Little Reminders - Unique Gift Ideas

Searching for that different, unique gift for a special occasion can prove to be a hard, time-consuming, eye-tiring search of the internet for us each time a birthday, anniversary or Christmas comes along!

Do you need some help to pick out something different for the people you want to encourage and show your love?

I like to support smaller businesses who give thought and care to their individual products so today I want to introduce you to 

Little Reminders

This is a small business venture by a young woman and I was very impressed by her designs and ideas which will make lovely gifts.

I noticed that a friend had liked this business on Facebook so I asked my friend about it and got a good recommendation for it.

Later I discovered that my oldest son knew Chloe and her husband so I was delighted to be able to support her.

Let's meet the seller herself - her full name is Chloe Thomas and I asked her a few questions:

Sandra  -  We know your name is Chloe but what is the name of your business?

Chloe  - My Business is called Little Reminders

Sandra  -  I know from your name and from our mutual friend that you are Welsh is that where you are based now for your business?

Chloe  - I'm a welsh - Italian girl, currently living in Hereford as of August this year due to my husband and I taking on a new venture. In January I start bible college for one year (Thanks to your son Jonathan who interviewed me and gave me a place) & my husband became assistant pastor for the second time but this time at a different location which is Life church Hereford. Even though I miss the beach like crazy, I am beginning to fall in love with the natural beauty of the countryside.

Sandra  -  Where can we go to have a look at your products - Facebook or Etsy or do you have a separate website?

Chloe  - I began with Facebook flash sales originally to see how my products would sell and they did brilliantly. Often when I release a product with limited prints I will sell on Facebook but since the summer I took the plunge and began selling all my products on Esty.

Thankfully after working with a friend for many years who is a professional and local illustrator that runs her own business, I was able to learn many skills/ tips/ tricks from her of running Etsy (for which I am so grateful). I don't have a website 'yet'. Right now as I am a small business starting out I want to take things one step at a time. The process & the journey is so important and often we feel the need to rush it. I want to enjoy it as much as possible after all "I can do anything, but not everything". Maybe in the future as my little business grows I might take the plunge again and create a website. Stay tuned!

Sandra  -  Obviously you will sell to anyone located in the UK but do you also sell internationally?

Chloe  - I don't sell internationally right now but hope to in the near future.

Sandra  -  What gave you the idea for your business?

Chloe  - I finished university 5 years ago after graduating with a illustration degree. Previous to that I had studied for 6 years in art doing various courses. When you get to the end of your degree you are asked to produce a final project and it can be of your choice. I wanted my art to have purpose and meaning. I wanted it not to just be a pretty picture that you could hang on the wall but something that would have depth and be a piece that would encourage others. I wanted it to be for EVERYONE not just those who have a Christian faith. I believe there are no outsiders to the love of Christ.

So I began creating pieces of work and products that would do exactly this, encourage others. Be what it is on the tin 'Little Reminders'. Every day isn't always good, but there is something good in every day and so little reminders was birthed from this very thought. To help remind people of the good things in life that we so often miss because of the negative things that go on in the world.

Sandra  -  Where do you get the inspiration for all your different products?

Chloe  - Some of my products especially the Christmas ones have been based on the countryside since our move.

Christmas Card Pack

However I literally could get inspired by anything, so its hard pointing out one thing that inspires me. It could be another artist, photography, being out and about and noticing the details of life that often get missed, being with people, something that someone said, a colour could inspire me, buildings, music, reading books, reading the beautiful truths and letters within God's love story, films - I could keep going! Every day is different at what could inspire me and I guess everything around us is inspiration, you just have to choose to stop and notice it and don't forget it (so I have a little note book that I write literally anything and everything down in).

Sandra  -  I was delighted to see this card because of the encouragement it could be especially because this is a blog all about encouragement.

Sandra  -  Are you willing to do bespoke orders?

Chloe  - I have done some bespoke orders in the past and they have been very well received.

Bespoke orders take some time and I want to be able to do them justice. As little reminders is a part time venture and not a full time job currently the time isn't always there and so I mainly concentrate on producing a wide stock range for now.

