In Watsons..

As you can see I left my latest envelope amongst the pet products...but not, as you might imagine, in a pet store. Nope, the latest envelope was left in Watsons of Inverurie. I love this shop, it's full of interesting and usefull things! From pet products to coal scuttles. I chose the pet products because there used to be a pet shop in Inverurie until it closed down and then I discovered this section in Watsons. And this envelope is so playfull it seemed the best place for it...although I have to admit I was tempted by the coal scuttles.

But perhaps I shall go back some time and leave one among the coal scuttles, or the tupperware, or the plants, or the pans, you get the idea, this shop has everything :)

So as always I await to hear who found this one and where it ended up...

:)

Lost in amongs the magazines...

This time one of my wee envelopes has found a place to chill out amongst the food magazines..more specifically a vegetarian food magazine! Yup I'll admit that is partially because I am a vegetarian but also because I was orignally going to put it on the fashion/womens magazines. Then I realised I didn't really want to buy one of those sorts of magazines because in the end of the day I don't have a massive interest in clothes or hair and make-up, not that I have anything against people who do. One of my best friends is a fashion student :) 

However, whenever I do buy one of those sorts of magazines I inevitably end up thinking that I:

 A - Need to buy new clothes and B - Need to lose some weight...neither of which is true...I may need to learn to co-ordinate my clothing better but I am a perfectly happy weight

...anyway I digress...

Part of the reason I put it one these magazines is to show the wiiiiiiiiiiide variety of magazines that the News Agent sells, look at all the choice! I started with looking at the 'womens magazines' and then moved on to the cooking and vegetarian magazines, got sidetracked by a snowboarding magazine (no such luck, I ski!) and then ended up buying a gardening magazine! Who needs the supermarket with this much choice on the high street?! As always I am bigging up the local/smaller shops and Strachans is another fine example.

A wee history per chance...

Well, I can still remember Strachans from when i was growing up and visiting it during school lunchtimes and I'm happy to see it now has a wider variety of books (and possibly magazines) and the stationary departmen is still there (I used to find the BEST pens and also really FUN pencil sharpeners in there) as well as the toy shop upstairs..although I didn't get that far, I am saving that for another envelope I think.  They also seem to have branched out in the gift department now - one of the windows is displaying an array of rather nice handbags..I was a little tempted I won't lie! Best of all it still seems to be run by some lovely local people...waaayhey! 

A further upate may follow if I do indeed leave my next envelope upstairs...but then again it won't be a surprise if that is where I leave the next one...so perhaps not..

Do you use your local news agent?

Have you discovered their delightful array of magazines and books?

Or perhaps even better, your the fellow vegetarian who found my envelope?!

Whatever you would like to say, about news agents, local shops, my envelopes, anything...get in touch via the email (neighbours.smile@gmail.com) or simply by leaving a comment below.

As always I love to hear from you all.

And another thanks to Freya who let me know she found one of my last envelopes and is currently considering who to send it on to....good luck Freya I hope it works :)

Peace Out! 

(Yup I did just say that, no shame here!)

A French twist...

Well I'm back at it again, leaving my wee envelopes in small businesses. I like to support small businesses and in a way this is free advertising for them. Buuuut in all honesty it's more interesting leaving my wee envelopes in small business because they have a lot more character and attract and a rather more varied bunch of people. This then leads me onto where I left my last envelope...quite literally hanging around...

Location: The Kilted Frog

More commonly known as: 'the french man place'

Despite opening around four years ago most people I know still call The Kilted Frog, the french mans place or shop, this is of course because it is run by a lovely french man named: Patrick. It's a great wee place with a lovely atmosphere and very friendly staff :) In other words, the perfect place to leave one of my wee envelopes! As it's pretty much always jam packed in there (no surprise considering the great service and produce) I didn't have to be super sly with this one...henceforth after a good coffee and a chat with my mum and one of her friends I left one of my envelopes behind...here is is:

I have to admit: it's not one of my best envelopes in terms of design..I have done a lot better one's for sure. Hooowever, it has a pretty darn good location (and I don't just mean The Kilted Frog, check it out:

It's not just in a fantastic wee place..it's in the window!! Can you spot it?! 

