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.

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. 

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?