You can view all of Chloe's products and order at her Etsy shop.

Little Reminders on Etsy

Follow Chloe on Facebook & Instagram to see more photos of her products and behind the scenes of the making process.

Little Reminders on Instagram

and

Little Reminders on Facebook

Feel free to send her a message too as I'm sure she will be happy to answer any questions.

Meditate & Delight - Unique Gift Ideas

Searching for that different, unique gift for a special occasion can prove to be a hard, time-consuming, eye-tiring search of the internet for us each time a birthday, anniversary or Christmas comes along!

Do you need some help to pick out something different for the people you want to encourage and show your love?

I like to support smaller businesses within the UK who give thought and care to their individual products so today I want to introduce you to 

Meditate & Delight

This is a small business venture by a talented girl and I was very impressed by her unique designs and ideas which will make lovely gifts.

Let's meet the seller herself - Katie Wood

Disclaimer:  I have not received any products or money from Katie or Meditate & Delight - this is simply a review of her business because I wished to support her.

Katie tells you about her collections and business here:

Hi, I'm Katie, owner of Meditate and Delight.

I am based in the West Midlands in England. I am a huge lover of God's word and believe in the power of the scriptures. So, around 3 years ago I decided to paint journals and write scriptures on the covers.

I wanted people to have small reminders of an encouraging or uplifting verse each time they used their notebook. Whether at home during quiet time or at work during a meeting, I wanted scripture to be at the forefront of daily life.

Since then, I have begun to produce other products and currently I sell hand-painted journals, cards, vinyl stickers, mugs and t-shirts. Everything with a Christian message. All to bring life-giving truth into our daily environments

I got started when I saw one girl on Instagram painting Bibles.

Nowadays there are loads of people doing this but years ago it was only one or two people doing it. I thought "I could do that" but for me it was less about the 'prettiness' of the Bible, and more about the scripture. So - since it was too expensive to stock Bibles at the start of my business - I decided to do notebooks instead. I wanted scripture to be more prominent and visible. As a reminder of amazing truth. Since then I have expanded to multiple products with scripture on/inside.

(I do paint hardback Bibles, but by request only. This can be done on any hardback (non-shiny) Bible. Many translations are available.)

In terms of inspiration, I get ideas from the scriptures themselves in many cases. Other times I see trends on social media. For example, at the beginning I did more landscape paintings (mountains, beaches) but nowadays I do more florals. The 4 journal designs being released in the Christmas Collection 2020 are all floral designs. Again, I saw stickers everywhere on social media so I did some digital designs and had them printed by a sticker company. They have been very popular.

So far I have added the products to my Etsy Shop here and there, when I have the money/time to create them. However, going forward I will do 4 collections a year - starting with this Christmas Collection 2020, which I am so excited about!

So 4 times a year I will produce and create a collection of various items and release them all at once. Once they are gone, they are gone.

In the Christmas Collection 2020 there are:

• 4 designs of hand-painted journals - a few of each design are available. They are all floral designs and have scriptures on the front and back.

• Professionally printed Christmas cards - a pack of 5.

• Various professionally printed vinyl stickers which are for indoor or outdoor use and are weatherproof so are great to stick on water bottles, notebooks, cars etc.

• Slogan t-shirts and glass items.

• Also a variety of ceramic hand-painted Christmas decorations.

The products in this collection are probably my favourites of everything I have ever made.

The collection was released on Tuesday 3rd November.

I do custom, bespoke orders but usually only when people message me and ask. I have taken down the custom order listing from my Etsy shop. I find it easier to produce a variety of hand-painted journals and list them ready to be shipped. But I do get people messaging me asking if I can paint them something specific - either a Bible or a notebook/journal. And I am happy to do that. Depending on the design it takes around 2 weeks to paint and varnish and dry. I create a mock-up digitally and send that to the customer before I start painting for them to see/suggest edits. Once the design is approved, I start painting and that takes around 2 weeks.

I sell within the UK and also internationally and have sent products to America and France and even as far as Mozambique.