I wonder how long it will take before someone realises it's not decoration and carries it off..?

All in all rather pleased with todays envelope. :) If you found this one or one of my other ones then let me know, even better if you have sent it on, tell me all about it. Who was it to, why and did you put anything inside?!

One more BIG UP for The Kilted Frog. One of my favourite places.

Howdy!

My love of books an of course reading brought me to the library and seeing as my wee envelope was an illustration/carton I thought a good spot for him would be beside the graphic novels. Friendly wee guy isn't he?

I actually wanted to leave this one in the childrens section but there was an old man having a quiet read up there and a mother and child having a not so quiet read, that's the trouble with these photo's they're really hard to take without being seen! I didn't go to the graphic novels next I went to the 'talking books' or 'audio books' as they are now called. I love talking books, even as an adult. I find them profoundly relaxing. I think there is no shame in enjoying listenening to a story even though you are a competent reader. Perhaps I wanted to to capture the imagination of my fellow talking book fans...but alas it was not to be as the talking books are in full view of the counter and for the first time in ages both librarians were at the counter rather than busy with people around the library, darn!

However I do like graphic novels and even own a few...I didn't look hard but I didn't see my favourite series here, I'm sure I could have ordered them in though. :) Now i wait and see if a fellow graphic novel fan has found my wee cowboy hat man...or will the librarian find him and whisk him away instead...

Was it you? 

I would love to hear from you if it was you! 

Or perhaps you recieved him in the post, if you did, let me know what you thought?

New town, new locations...

Rightho, here we go..new town means new locations for my envelopes and a bit more of a challenge seeing as people know me here, so keeping the anonymity is a little difficult. 

However here's the newest one:

I left this one in Booths electrical store...I was most definitely spotted by the sales assisstant as she came over and tried to see if I needed any help...either that or she thought I was shoplifting...woops. I'm fairly certain as soon as I left she will have picked this one up *fingers crossed* she put it back or kept it for herself rather than throwing it away. At least she will have realised I wasn't shoplifting haha!

I was originally going to leave this one beside some of the colourful kettle's but they turned out to be right in front of the sales desk so I decided not to...they were some pretty awesome looking kettles though! 

Now here's where you can help me...my idea's for locations for the envelopes are getting a little thin on the ground..i don't like putting the envelopes to too similar places as then it all gets a bit boring and as the weather here is so terrible it's basically impossible to leave them outside....do you have any location ideas?

It does't even matter if you don't live near here or even in Scotland i will welcome any ideas that you have!

Please drop me a comment or email... :)

A Temporary Neighbour..

Well that's me just back from an island in the outer hebrides. I'm afriad to say that I forgot to take any of my wee envelopes with me, sadly this means I have no new photo's for you all! However I did manage to leave some of me wee cards with pictures of the envelopes on and this blogs address, so hey ho I might still have managed to get some more people involved eh? :)

I may not have been able to leave any of my envelopes around and encourage other people to get in touch with their neighbours BUT I did meet one of my (temporary) neighbours and gave her one of my postcards...the story goes a little like this...


My car broke down and needed to be fixed a few days into the holiday leaving my boyfriend and myself without any transport, this was a bit of an issue as we really needed to do some food shopping (we were staying in a family holiday home and hadn't come as prepared as we thought we had). My boyfriend went around to our neighbour, Alison's to see if she had the number for a taxi as the co-op was miles and miles away... she kindly offered to give us a lift as she was thinking of going anyway. This was fantastic news of course. That night we made poffertjes (a kind of dutch pancake) and as a thank-you we put some of the best ones on a plate and took them round to Alison in the morning, she in turn invited us around for dinner the next night. As it turns out our new neighbour is a fantastic cook and we had a very good meal and some excellent conversation. I even left her house with the loan of a book by an author I really like.

Alison said that I was welcome to hold onto the book until the next time I came to the island (we was leaving the day after), however I felt this would be a little rude...this is where one of my postcards came in. I wrote a thank-you from both of us on the back and my address incase she wanted to 'chivvy me along' with the book and also brought her half of my banana bread loaf. (I had tried to make in time for going to dinner.) When we took these round Alison kindly insisted that we come in, despite the fact that she had guests. The result was another great night and a lot of very good conversation :) I wouldn't hesitate to say that these two nights were one of the highlights of my trip!

