Happy Friday to you. I couldn’t resist posting this picture, taken by my friend Megsy up in Queensland. Megsy was making triple chocolate biscuits yesterday and she took a photo of them before they went into the oven. They look nice and I’m sure they turned out to be delicious. Well, except for one of them, third up from the bottom of this pic…is it just me, or does that look like AN EVIL GREMLIN? Yikes. Have a great weekend!
Now that the festive season is out of the way, it’s time to move on to the next exploitable holiday in the calendar – Valentine’s Day. Now let me just state for the record that, even though I don’t have a Valentine (waaa waaa), I still think that the idea of celebrating love and giving thoughtful trinkets is a fabulous thing. But, I fear that many poor saps get trapped by savvy marketers and become convinced that if you love someone, then this is the day you must step up and show them. Preferably on a grand scale and the more public the declaration of love, the better.
I do worry about those romantic fools, hoodwinked into spending too much money on questionable jewellery, giant I WUV U bears, scent-less roses that have magically tripled in price, dinner accompanied by the soothing sounds of the piano accordion. That sort of thing. Never fear though, I have scoured etsy and come up with some great gift ideas for your Valentine – gifts that won’t break the bank, cause offence or mis-spell love. You’re welcome.
Firstly, from Crafted Cookies, a pair of very cute sweet treats for Valentines. Or for police to give to criminals out on parole. Or for teachers to give the naughtiest kid in the class. Or for creepy Valentines-from-a-distance (I think the technical name is ‘peeping toms’) to give the object of their affection. It just works on so many levels.
I love you. So look out.
I actually really like this next one, a cool necklace from A Charmed Impression. But I do have to question their chosen model in the promo pic, given its inclusion in the Valentine’s Day collection…(To be fair, Katie’s necklace does appear to feature an ‘S’ for Suri (I presume it’s not for Scientology, anyways) rather than a ‘T’ for Tom.)
Valentine Schmalentine says Joey from Dawson’s Creek.
And another idea that I like, but question their photo choice for the Valentine’s Day collection, comes from Jubile Jewel. They are sterling silver initial earrings, which make a lovely romantic gift for your special someone. But could result in some mis-communication or a fight if your beloved happens to be called Fred Ulrich. Or Fanny Underwood.
Maybe not quite the romantic sentiment you were after…
Another interesting gift for your sweetheart comes from Plantables & Paper. It’s a love letter kit, which apparently provides you with 50 small cards with a typed intro on each, to get your romantic sonnets flowing. Although this one in the picture does feel more like it’s leading you to put an expiry date on it. If that’s something that you want to convey, maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t quite the time to do it. But when the time is right, if you use this card, it will definitely seem like a smoother delivery of a much nicer message. Of course, I take no responsibility if that presumption turns out to be false and you sustain an injury.
15 February 2013. At least.
And I couldn’t resist sharing this personalised ceramic mug from 39Cups.Perfect for a Valentine who’s a bit of a geek or a word-nerd. And we all know there’s nothing AT ALL wrong with that. It’s a word search, hand-painted onto a mug, with four words circled – your Valentine’s name, plus three words that describe them. Please note that each of the three descriptive words has to be 10 letters or less though, so it’s too bad if your man is really multi-faceted, or your lady issimply extraordinary.
This mug appears to be for Ashley – a sexy & stylish skater. Uh huh.
Well, that’s plenty of Valentine’s Day fodder for you right there, so I’ll stop now. But I do reserve the right to publish some more pre-Valentine’s Day posts if I discover other gifts for your consideration. Or if you find any true gems that I can share, please email me!
I’ll warn you now that today’s post isn’t terribly exciting – it’s about a cookie and a park. But since this blog is all about finding little sparks in the everyday, and it’s my travel diary while I’m on the road, here it is…
Today was a bit rainy, so we went shopping. We met Barry the Bat at a cafe. A nice take on the traditional gingerbread people and perfect for Halloween next month – although maybe a bit scary for little people to eat a biscuit with big fangs…
Then this afternoon I went for a run in a park here in Dublin, during a break in the rain.
It looks like a nice park, right? That’s what I thought too – then I saw this graffiti on the fence and spent the rest of my run looking over my shoulder. They were out.