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Text of the page (random words):
numbery themed company i attended a workshop by 6e an indie publishing company called from notebook to published book because clearly book publishing is on my mind this year this was the stationery i picked to take with me a best seller notebook one of those 7 new ones i mentioned earlier and a be yourself pencil i reckoned it was a pretty good combination of attitudes with which to face the unknown with and finally as the format of this final photo might suggest i ve been sharing a lot of everyday nonsense on instagram this month 29 nonsenses in fact i used to think that instagram wasn t going to be the place for me i like imagery but i love words i love twitter but then the more i got into instagram the more i realised that rather than use it to share perfect images i could simply use a quick photo to help me tell tiny tales and now i m hooked doing just that if you feel the same and you want to use ig to document your monthinnumbers then i d love it if you d help me build a numbery themed tiny tale telling community over there for now let s just use that as the hashtag and i ll get to thinking how we can expand so fare thee well january you ve stolen 39 from me and replaced it with a daunting 4 and 0 i know you didn t mean to scare me and you tried your best to distract me by sending in cake and gifts and thoughts of book publishing but fyi while the cake and gifts did the trick the thoughts on book publishing well they re just as scary as the whole being 40 thing or maybe that s how you intended it hello february can you hear me take note from january if you ve got something you need me to face up to can you throw in some cake along with it just to help me along and maybe some burgundy leather boots too because alongside seeing my name on a book cover i ve got an appetite for a pair of those right now too wishing you an equally fair february ahead feel free to reuse my plea to february for your own ends substituting cake and boots with whatever gets you through julie p s responses to this post via comments shares retweets and shoving it under your friend s nose to read because you think they ll like it are all most gratefully accepted posted by julie kirk at 17 57 13 comments labels month in numbers email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest friday 22 january 2016 my own personal advent or how to turn any birthday into a christmas you re going to miss not having a present to open tomorrow aren t you that s what someone asked me on my birthday earlier this month and they weren t wrong i would miss it not because i m spoilt although you ll soon see that i have been and feel entitled to a constant flow of presents or else why bother getting up each day but because rather than simply receiving a gift on my actual birthday this year in the weeks running up to it i d got used to opening a gift each and every day for 40 days a set of 40 days and nights which also coincided with the run up to christmas all of which made for a strange lenten advent style gift giving mash up extravaganza which kind of implies i think i m the baby jesus which for the record i don t and so allow me to redress the giving receiving balance by sharing with you the hows and wherefores of the idea so that you can treat someone else to their own private advent the idea for this pre birthday gifting started a couple of years ago as my sister s 40th birthday grew nearer old faithfuls here might remember the superhero dr who dress up photo booth party she had for it and i wanted to do something nice something special something memorable to mark the occasion and my own private advent was born well the idea wasbirn then the name just came to me about an hour ago as i started writing this post but hey branding takes time once i d had the idea my parents and i had secret talks and between us we bought and wrapped 40 individual gifts then surprised her with them 40 days before her birthday complete with instructions on what to do she then got to spend the next 7 weeks opening a present a day and because my family is soooooo nice last year they secretly plotted planned and wrapped and did exactly the same for me and here s how you can do the same not for me that would be excessive and slightly worrying although i m sure you mean well no what i mean is here s how you can treat someone to their own personal advent what s the big idea the idea is to create anticipation for an upcoming birthday by letting them open one gift each day in the run up to their special day like an advent calendar you can do this for any birthday it needn t be a big one who should get involved do you want to do this on your own if so go for it you autonomous devil you you ll get all the glory once the surprise is revealed however if you d prefer to spread both the effort and cost of finding and buying making all the gifts then reach out to the friends and family of the recipient too if you ve planned everything else in advance which will be easy once you ve read through all my tips today people are bound to be more than happy to join in with such a fun unique and creative activity when should you begin first decide on how many days you want this run up to last will you make the number of days match the age of the recipient eg 40 days for a 40th birthday or will you pick 24 days like a proper advent tip the latter will come in handy for birthdays with particularly low or high numbers too few days will fail to create any impact while finding 99 presents for great aunt mary to open in the run up to her centenary may leave you out of pocket once you ve decided on how many days how many presents is best for you use a calendar to count backwards from the day of the birthday don t count the birthday itself on the actual day you ll probably want to give them a different kind of gift a regular gift a proper one like how in your advent calendar there s a bigger chocolate on the 25th of december write down the date the advent will begin trust me you ll count count and re count check and double check at least a dozen times during this stage allot yourself enough time prior to that date to browse for gifts and then to sort wrap and tag them all allow yourself at least a few weeks for this i ll come back to the kinds of gifts you could include in a moment but first let s look at how to keep track of which gift is opened when for some reason i have no photos of how i wrapped and tagged my sister s gifts a few years back and so all the ideas and examples here are courtesy of my sister s creativity i should have worked out she was up to something when she asked me about which adhesive was best to use with paper decide if you will give the recipient their gifts all in one go or one each day not going to see the recipient every day from now until their birthday trust them not to open them all in one go then give them all the gifts in one go not only will this be logistically easier i know from experience that it s lovely to have a pile of gifts waiting for you every morning and i honestly didn t even take a sneak peek once not once however if you don t trust them if they re a terrible gift prodder poker and peeker or they re a child whose head will explode if they re required to have that much self control then maybe just hand them out one a day good reasons to tag each gift do you want to give the gifts in a particular order perhaps you ll want split a set collection of