You can view all of my products and order at my Etsy shop.

Meditate & Delight on Etsy

Follow me on Facebook & Instagram to see more photos of my products and behind the scenes of the making process.

Meditate & Delight on Instagram

and

Meditate & Delight on Facebook

Feel free to send me a message too and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I hope you enjoyed reading about Katie's unique gifts and if you need any help with your Christmas shopping or for birthday, wedding, anniversary or just those little gifts to say "thinking of you" in these times take a little note of what she has and do look around her shop to see ALL her items.

The Little Boy Who Wouldn't Eat Cheesecake - Kids Book Review

It's time for another Children's Book Review.

Today it is a book for young children about a young boy who did not understand that something could taste good because of it's name.

We went to spend Sunday afternoon with our son and daughter-in-law and our 3 grandchildren.

Who was the most excited?

We were not sure - Matthew (almost 5) & Ruby (3) were very excited and so were grandpa and I.


Not long into the afternoon Matthew and Ruby asked if I had a new book to read with them because I had been hinting about it when we talked last week.

So we settled down on the couch as they always like to do one on each side of me and this time I got out my iPad instead of an actual real life book.



Disclaimer:  I received a free pdf copy of this book to read and give my honest review - this was in pdf form because the book was published in the US and we live in the UK.



So let's have a look at

The Little Boy Who Wouldn't Eat Cheesecake

You can see from the picture below that this book is very bright and colourful.

This is the front cover and it gives you a good idea of the type of illustrations throughout.



As with other Children's Books I have reviewed

SSHH Don't Wake The Baby! - Christmas Children's Book Review

Marie & Mr Bee - Children's Book Review
Granny Franny's Big Red Bus

I like to get our grandchildren involved in the reviews because if a book is for children then they are the ones it should be tested on.


Grandpa is the designated reader while we are on Face Time calls and nanny does the reading of new books when we are all together in the one place.

So the kids and I got comfortable on the couch and we opened the book in my iPad Pro.

Bigger screen for us all to see.

This was actually a treat for Matthew and Ruby because they do not do a lot on the iPad.

Meanwhile grandpa had got my phone and started to take pictures and very short videos

Inquisitive minds always want to know what's happening straight away so we stopped at the cover page for a little while to see what info we could get from the picture there as well as the cheesecake and chocolate cake you heard about in video above.

So let's start testing out the story.

It's definitely a family story, grandchildren hearing a true story from their grandpa which is all about the grandpa when he was a young boy with his mum and dad.








The book is about a story being told within a story.

You can see in this next video that Matthew and Ruby learnt something new at the very start of the story.







Later  about halfway through the story and Ruby was pointing out something about one of the pictures but I'm not going to give you too many spoilers about this story book.

There are some pictures that are like pencil drawings that show great expressions on the boy's face like this page below

Then we came to the time when Matthew told us he hadn't tasted cheesecake yet either.






So a brief discussion then took place about how we should have cheesecake for desert some time soon but we would have to do some careful checking of which cheesecake we could all eat together because Ruby and baby Sarah both suffer from allergies to some food products and dairy items are a big problem.



Now what do you think happened?

Did the boy ever eat some cheesecake?


At the end we have another type of food for the boy to have to think about but you need to read the story to find out what that is.

My Thoughts

I would say that this is a very enjoyable and relatable story for families to read together.

All children have to come across food they have never eaten before and then they will also come across people they have never seen before, places they have never gone to before and it can be hard for them to do some new things.

This is a gentle down to earth story that helps them see past their preconceived ideas or their uncertainty of accepting something new.


This book is written by Christina Myers who is a blogger friend and is illustrated by Katherine Carver

Christine wrote this true story because she often heard her father-in-law tell his grandchildren the story of this incident between him and his mother and father many many years ago when he was a little boy.



So Deciding thought on this book?


Yes it's a big Tick from nanny, grandpa and the grandkids.

Disclaimer:
I was given a free copy of the book to read and write an honest review but no other compensation.  
The views expressed here are completely my own.

Granny Franny's Big Red Bus - Kids Book Review

It's time for another Children's Book Review.

