Smiggle stationery new shopThey say that if you want to discover your true vocation in life, you should think back to the things you enjoyed doing when you were ten years old. Think about it now – how did you like to spend your Sunday afternoons?

Of course this won’t really work for our children, as they will all have just been playing ‘design your own cake’ games on phones, but if I think about my ten year old self I reckon she’d have been pretty happy with a job in the new Smiggle stationery store, opening in Stratford this week. Stationery was definitely my thing. (Developing when I was about 12 into a game called ‘estate agents’ where my sister and I would design our own property details and take pretend bookings for viewings. Let’s not think about that though.) View Post

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“What on earth is that noise?” asked Boyfriend at about 9pm one evening. A gentle buzzing, that sounded a bit like a dentist drill, was coming from the ceiling.

“Oh that’s just Belle in bed, playing with her automatic pencil sharpener,” I told him.

“Oh right,” he said, and went back to reading.

We’d been given a voucher to spend in Ryman, courtesy of the Ryman blog team, and Belle had fulfilled a lifelong wish that day and become the owner of an automatic pencil sharpener. That’s not to say that the trip went completely smoothly…

We were in the car on the way there, chatting about what we might get. Belle and I are both big fans of stationery and had been looking forward to the outing all week.

“Money wise then,” said Belle, matter-of-factly, “I was thinking 50-50?” View Post

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I delivered some training last week to PR agencies and brands to help them engage more creatively with bloggers.* One of my exercises involved giving each group a product that might be thought of by some people as boring, and getting them to come up with some interesting campaign ideas – scouring pads, potatoes, that sort of thing.

One of the products I gave out was a packet of Post-its. The woman I gave them too smiled, her eyes actually lit up. “This isn’t boring!” she said. “I love stationery!”

I feel exactly the same. You are looking here at a woman who goes to Staples for fun. Pens and notebooks for me are a joy, and accessories like paper clips and Post-Its often more so. At this time of the year in fact, Post-Its are invaluable.

I love Christmas and all things festive, particularly the planning and shopping side of things. And the sherry and snacks of course. This basically sums up everything I love about the run up to Christmas: View Post

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I am not the most organised of people but I make up for it by being pretty organised.

That sounds weird right?

Let me explain what I mean. One thing I am hopeless at is remembering birthdays. I know this about myself though, so at home keep a big box of cards and wrapping paper and small gifts so that when (normally if) I remember the night before that I’ve forgotten a friend’s birthday I can rummage in my box of goodies. Tada!

It even makes more sense financially as you can bulk buy when things are on offer. Goodness me, how annoyingly efficient I am. View Post

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Do you know how much it costs to kit out your kids for school? Well, according to a recent survey by Staples, 12 years of schooling for my two children would cost £5,033! And that’s just back to school costs like school uniform, sports kit and stationery. I’m a bit of a stationery geek, so most of this is probably spent actually in Staples in my case.

This total equates to £209.72 per child at the start of each school year.

Bloody hell.

And that’s not all. Think of all the costs throughout the year too – school trips, raffle tickets, the extortionate amount you have to spend on ‘smencils’, just so your daughter isn’t cast out of her friendship group for not having handwriting that smells of root beer. The list is endless. I thought I’d put together a few top tips for you, to save money on your children’s clothes, pencils, and other back to school essentials:

  • "school bag"Forget OFSTED reports, send your child to the school that is closest. It seems obvious, but not everyone does it. According to experts at What Car? the school run adds £52 to the annual fuel bill of the average family. £52 could buy you at least two bottles of decent gin. You do the maths.
  • Shop around for the best deals on uniform, and don’t buy things at obvious times of the year. Clearly Clarks are not going to have a sale on in late August, but do you really need to buy shoes then? Spread the costs over the year instead, taking advantage of offers when you see them. (Like the 20% off the new 6-12 years range of kids clothes at Polarn O. Pyret at the moment.)
  • Better yet, send them to a school with no school uniform. Like I do.
  • Want to save money on stationery? Don’t bother forking out on yet another set of pencils, instead, just have a look under the sofa cushions and behind bookcases. Seriously, every time I lift up a sofa cushion I find a pencil. I swear there must be about 369 pencils in the average family house. All you have to do is find them.

And if that doesn’t save you enough, take them out of school to ‘home educate’ them and send them up chimneys instead. I’m pretty sure that’s allowed.

Happy saving!

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Before the summer holidays started, I sat down and had a little talk with Belle about the impending six weeks, and exactly how we were going to manage the whole work, fun, childcare balance. As much as I didn’t want to, I explained to her, I was going to have to do some work, and as useful for me as her week away with Gran was going to be, we needed to come up with something else too.

“Don’t make me go to Clifton College holiday club!” she wailed, a look of panic on her face.

“I won’t make you go there again,” I reassured her, “I promised didn’t I?”

She looked relieved.

“I don’t want to go to the holiday club at school either,” she pleaded, “they just make you decorate keyrings all day.”

“OK,” I said, rapidly running out of options. “How about sports?”

We were quiet for a moment, both thinking about the disaster of the two-day football camp the previous summer. Belle, as you may have worked out, is not a fan of the whole ‘wrap-around-care’ concept. For her, holidays and after school are for watching all the television she has been kept away from during school hours.

“Well then,” I said, laughing hysterically inside at the very idea that she would agree, “the only other option is a residential camp, where you go away for the whole week with lots of people you don’t know.”

“I’ll do that one,” she said, and turned back to MI High, the conversation apparently now over.

Well, that was a shock.

So, tomorrow, she’s off. Monday to Friday, sleeping in yurt dorms, wading through swamps, meeting red squirrels, and tagging crabs. She’s only going to be about an hour away, but I am so proud of her. She’s getting pretty excited about it, and this afternoon has been sorting out what she wants to take, and zealously labelling everything with her rather lovely personalised stickers, provided specially for the occasion by This is Nessie. This is Nessie do a whole range of gorgeous personalised stuff, so if you are a stationery geek like me, they are well worth a look.

"Personalised name labels"

Who do these belong to then?

In the morning, we’ll be up early, and by 9.30am I will be child free for five whole days, as Bee is away next week too, doing some very grown-up work experience.

Five whole days!

I’ve never actually been alone in the house for that long. What will I do? Who will I talk to? Looking at Belle’s programme, I’m quite jealous. I quite fancy a safari scavenger hunt. Bonfires, marshmallows, yes please.

Maybe I’ll book myself in…

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