I left with the address and the promise of returning the book when I had finished it and of course the possibility of keeping in touch...I couldn't be happier :)


You do good things for your neighbours and you get good things in return.


Any neighbours, no matter for what length of time they are your neighbours, are important people. 

Growing up...Moving on up...

So that's the show well and truly over and packed up and put away. Now you all know that I am, or rather was a student, although I'm sure it doesn't come as a shock... 

I bet your thinking: well why is she telling us this? 

Well friends I'm afriad things are about to change a wee bit for this project. Don't worry I'm not going anywhere, but things may slow down for a wee while. Because I've hit the big bad REAL world with a bit of a thump and have loooots of things to deal with, but I still want to make people smile and create mail-art and be POSITIVE! However until I figure out quite how I'm going to up the ante with this project, I'm just going to be leaving my 'public envelopes' around for other people to find. What I really want right now is to get OTHER people INVOLVED...that means you lot! 

...

I even created a postcard book that provides a super easy (and very creative) way for you to get involved and meet your neighbours...or even other people your a bit nervous to talk too but could easily leave a greetings note (a wee hello) in their locker, or on their desk, or computer, or pigeon hole...you get the idea. I'm still all about positive, fun, attractive communication! I'm hoping to get a digital view of the book up on here so that you can preview before you buy, as well as a safe way to pay. In saying that if you've heard enough and really want one now drop me an email and I can give you details of price and how to pay.

Ooof this is a bit of a long post for me, hopefully it makes up for my silence! Now back to the show...

Here is what the blackboard looked like at the end of the show, it got a bit more arty the second time around, you can see the first version of it in the previous post. I'm really happy so many people picked up the chalk and really got involved in this. Everybody seemed to love it! Reading all the comments was not only interesting but uplifting too.

Above is a photograph of my installation and to the right you can see a close up showing how I had a trail of letters from the desk up the wall to my envelopes. I was really pleased with how people interacted with this as well, people wandered up to it and moved things around, read my sketchbooks and had a good look at all the bit and pieces and photographs. By the way this is an accurate dipiction of my desk as I work on the envelopes (apart from the photos). My desk is always covered in coffee cups and cut out letters, glue and envelopes. I live in organised chaos and I LOVE it!

These photo's are of my comments plinth, here I had two options for people to leave there thoughts an opinions for me; they could write them on the plinth with chalk or write in the comment book I had on the top, in pen. I'm happy to say that a lot of both was done. I also had to rub off one side so it could be refilled again..although perhaps that's also because a lively child was a bit too enthusiastic with the chalk haha! 

Also as you can see here a lot of people also took it as an opportunity to graffitti a bit, however none of is what offensive and a lot of it was from people I know..therefore entirely forgivable! :) 

As always feel free to send any comments my way by commenting or via the contact email. Don't worry I'll take positive and negative and somewhere inbetweens even...indeed one of my favourite comments from the book was from an anonymous writer that said: What where you thinking? , I couldn't help but laugh because in some cases I look back and think exactly the same thing!

Friends you will find this project is honest as well as fun and I want your honesty as much as you would like mine. 

Keep visiting me here and if you think things have got a bit too quiet for your liking why don't you send me an idea of your own...it can't hurt right? I might even turn it into something HUGE, at least it's out there and there's a REALLY GOOD chance it will be tried out...what do you have to lose? :) 

(:   ...GET INVOLVED...   ;)

Last day of the show tommorow...

Hello Hello,

As the show is nearing it's end ( it's the final day tomorrow) I thought I would post a wee update with how it's all been going and of course a few images to show you and perhaps get some interest for tomorrow! 

Below are photo's of the space...these first two are of my blackboard, that as you can see was for people to write about what home is to them because after all that's part of why I started this project...knowing your neighbours makes a house a home :) Amazingly (as you can see) the blackboard was completely full within a few days and I had to wipe it off so that people could start again..hopefully it will be full to brimming by the end of close tomorrow as well!