Today it is a book for young children about a granny and her grandkids going on an adventure.

We have always felt that books are very special to our family and share a love of reading but now that Fred and I have got to the "grandparent stage" we are once again looking at, buying and reading books that are suitable for young children.


So when I heard about this book and the fact that it was about a granny who liked to go on an adventure with her grandkids I was very interested to get a copy to read with our grandkids.


Disclaimer:  I did receive a free copy of this book to read and give my honest review.



So let's have a look at

Granny Franny's Big Red Bus

As with other Children's Books I have reviewed

SSHH Don't Wake The Baby! - Christmas Children's Book Review

Marie & Mr Bee - Children's Book Review

I like to get our grandchildren involved but things did not go exactly to plan this time.


We had planned to visit them and sit on the comfy couch with them snuggled in beside us and have them make the big hard decision of

 "Who do you want to read this book to you today?"

But then 3 out of that family of 5 took sick with a nasty cold and so the visit was off.

I had told them we had a new book for them!

What were we going to do - once they know we have got something new for them they are always looking forward to seeing what it is.

Now any children find it hard to wait and this gang were already disappointed that we were not coming to their house so we decided we would read the story while on facetime like we have done other times.


Grandpa is the designated reader while we are on Face Time calls and nanny does the "Guess What I'm drawing today!" and we both do the jigsaw puzzles and the hunt the bear round out house and the other games we play.
We have loads of things that can be easily enjoyed together in these posts
10 Easy Ideas for Face Time with Kids
10 Easy Games to Play on Face Time with Kids


So Grandpa got himself comfortable in the chair at the kitchen table with the iPad on the table and lifted the book.

If a book is meant for that young age group then it should be tested with children of that age.

At the time of writing this we have 3 grandchildren Matthew almost 5 years old, Ruby is 3 yrs  and Sarah will be 1 in 2 weeks time but she was with her mum and not listening and watching with us this time.

So Matthew and Ruby were ready on the iPad for Face Time and ready to watch as grandpa read to them.

Well back to testing out the book.

It is an "off for an adventure" kids book with some lovely phrases for the kids to repeat after grandpa has read a page.

one of my favourites was the

thick, icky, sticky mud

can we all say that one quickly???

Can you spot it in the pic below?

We enjoyed the rhyming parts of the story as well as the bright, bold illustrations with lots of detail  which means that the children will enjoy coming back to the book for further readings as they will not have remembered everything of the story or the pictures from this first reading.


You can see from the pictures above that this book is very bright and colourful.

But what you don't know yet is that the illustrations are funny and there is a lovely character named "Thinkerbell" on the Big Red Bus. (There is a glimpse of her in the picture below)

Grandpa is as mad as me sometimes and really got into the swing of the story - that's why the kids have a hard job deciding who reads to them.


Here is the front cover of the book.

I love the details on the bus:

• Reg GR4N  for Gran but there has to be a number on a reg plate.
• Seaside Park, Zoo Playground - destinations for the story
• Gransville - town location

Here you can see the back cover of the book

I just would have loved to have seen a picture of Sonia (the author) here but that's more from a grownup's perspective, kids probably aren't interested in this at the younger age.

Now the surprise in this book is that there are actually two adventures (practically 2 stories in one!)


So I have told you about this fun book which I believe would make a great gift for any family to read together but more especially where grannies and grandpas can enjoy it together with the grandchildren as we did.

Maybe our having to do it over facetime made it even better because it was a special treat just between us and the grandchildren.

This book is written by Sonia Beldom and is also illustrated by Sonia and all this completed during the  COVID-19 pandemic.

Proceeds from this book are going to bus-related charities due to help with the fact that all private hire vehicles were off the road for a prolonged period of time.

You may also be surprised to find out that Sonia drives heritage London Routemaster double-decker buses at weekends (in between her other normal jobs).


So Deciding thought on this book?


Yes it's a big Tick from me and Fred and the grandkids.

Disclaimer:
I was given a free copy of the book to read and write an honest review but no other compensation.  
The views expressed here are completely my own.