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

:)