Second Illustration for RNIB's Insight Magazine

I have now completed my second illustration for RNIB's Insight Magazine! The next issue will be focused on accessible technology and digital communication, especially in the form of computers, smartphones, tablets, apps and functionality.

I decided to depict my iPad and my favourite apps and features. These include accessibility functions such as zoom and voiceover, iBooks - which is fantastic with its accessibility and customisation of the text size, background colour, font type, inverted options and is even handy as an audiobook if you have voiceover selected from the general settings in your iPad, the internet, games, Facebook and Twitter. All of these apps have a very clean, easy-to-use layout and each one is important to me for its specific use. I will also have a small paragraph explaining my favourite apps and features, with my headshot, along with other members of Envision.

This next issue of Insight magazine will be available in February 2014. For more information about the magazine and how you can subscribe, please click here. 

Happy New Year!

I'd like to wish my readers a very Happy New Year, and all the best for 2014! Here are some of my New Year's tweets so far:

@Glittered Same to you!
— Insight Radio (@insightradio) December 25, 2013

@Glittered Thank you! Hope you had a lovely Christmas.
— RNIB (@RNIB) December 30, 2013

@Glittered Happy New Year Kimberley. Great to meet you and best wishes with the campaigning.
— Barbara Keeley (@KeeleyMP) December 31, 2013

Christmas has been absolutely wonderful, but now it's back to reality! I have a hospital appointment today to have my ears suctioned at Trafford General Hospital, and then I need to make a start on my next illustration for the RNIB's Insight magazine. It will be based on accessible technology such as iPads and iPhones, and favourite features and apps.

I'll also be doing a mystery shopper experiment in the Trafford Centre for my campaigning network, visiting the various coffee shops and seeing which places have accessible menus and, if not, the support they offer instead. We'll eventually be working towards a nationwide campaign to get accessible menus (braille, large print) into the main coffee shops and have the staff aware of how to support a blind or visually impaired customer as well.

Very busy times ahead!

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas,
and a wonderful New Year!

2013 has been a great year for me and I have a lot to be thankful for. Opportunities have come my way thanks to Henshaws and the RNIB, two organisations and charities that are very close to my heart. I've met so many wonderful people and taken part in some truly amazing things this year thanks to them!

Here's to an even better 2014!

Tesco Collections for Henshaws

Myself and Glen at Tesco Stretford collecting

for Henshaws Society for Blind People

I volunteered to help with collections at Tesco in Stretford yesterday, which is very close to where Henshaws is situated in Trafford. I wanted to volunteer my services primarily to show my support and appreciation for everything that the charity has done for me since I started going to the centre in late August. It has changed my life drastically, and has given me a social life for the first time in 8 years - as well as providing me with support with daily living skills, mobility and Braille.

I had a lot of fun with the team from Fundraising and Marketing, and wishing Tesco shoppers a very Merry Christmas as they kindly donated to our buckets. We raised £246.05 altogether!

We also received a tweet from the official Tesco twitter account, wishing us the best of luck with our collections!

— Tesco (@Tesco) December 18, 2013

I had a wonderful time and am very eager to volunteer again in the New Year, and help in any way that I can to support a charity that is very close to my heart. A big thank you to Tesco for having us, and to everyone that donated!

RNIB's Young Illustrator 2014 Competition for Insight Magazine

I entered the RNIB's Young Illustrator competition earlier this week, after spending most of the month working on my entry, and checked my e-mails just now to find out that I won! I'll be producing an illustration for every issue of Insight magazine in 2014 as the prize, as well as having my article included in next month's issue regarding the English campaigning network we've set up. alongside the RNIB.

The theme was "next steps", so I wanted to make it personal and show my own next steps for the future; completing my braille course, training for a guide dog, more campaign work (hence the image of Parliament) and mobility training with my long cane. I'm so thrilled, and very grateful to everyone at RNIB's Insight magazine for choosing my entry!