share a smile

a mahooosive orange box turned up at work for me while i was away; what a lovely surprise it was to arrive back to last tuesday, fresh from more than a week off, and holiday bluesing pretty bad. it was so big it couldn't sit at my desk, for real. wholly unnecessary considering the contents, but who doesn't love some novelty, oversized packaging? first things first: i did know the box was coming. well, sort of.

i was invited by getting personal to participate in a fun blogger swap about a month ago, but i have been so preoccupied with travel planning and preparing for mum's impending arrival, that it had totally slipped my mind. the idea was simple: choose some adorable and personalised items for your blogging bestie, and they (or someone else) in turn would do the same for you. you didn't know who your gift was coming from, but i knew who i wanted to send my parcel to. and, in a weird twist of fate not only did i choose katy to spoil, but funnily enough, she also chose me.

what's funnier still is how similarly our minds must work, as we essentially sent a lot of the same items to each other! dawww. my favourite of all the personalised items was for sure my "hashtag erica drinks coffee" mug, which also has my life's motto of "on wednesdays we wear pink" on the back. plus it's a coffee mug. plus it's pink. i mean, come on. no-one ever needs more mugs, but when they're that cute they bloody will enjoy them.

my next favourite comes in the form of the hilariously personalised notebook that reads "list of people i want to punch in the face" with my full name  at the bottom. i whipped that one out at work and it had my colleagues in fits of laughter (mainly because it truly is a standard threat of mine at work, that i'm going to punch someone in the face). can't get more personalised that that!

the other books she'd included were also great; i'd chosen "the drunk cookbook" for her, and she'd chosen "the hungover cookbook" for me, which just goes to show how well we actually do know each other's drinking habits - haha! and, the personalised diary is absolutely me to a tee - so far, everything had been spot on as far as gifting goes; girl done good!

the final gift in the box is bar far the sweetest. wholly not in keeping with the angry drunk theme, but certainly that of what katy knows to be the most important about me: i like coffee. the set of delicate espresso cups and saucers made me make that "dawwww" noise when i pulled them out of the box, and the light gold detail and pretty little birdy print had me gushing over them in seconds. the pastel blue is a total winner, as is the polka dot print on the saucers, and all in all, i can't believe how well katy did in choosing these items for me.

usually, i'm not a fan of these sorts of gifting sites; the ones where you can put your dog's face on your mobile phone case, or make a calendar of all your best selfies, or a key-ring of that awesome holiday you had as an anniversary gift. something about those sites feels a bit tacky and pointless, where as getting personal seems to have taken it up a notch by making the items you can personalise generally not-shit and actually stuff that people would want. this person, anyway.

there's an incredible range of stuff on site, and literally something for everyone. i say that, because it's true. there are categories like "for the foodie", "for the drinker", "for the mum", "for the whatever", as well as other, just as easy category pages. it took me aaaaages to nail down the items i wanted to choose for katy because there were just so many i thought she'd like. we all know she likes to giggle, but i wouldn't say she's traditionally easy to please. but, i hope i nailed the brief, and she loves what i sent her. i suppose she will let me know soon enough...

*the items were sent by the brand, but all opinions are my own*