gifts to give over several days something they can piece together enjoy the full set on the final day perhaps you prefer randomness in which case you won t need any careful tagging but if not to help both the gift givers and the receiver keep track of which gift to open on which day and more importantly who sent that day s treasure you ll want to tag each parcel my sister printed off a countdown for each day then mounted each one on double sided patterned paper on the reverse of each was written who the gift of the day was from then each was fixed to the parcels with a strip of double sided tape help the gift receiver keep track of the days with a count down having the parcels labeled so clear really helped me work out which one to open next and the focal point my sister created like an advent calendar really helped me see how close my birthday was getting decorate a board to which the gift recipient can clip that day s gift tag which displays how many days remain now we re all organised let s move on to the important bit what kind of gifts should you include well obviously the specifics will depend entirely on your recipient s preferences and your pocket however having been both a gift er and a gift ee i am in a position to offer some general suggestions don t confuse the ideas of a little daily treat that shows you care with a future heirloom these don t need to be 100 long lasting treasures the whole activity of a personal advent is a grand enough gesture each individual item needn t be the recipient s next treasured possession choose both practical and frivolous gifts frivolous because birthday practical because you re giving someone a lot of new stuff some of it might as well be good for something visit 1 1 shops but don t get carried away even though it s cheap remember how many items you need to buy in total the costs soon mount up buy sweets or anything less than 1 to intersperse with other gifts these can be just as meaningful as big ticket items let me illustrate using the gifts my parents and sister carefully curated for my personal advent eg one of the fabulous badges from my sister plus mints because i always have travel sweets with me if you re crafty and creative you could include a handmade gift or two too eg my dad made me this adorable chubby wooden bird some of my other daily gifts the photo above include a mix of useful winter treats and essentials like additional zebras sweets chocolate another badge rubber stamps coloured pencils and a colouring book hand cream and thermal trouser socks and a nanoblock zebra and in the photo below gloves cosy socks lip balm and nail files some crafty embellishments more rubber stamps and another badge plus this adorable little guy and some beautiful earrings the following week s gifts included more crafty supplies some sticky labels and another badge plus more socks exfoliating gloves and another cute creature this time a fox while the final week featured more sweets and chocolate and face cleansing wipes perhaps i needed the latter to get rid of traces of the former gift vouchers to spend in my favourite restaurant a framed illustration a vintage ladybird book a vintage left handed pen nib because it s tough being a leftie in a right handed world all in all a wonderful haul of treasures don t you think i told you they spoiled me and amid them all were a few examples in there of great personalised gifts which cost nothing ideas for free and free ish gifts the eagle eyed among you might have been straining to see what the the lost boys and our songs printouts where in two of the photos above notice how i didn t call you nosey mainly because i d have done the exact same thing well let me stop you straining it s not good for your eyes or other areas and show you what they were a token to indulge in a movie night at a future date and a compilation of songs that mean something to me and my big sis both brilliant personal gifts that cost little or nothing apart from the wine and popcorn i ve been promised other freebie ideas include tokens ious the recipient can cash in for things like baby sitting car cleaning ironing etc gift vouchers for a home cooked meal tokens for a day out together or an experience these needn t cost anything or not a lot eg a walk along the beach watching the sunset view from a favourite hill top picking wild fruit visiting a museum gallery with free entry set free all those memories that live in your camera phone facebook by printing out some photos that mean something after you ve given the gifts what comes next here a few ways you can help the lucky recipient can extend the personal advent experience even further when you bestow the surprise gifts upon them tell them about how i set up my own little gift opening station i propped up my countdown board on a chest of drawers in my bedroom wrapped some fairy lights around the picture frame behind it and made sure to switch on the lights for each day s opening ceremony you can share this link with them to this post to give them an idea of what you mean http notesonpaper blogspot com 2016 01 personal advent birthday into christmas html having somewhere as focal point for the gift receiving like a christmas tree i guess really helped make opening each gift feel like an occasion and helped to stop me getting complacent to be fair after nearly 7 weeks of daily treats complacency was always a possibility especially when you consider that there was even one of my personaladvent gifts to open on christmas day meaning that on christmas morning i d opened a present before i d even opened any presents and if your gift recipient likes to share experiences via social media taking and sharing a photo of each day s gift would be a fun way to keep the specialness growing especially when comments from others can help the recipient appreciate their good fortune if they choose to go for that option then do let them know they can use the hash tag personaladvent to share it with me and to help them keep track of all their posts photos too similarly if you set up a personaladvent for someone and you share it on your own blog or social media let me know find me on instagram withjuliekirk and on twitter notesonpaper as i d love to see how the idea gets taken on by others and so that s how you can treat someone to their own personal advent any thoughts questions plans brewing let me know in a comment or on social media using the hashtag personaladvent obvs julie posted by julie kirk at 18 51 17 comments labels how to birthday special occasion gift giving email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday 11 january 2016 2015 a year in bad portraits it s that time of year again time for my now annual january detox not the kind of detox that encourages you to make smoothies from unholy combinations of fruit and veg nor the kind that gets you interrogating your affection for each and every item in your home wardrobe before you throw it all in a bin bag no this detox which you re welcome to join in with but which experience tells me you probably won t is one that purges the system of any build up of self importance and tends to entertain people at the same time a combination which is pretty much my business plan for the next 10 years to illustrate these are some of the best photos taken of me during 2015 photos i ve used as profile pictures or generally shared across social media notice how they re all carefully posed and well lit notice how i m wearing make up and having a good hair da...