Month: April 2018

April 2018 – Parcel Contents

Good Morning!

For this week’s blog post I’m going to show you the contents of this month’s parcel!

The theme for April was ‘Growing’, and the contents were chosen to help bring a little brightness and springtime to your home.

April Contents:

Yellow Pot & Compost –

As this is our springtime parcel, we wanted to make it as bright as possible, starting with a bright yellow metal plant pot. We’ve included some compost in your parcel too, ready to be popped inside the pot. Then when you’re ready, it can be displayed on a pretty window sill.

Sunflower Seeds & Instructions –

Now these dwarf sunflower seeds are ready for planting in your yellow pot – sadly, we can’t give an absolute guarantee that they’ll give you glorious sunflowers, but there’s no reason why not – we’ve supplied a few instructions to get you started. The little packets which are keeping your seeds nice and safe, were made by ‘Twine & Bow Wedding Stationery’ – you can find them on Facebook, and on eBay.

Bunny Quote Card –

This beautiful card has been designed and created by Katie over at ‘Katie’s Cabin’. We loved the gold foil quote, it is a great reminder to follow your heart, as it will hopefully lead you in the right direction. There’s a business card enclosed in your parcel with details of where to find Katie and her other gorgeous designs.

Live, Love, Laugh –

The theme of this month’s parcel is ‘Growing’, and we wanted to include items that relate to growing in lots of different ways, as we are all growing, all the time. This wooden arrow plaque can be stood on a shelf or hung on a wall, using the dowel included.

Living, loving and laughing are all important aspects of growing, and finding out where we belong, so do lots of them!

 ‘Growing Old Is Mandatory…’ –

This is one of our favourite Walt Disney quotes! Growing up is definitely optional – thank goodness…I’m not going to fall for it!!

Smile Cards –

As always, there should be a couple of these little cards in your parcel, I’ve written one for you, and the blank one, is for you to write a short inspirational or positive message, and give to someone you know, or leave somewhere for a complete stranger to find – but this is of course optional, there’s absolutely no pressure to do this if you don’t want to*.

Parcel Assistant –

This month, your *Parcel Assistant is a little chick called Charlie…Easter may have been and gone, but chicks aren’t just for Easter!

Karen x

*Parcel Assistants are cheeky little pompom chaps who help (or hinder!) us with packing your monthly parcels!

20 Reasons To Smile!

Last year we asked our Facebook followers to name something (other than friends and family), that makes them smile. I’ve compiled the list together to share with you, and maybe pass on a little inspiration, now the warmer weather is finally here – for the moment!

I’d say, I agree with all of them, except 1 – I’m not so keen on the running and exercise…I’ll leave that one to someone else!

I’ve got a few of these lined up for tomorrow actually, I can wake up and realise it’s the weekend (bliss), say hello to our lovely office dogs, have chocolate (shhh!) and a cup of tea for breakfast, while sitting in the sunshine listening to music! Are you with me?!

What would you like to add to the list below?

  • A Coastal Walk
  • Walking In The Woods
  • Clean Sheets
  • Reading A Book In The Bath
  • Mermaids!

  • A Manicure & Pedicure
  • Watching ‘Friends’ On TV
  • The Sunshine
  • Unicorns & Rainbows & Glitter!
  • Chocolate

  • Cups Of Tea
  • Making Someone Else Smile
  • Fluffy Socks
  • Waking Up & Realising It’s The Weekend
  • Dogs

  • Watching A Sunrise
  • Watching Funny Films
  • Seeing Wild Deer
  • Listening To Music
  • Running And Exercise

Karen x

A Quarter-Way Through Already!

Hello Lovelies!

This week I’m going to do a little catch-up or ‘update’ on what’s been happening at TSP HQ over the last few months – as we are over a quarter-way through 2018 already!

We’ve had a great start to the year, and packed lots of Smile Parcel’s, and more importantly, gained lots of amazing loyal repeat customers – which means we must be doing something right! We are loving putting together your parcels and have loads of plans in place for your future parcels.

We‘re now in the second week of April, and after a very long soggy Winter in the UK, we may actually be heading for Spring next week (Shh, the weather man said that, not me!).

I’m looking forward to sitting outside on the patio table, topping up my vitamin D, while ordering your May contents from the suppliers – sounds like bliss…I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

We’ve been keeping to our weekly blog posts since the beginning of March and are planning to keep that going with sharing tips, mental health related posts, updates, and showing you parcel contents at the end of each month.

We are also looking to include some posts from our wonderful contributors. As you know, we like to support cottage industries and artisans where we can, by including handmade products from independent small businesses and crafters, and we’re super happy that we are managing to do this most months.

We have now built up quite a list of amazing talented people who have contributed to our monthly parcels and we would love to showcase their businesses. If you have contributed, you may receive an email from us soon, asking if you’d like to talk about your business in our blog, so keep a look out for it.

As it is ‘that’ time of the year, I had a (very overdue!) Spring clean of the office over the Easter weekend, and unearthed my Customer Service NVQ coursework and certificates from 2009!

The Smile Parcel was just a distant dream, or even unknown, at that time, but I was obviously unconsciously planning for it (if you believe in that) – I think I’ll pop those certificates in a frame, why not?!

I think I’ll finish this post with a very important birthday celebration, that would of course, be our youngest canine office helper (I use that word lightly!), who turned 5 years old in March.

Max is a very cheeky, and sometimes very naughty, Standard Schnauzer, who enjoys annoying his smaller, but older brother, Marley – who is a much better-behaved Miniature Schnauzer.

…Of course Max didn’t share his birthday toys – don’t be ridiculous!!

Karen x

See The Good…

Good Morning…it’s Friday!

After 2 weeks of catching up with parcel contents, this week I want to start the weekend with another positive mental health tip – this time it is to ‘see the good’.

This tip is quite deep and takes some thinking about (especially for a Friday!), but it is an important one.

Unfortunately, we all go through tough times in our lives, sadly that is unavoidable, and when we do, we can feel like all our plans are going wrong, or things just aren’t going how we thought they would, and we can struggle to see a way to get ourselves back on track.

But often, when we look back on those times, they actually led us to something good, albeit in a different direction to what we originally thought.

There’s a well known saying ‘everything happens for a reason’, and whether you believe that or not, think about what has happened in the past, and where you are today, and try to see the good that came from it.

Maybe, however we get there, whichever route we take, or whatever gets in our way, we still end up being where we were always supposed to be.

Karen x