Monday Giveaway - Lovestamp... wear the love!

Alright, nobody likes Mondays but I think I have such a great giveaway today that it cancels out the Mondayitis.

The lovely Jo from Jo Girls Journey has come to the Stepford Dreams party with the most wonderful giveaway.

Her store Love Stamp is your one stop shop for beautifully hand-stamped bespoke jewellery. Like this amazing CHERISH necklace that Jo is giving one lucky Stepford Dreams reader:

A gorgeous little sterling silver 1/2“ pendant. This pendant is hand stamped with any name or word of your choice in either large capitals (one word) or two to four smaller words in my small font (see photos).

This lovely little pendant has antiqued letters for definition, and is domed which makes the dangle sit beautifully inside it.

This pendant comes with either one Swarovski crystal or Swarovski pearl, in the colour of your choice. The one above is this little girl’s birthstone. A beautiful gift for someone extra special in your life or just spoil your self.

This necklace comes to you strung on either a 16” or 18” sterling silver ball chain.
Total value $50.00

To be in the running for this beautiful prize, check out Jo's gorgeous store and let me know what your favourite thing is and why. See? No hoops to jump through, easy as pie!

Jo has two stores, one for the Aussie & NZ folk and another for the OS shoppers, so no matter where you are you can wear the love! Just gorgeous.

I really love being able to feature the work of other mums who manage to juggle everything and do it so beautifully. Jo is a WAHM of two wee ones, Ruby-Star 7 & Hudson 3.

Lovestamp was created out of a desire make simple, lovely pieces that can be worn casually with your jeans and t-shirt or out for a night on the town with your little black dress. Jo endeavors to make each piece meaningful and special to each and every customer.

Jo's custom hand stamped jewellery can be imprinted with your children’s names, a special word or saying, dates, whatever you dream of really. Lovestamp continues to grow day by day because mums, nanas and friends have shared Jo's designs with each other while picking up the kids from school gate, sharing a coffee or standing in line at the supermarket.

The Invisible Gift

My husband and I have recently celebrated our two year wedding anniversary and we were chatting today about some of the funnier elements of weddings and we ended up talking about wedding gifts.



I'm sure you all have some funny gift tales to tell? Please post them here. I love hearing about strange wedding gifts. We had a bridal registry so the majority of our gifts were things we actually picked out so none of those were funny. Well maybe a few of them were but that was just because I chose them in a semiconscious state thanks to my pre-wedding diet.



The funniest gifts of all were the invisible gifts. Also known as the thin air gifts. Two lots of guests actually attended our wedding and didn't bring a gift, not even a card, not even a sticker, not even an email. For me, and the way I was raised, this was ghastly behaviour! See it isn't about what the gift was, it was the fact that these two groups of guests (who are actually pretty close friends of ours) didn't even have the manners to write a quick note saying congratulations.



When it comes to etiquette particularly with weddings and so on, I am very particular so as soon as we got back from our honeymoon I was fastidiously handwriting our thank you cards. Making sure I thanked each guest for their gift and I went into detail about how wonderful and thoughtful each item was- I made up a spreadsheet so that I wouldn't make any mistakes with who gave what.



When I finished my list I noticed we were short a few gifts. I began to panic, had the gifts been left at the reception? Had I attributed the wrong gifts to the wrong guests? What was I going to do? I must have messed up the list! I was ever so stressed about it. (yes, I know. I needed to get a life!) After some very George Costanza-ish moments I decided the thing to do was to thank these guests for something that didn't exist.



That way I figured they would reply and say "oh no I didn't give you the knife sharpener, I gave you the BBQ tongs". I thought it was such a clever plan. That way I'd get to the bottom of the mystery and I could thank people for the right gifts. It never really occurred to me that this particular investment banker who earned close to a million bucks a year could have attended our wedding without even a card.I was certain it was just a case of "mistaken gift" not invisible gift.

Well I sent out the thank you card. Dear Mr Big, thank you so much for sharing our special day. We cannot wait to use the stunning decanter, perhaps you will join us for dinner and a good drop of vino to christen it? Lots of Love, blah blah.

Well what do you know? Mr Big replies. I'd love to come for dinner, how is next Sunday? I'll bring Miss So & So my new girlfriend. P.s I didn't get you the decanter, actually I didn't get you a gift. I totally forgot, sorry!

So he came to dinner and there was no mention of the gift. The next time we saw Mr Big following the dinner at our home he actually picked us up in his car. I sat in the back next to a large box, beautifully gift wrapped. I assumed it must have been our gift. After dinner he dropped us home and I invited him in for coffee. he came in had his coffee and left. The gift wasn't for us.

Yep this is a totally true story. Strange, yes? Please share your wedding gift funnies with me!

One Stop Divorce Shop

My husband once told me that if I ever dared to decorate our home with any sort of Griffon-related art he'd be forced to divorce me!

Growing up with two dogs, a black Scottish Terrier and a white West Highland Terrier his mother filled their house with Scotty & Westie craft. Cross stitches, calendars, cushions, doormats, coatsers. you name it! So kitsch, so funny.

Anyway when we got our two little Griffon Bruxellois dogs (the cutest breed on earth. Go on I dare you to argue with me) I was enamoured with my little bearded canine children. I really wanted some Griffon things. So I had to settle for things I was banned from displaying in the house like an umbrella with Griffons on it, a mug that I took to work, a pair of PJs, a bumper sticker, a coaster that I hid in my study and the exception I was allowed to have on display only once a year? Christmas tree decorations. Shut up I can hear you all snickering through the computer.

My husband has been annoying me of late so I am really tempted to buy him this piece of "art" as his anniversary gift!!

It is only $35 on Etsy here:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_list_18&listing_id=22344892&ga_search_query=griffon&ga_search_type=tag_title&ga_page=&min=&max=&order==

We could hang it downstairs in the room known as 'the man cave'. It is meant to be our media room where he can mix tunes for his podcasts and watch football and yell at Hawthorn with the door shut. It would look so lovely on his desk there...

Alternatively I could get him this delightful apron. I can just see him with a Bitburger in one hand and some tongs in the other. Turning meat on the BBQ wearing this:

Available here for $18.99US http://gifts.cafepress.com/item/if-its-not-a-griffon-its-j-bbq-apron/49520690