Keep it in a Frame's story so far
Keep it in a Frame is a small family business run mainly by myself, Tina Allen. I have been making things for most of my life in one form or another, from sewing, cross stitch and cardmaking, to paper crafting and picture framing. I also love decorating our home and upcycling furniture and accessories.
My main strengths at school were English and languages:
I have A levels in English, French and German, and a GCSE in Russian Studies. Not long after leaving school, I was working in the export department of a local perfume manufacturer. This was followed by a couple of customer service roles with two different packaging companies.
All three roles taught me about the importance of great customer service, which I still hold very important today, and also during two of these roles, I attended evening classes to undertake a HNC in Business Administration.
I left my last full-time paid employed role in 2000 to start a family.
I always thought at some point I would end up working for myself, and in 2005 I gained an NVQ level 3 in Business Start-up by attending a course specifically aimed at women with a business idea that could be developed online. My aim was to start a picture framing business, hence the name “Keep it in a frame” (My husband chose the name and it conveniently has my own name, Tina, right in the middle of it).
I started to make small scrapbooks using up leftover mountboard from framing orders, mainly selling at local craft fairs, and when I ventured online in 2008, the scrapbooks took over and I haven’t looked back. In 2019, I started going back out to fairs, and selling in local gift shops, and have developed a range of photo mounts, peg frames, and small paper crafted gift items.
All of the creative work happens in our garage and my home craft studio. I love to work with my customers to create thoughtful and bespoke gifts, adding personal touches to make items unique.
I pride myself on my customer service (this is where the 11 years of customer service roles comes in useful! ) and will always do my best fulfil customer design and personalisation requests.
If you managed to reach the end of my story, thank you for your interest. If you’d like to work with me, please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you.