Glorious gifts!

Wow, sorry it’s been so long since I last posted something but my time in America flew by and before I knew it, it was time for me to come home. I had a great couple of weeks out there, celebrating our first wedding anniversary, attending my husband’s graduation and catching up with friends. Don’t panic though as I still found time to discover some pretty cool things that I hope you are going to like reading about.

So you may remember that in my last blog, I talked about graffiti and how I had a little secret project brewing for the girls I coach, well I can now reveal what I made for them. So I wanted to get them something they could keep (if they wanted) but I also wanted it to be American themed. I was struggling for a while with what to get so I started with the America theme first. I couldn’t really think of too much stuff that 1; would fit in my suitcase so I could bring it home and 2; cheap enough that I could afford to buy ten of them. Then I thought of baseballs!!! Yes, perfect! Baseball isn’t really played at all in the U.K. so it’s definitely something American themed, I then found that you could buy blank baseballs so I could personalise each one for each of my players…sorted!! I found a box of 12 on Amazon for a good price, so I decided to go for it! Once they arrived I had to discover which pen would last best on the shiny but soft surface of a baseball. I tried a Sharpie, but that bleed and ran easily. I then tried a black biro pen but that didn’t work as it was too difficult to write on the shiny surface with. I then decided that blue was the colour I actually wanted to use so I found a couple of blue pens to try them. The first one I tried was just another biro so I had the same issues as the black one of course, however the second one I found was a ball-point pen and this worked a treat. I then had the clever idea of researching which pens work best on a baseball and have a guess what was the most popular…a ball-point pen! This is where the graffiti came in because at first I was going to write each of my players names on a baseball in cool graffiti font, but after doing one and realising it was going to take me a lifetime, I opted for something different. Working in marketing has made me discover so pretty sweet things and the website Da Font is one of them. This site has hundreds of fonts that you can use and download but I just previewed each name online and hand drew it onto the baseball. On this site, I found a font that reminded me a lot of a baseball team font so I decided to use this. Overall it probably took me a whole day to write everyone's name on a baseball and also to write our club’s name and year but I am super happy with how they came out. Better yet is the girls absolutely loved them when I gave the baseballs to each of them over the weekend. See what you think of them below.

Personalising as it happens

Baseballs

S.C.L.F.C 15/16

This leads me onto my next little story. I don’t know if I have mentioned but the girls I coached were awesome! Not only are they very well-behaved and great kids, but they actually bossed the football (soccer) field each week. This meant we won quite a few games and throughout the duration of the season, we ended up winning 3, yes 3, trophies!! We won 2 cups and finished top of the league, go Stockport County U11’s!! Take a look at our awesome trophies that the girls actually struggled to carry off stage!

The last thing I want to talk about was the little gift I got for my husband for our first wedding anniversary. It’s a bit cheesy however as it was our first, the theme had to be paper so I decided to get him a book. I saw these books online where you create little stick people and then choose page ideas that talk about ‘the reasons why I love you’. I told you it was cheesy, sorry! They aren’t too expensive and the quality is just perfect, unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any photos of the finished book but here is a screenshot of how it looked online. They aren’t just ideal for anniversary’s either, they could totally work as a gift for anyone really, as they offer so many different page ideas. You can also create your own pages or edit the templates so the possibilities are endless really.

Happy Anniversary

Hiking

Miles

Grilling

Well I hope this blog was worth the wait and I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Thanks for reading :)