All the rest of these photo's are just so you can get a general feel of the show, as you can see all the envelopes I sent out are on the wall, I have a wee desk installation and also on the plinth in the above photo are some mini envelopes to take away, my business cards (I'm not sure I feel old enough to have business cards haha) and my book which is for sale and there are still a few left..so if you want one come along tommorow!

About the book: Just a quick explanation about the book...the book is a tear-out postcard book designed front to back by myself. It contains 20 postcards that can be torn out and sent to neighbours or anyone you wish. Alongside the postcards is a small section that remains after you have torn out the postcards and this section has the subtle story of my project on it. I would include more but I don't want to ruin it for anyone, so come along and have a look!

If there is high demand I may be able to take orders of the book..if I sell out but we shall see...


I really have to go now...but I shall keep you all posted!

Perhaps see you tomorrow! :)



Ps: I'm in the paper here's a link:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/visual-arts/visual-art-review-gray-s-school-of-art-degree-show-2012-1-2366459

:)

An Apology and an Invite..

I'm really sorry I haven't posted anything in quite a while.

 So readers this is your official Apology!!

and also

to make things a little better...an Invite!

MakeMyNeighbourSmile will be going on show.

Yup that's right in just a few weeks MakeMyNeighbourSmile will be on display for the public to view.

The show will take place as part of the Grays School of Art Degree show in Aberdeen, Scotland.

So if you are in the area and would like to see it please come along, you may also get a chance to meet me, if you so wish.

The show is open to the public from the 16th - 24th of June.

There will also be limited edition books available to purchase at the show. All photography and design done by myself of course :)

I hope to see some of you there.

Please do not hesitate to talk to me if you do come and if your a wee bit shy then just leave me a wee comment.

Anyway I need to get back to the preparation.

Hope to see you there!

MakeMyNeighbourSmile is leaving the country!

I'm not actually leaving the country but the project certainly is...a few of my wee envelopes are flying air mail...to where you say? 

I'm not telling you

..yet!

But here's a sneaking peek of what's to come...

 

  

As the recipient of these envelopes reads the blog (of course) I haven't uploaded any close up photo's for you all, as I don't want to ruin it for her, but as soon as I get word of their arrival I will upload some more photo's. For now, you can just about make out the wee envelopes in these pictures.

A wee glimpse of myself, my studio and my super fly shoes while I'm having a break after making the envelopes. ;)

 

 This is the front and back of the envelope I sent the wee envelopes off on their travels in, of course it's illustrated as well. I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I sent them in a plain envelope eh.

 

Like I said, you can't see the illustrations on the envelope's clearly because I don't want to ruin the surprise for the recipient...but these wee teasers should keep you interested.

Would you like to get involved too? 

Just send me an email or message me and I can send you some wee (little) decorated envelopes too.

As always folks, stay tuned for where these wee envelopes turn up...your gona love it I'm sure!

I'm excited, so you should be too! :)

A friend amongst the ice-cream

You've already seen the wee tortoise I left in the Kitchen section of B&Q, well I also left one of the wee guys in the freezer section of Asda. Here you can see him waving at all the passers by, I wonder if any of them picked him up...? 

 I originally was going to put him in the veggie food section of the freezer on account of me being a vegetarian but it was busy around there so I headed for my favourite ice-cream instead.

 

 When the door steamed up my bro' drew a smiley face on the inside and I thought that's perfect...I couldn't resist taking a photo of him waving out through the steamed up smiley face.

 

I'm not sure if the reflection takes away from it though, what do you think?

Been in the kitchen section of B&Q recentley...

So with the help of my lovely brother..who was my 'eyes' for this trip I wandered around the Kitchen Section of B&Q and tried not to get too distracted by all the 'soft close' drawers and cupboards while I tried to find a place for my newest tortoise envelope...

We eventually came accross a relitively hidden 'kitchen', that we also thought didn't look too bad...not quite my taste but not terrible...anyway I digress...It took me a wee while to find the right place for him as you can see...

....I tried by the sink...but something didn't feel quite right...

...so I thought on top of the workshop would be perfet...but he was a wee bit overshadowed by the massive red price signs behind him...

...at first I tried to put him in a cupboard but that was so terrible I didn't even take a photo and rescued the wee guy straight away! 

