY TV you can watch Create and Craft using your PC. You need to go to www.createandcraft.tv and you will be able to watch the TV from the Website. My Mum does not have Sky and this is how she views the programs.

Technology is amazing these days, anything is possible.

Shortlisted for North-East Business Awards

We are all very excited here because we have been short-listed for an award. It is for the IT award for Tyneside and Northumberland, North-East Business Awards. We are up against 2 big players these are Medibroker and Northumbria University. We are all going to an award ceremony on 28th Feb to see if we have won. Even if we don't win we are very excited to be short listed out on many entries. Please wish us luck we will be keeping are fingers crossed.