Thus he landed on the outside of the lovely red cupboard...he seems to like it up there...what do you think?

An illustrated reply..

I finally got around to sending this one...I feel terrible it took so long but I hope that the envelope will make up for the lateness. I was talking to this neighbour about people who look like their pets and considering that perhaps sometimes I look like my tortoise, as I have illustrated below... 

Except for the cup of coffee of course :)

Hallooo...

Well I had to give this wee guy a post all to himself, 'cos let's face it he just looks so cute in amongst the wooden spoons smiling out at everyone! :) Kind of makes you want one eh? Well you know what to do if you do want one or even two or three or...you get the idea. 

I went straight for kitchenware for this one seeing as I thought I had covered a lot of the other areas..I was just wandering around thinking I would leave him in the pans, that being the most obvious kitchenware, and I came across the wooden spoons! I thought they seemed a bit like a wooden spoon forest and all of their different shapes looked so interesting, so I shuffled him around a bit until it looked like he was waving out at everyone and stood back and thought: perfect! I love this wee guy...he's just so cuuute! I hope he makes whoever finds him smile as much as me.

Nova. Aberdeen

How strange an envelope..just sitting here..

Here are some more envelopes from my wanderings...

Boots, Aberdeen

I went straight for the make-up section and then because I like Soap and Glory (It smells amazing) and because it was quiet there at that point in time, I popped this big happy smiley waving envelope in amongst their lip balm. I think this one fitted perfectly here seeing as their cover images are all black and white and smiley too.

Bon Accord Centre Toilets, Aberdeen

Originally I was going to leave this one by the sinks, then common sense kicked in and I realised that it would probably get soaked before it was read if I left it there..I then tried putting it on the toilet roll holder, then I thought if I left it there it would probably get knocked off and disappear under the door or sides..finally I noticed these toilets have lids (duh) and where better to put it, it'll get seen straight away and more likely picked up then knocked off!

Schoolhill Bus stop (9), Aberdeen

I chose a bus stop for this one because on it are two clementines (with hello written on them) and I thought that clementines would be something you might see at a bus stop...

They're back and there's more of them...

It's probably no surprise by now..I've been out and about around town again, this time successfully distributing my envelopes in public places anonymously. This time no one noticed or tried to give any back..mission accomplished. As you may have noticed by now, I'm trying to leave them in lot's of different locations, partly so I can reach all sorts of people but also because it's more interesting. Here are some of today's envelopes:

 Hobbycraft, Aberdeen.

I thought seeing as this one was stitched on it would be most appropriate to leave it among the sewing materials :) I chose bright colourful threads because I love bright colours and I think bright colours make people happy and that's a huge part of this project.

 TK MAX, Aberdeen

 I really wanted to leave one among shoes - not really sure why- but shoe shops are always busy and usually quite small and the chance of being seen was way to high and that's when I thought of TK MAX...in saying that it was almost as difficult to do it there..especially as I got distracted by some really cool shoes!

R&B Music Store, Aberdeen

This last one is one of my favorites, I love this store if I still played any instruments (or get back to it) I would spend A LOT of time here. To be honest I really wanted to leave this one on a piano because I love pianos and can play them, unfortunately they were right in front of the counter so there was no way I could do it anonymously..ah well.

Amongst the popcorn...

Another one of my wee envelopes left amongs the popcorn in Blockbuster. I think a few people saw it while I was there but I didn't see anyone pick it up..hopefully soon though..

That is actually a photocopy of a card not a really a card stuck to the envelope...pretty good photocopy though eh?

To my readers...

I'm so sorry due to my rubbish blogger skills I didn't have my comments set as: 'available to all to comment', I have now fixed this and anyone can now comment. If you had previously tried to comment and found that you couldn't please please feel free to do so now. I would love to hear from you :)

Another UPDATE on sharing the love....

Well I've been at it again...leaving my envelopes out in the public domain, trying to get other people involved in the project...believe me trying to leave anonymous envelopes in public places is impossible! 

The Bonjour envelope; this one I created because to be honest I was getting fed up of writing Hi or Hello, however once made I realised that an envelope like this would need to be left in a relevant setting. I had the idea to leave an envelope in a lingerie department (I don't know why) and it occurred to me this would be the perfect one. Originally I wanted to leave it on a rail on the shop floor but there were too many shop assistants and members of the public around and I thought if someone saw me taking photo's of bra's I would probably be thrown out of the store. Thinking I might give up I browsed around and on spotting some bra's on sale I went to try them on, that's when I got the LIGHT-BULB..I would leave the envelope in the changing room. And here it is:

Unfortunately as i was paying the lovely shop assistant came running over with the envelope to see if I had left it behind. I didn't deny it but did ask her to put it back or keep it for herself, I told her to read the tag and do whichever she felt. Like I said trying to leave envelopes in pubic place anonymously is impossible!

 

 In saying that though this one I got away with! (Hurrah) This one was left in the travel section at Waterstones. As you can see it's a normal sized envelope because to be honest I have run out of mini ones! IN this case though I think it is a good thing as I left it on a bottom shelf, so a bigger envelope will be spotted faster! :)

If your reading this and you picked either of these up please get in contact, I would love to hear from you, whatever you have to say.

What did the Posties think...

Now that I think I am done personally sending things through the post it was decided that it would be a good idea to see what the good people of the Royal Mail thought of my 'decorated' envelopes. So I am leaving this stuck to my door for the Postie on todays round to find. (During the end of last year I left a note to the postie and they were lovely and left a wee reply, hopefully the same will happen again.)

(Of course, as always I have blanked out my name and address.)

 

I had to pop the envelope into a sandwich bag because it had been raining earlier and I didn't want it to get ruined.

It disappeared and the post came so I can assume The Postie got it YaY!

Watch this space to see if I get a reply!

Last but by no means least..

I think that this envelope may be the last of the one's I send out to my neighbours but don't fret I will be carrying on with my other envelopes that I am leaving around for the public to find. This project is by no means over. :)

About the envelope...I will put my hands up and say that this one wasn't quite from my head. I actually read it in an article about typography and handwriting but something about it has stuck with me ever since. Perhaps because it is so perfectly true, what could be considered our imperfections are what make us unique as human beings. :)

"Our imperfections are what make us Human"

Glowing in the dark

I have wanted to create this envelope for quite some time, ever since I found a glow-in-the-dark star all alone in my room really. It struck me then how as a child the glow in the dark stars (or sea creatures for me really) chased away the fears of the dark and how they held a kind of magic. Originally I thought this envelope would says something about chasing away the darkness but then I decided that could be taken the wrong way. In the end I decided on the wording you can see below and added a letter to better illustrate my point.

Like I said above i wanted to make sure this envelope could be taken in all the ways intended and above all in a positive light (excuse the pun)

Another 'finish this sentence'

This was another in-the-middle-of-the-night idea that had to be quickly written down and created the next day. I am in fact so pleased with this piece that I might make a slightly different but much bigger version of it. It follows the same format as the other 'finish this sentence' pieces, with the beginning of the sentence on the outside of the envelope and then a letter from myself with my answer on the inside. 

In the below letter I didn't literally write where home is for me but rather what it is and the feelings that make a place home for me. This is what I am considering putting on the outside of a bigger piece but I have the feeling there may be more to it, as I'm sure there is some things I missed! As you read it you may notice I sort of switch tenses, I did note this after i finished but decided to leave it as there was a reason for it. That reason being that some of the things exist in my life already and make my place home to me and others are things that exist elsewhere but I wish existed in my current climate. 

I'm really hoping this works as well as the 'In the morning I...' piece as this one gives me a lovely feeling just reading it and I'm the one that wrote it! Hopefully the recipient will feel the same and write back what make's home to them :)

Did you see that envelope in St Andrews...

A few days ago I was in St Andrews and i thought why not get this project further afield, so I took some of my wee envelopes with me. Unfortunately I only ended up leaving one behind...but here it is:

This one was left in the Botanic Gardens in St Andrews...in I think the fern room of the glass houses. It's on the side of a small stone bridge and if you look carefully in the background you can see the waterfall. I'm sorry about the picture quality as I did not take my camera with me I had to take these pictures on my phone.

As I said in  previous post if anyone is interested in doing this is their area and would like some wee envelopes to get them started then please do not hesitate to contact me!