Saturday: I am totally on love with these French Vintage Butterflies, well actually I’m a little bit crazy about everything in the Love Paper Scissors shop.

Chelsie Sharp creates beautiful framed, paper miniature 3D art, which can be personalised.

Love Paper Scissors has some fabulous pieces which would make perfect gits for birthdays, births, christenings, weddings,anniversaries – well actually anytime you feel like giving someone something beautiful.

Friday: I was very excited during the week to get an email reminding me that the Taste of Sydney is on again on 10-13 March 2011 at Centennial Park. This was one of our favourite Sydney events in 2010 – lots of yummy food from Sydney restaurants – we highly recommend it!

Why don’t you check out the website and plan your visit or maybe buy that hard to shop for person in your life a ticket and crowns – see you there!

Thursday: so yesterday I was reading handmade spark because I follow @ejorpin on twitter and she tweeted about gift ideas for people that sew.

I’m a wannabe sewer – I recently bought myself a sewing machine and I plan to have some lessons soon. As soon as I saw this sewing kit I decided it would be my gift to self for this week – its very practical (and cute)!

Wednesday: Today I won two items from the Creative Collective Christmas Auction. This gorgeous dress donated by Nesian Kids and these beautiful prints donated by 74 Lime Lane.

Congratulations to the Creative Collective for raising $450 for the Starlight Foundation.

You should definitely check out the Creative Collective member’s stores – so many fabulous and original gifts for you to chose from:

• Be Lovely
• Epheriell Designs
• Wolf and Willow
• Paper and Ribbons
• One Craftee Mumma
• Gnome angel
• Ladybug Markets
• 74 Lime Lane

Tuesday: Last night I discovered KoolKitchen – the site is full of fabulous kitchenware and gifts. The two that caught my eye (and I have already ordered!) are:

These super cute babushka measuring cups – the 15 month old I hung out with on the weekend loves babushka dolls and she has her own shelf in the kitchen so she can ‘help’ mum when she is cooking. So I plan to send these measuring cups to her as a new addition to her shelf for christmas.

The manliest way to cut through the cheesiest, meatiest pizza, the Pizza Boss 3000 – this is going into D’s santa stocking along with the pizza book and stone that I wrote about in an earlier post.

Monday: I’ve just spent a lovely weekend with a friend that has a gorgeous 15 month old daughter. Yesterday morning the 15 month old tottered over to me and handed me a book to read to her. It was Todd Parr’s Grandma Book, but it had been personalised just for her – her grandma had stuck photos of the family on the characters and changed the story to fit with their family – it was such a great idea!

In Australia you can buy the Todd Parr range from the ABC shop.

This weeks theme is gifts to self – although of course the ideas below also making lovely gifts for others.

As I wrote in my first ever post, while I love thinking of and giving gifts to others – I’m certainly not a self sacrificing type. I also love giving myself little gifts! J

I think giving yourself little gifts is really important – they can lift your spirits when you are feeling down, spur you on to complete something, reward you for hard work…

Saturday: I freely admit I am a bit of a nerd – so this gift idea may not float everyone’s boat – but anyway here it goes…

As I’ve previously mentioned we moved to Sydney a little over 12 months ago. We moved into an apartment in Surry Hills and during my ‘lady of leisure’ time (ie. before I managed to find a job!) I spent a bit of time exploring the area. I loved walking down the fabulous streets and little lane ways and wanted to learn more about the history of Surry Hills, but every time I went to library the relevant books were out – ok, ‘bit’ of a nerd was probably an understatement.

ANYWAY, today I found quite by accident Chirstopher Keating’s Surry Hills: The City’s Backyard in Gleebooks. So I snapped it up as a gift to self! J

Ok – you might not be that interested in the history of your suburb, but I’m sure you have a ‘nerdy’ friend like me and some day you may need to buy that friend a house warming gift. A history of the suburb they have moved into or even a historical map of Sydney (yes, I also LOVE maps), may just float their boat!

By the way – has anyone else checked out the Grand Designs Australia yet? The second episode is set in Surry Hills – we just went for a little walk by the house this afternoon!

Friday: I am a big fan of quotable cards. I know they have been around for ages (since 1993 to be exact!), but I just really like them. For a couple of years I have just had these two favourite quotes on my fridge, but I recently added to my collection.

Over the last couple of months or so I have been trying some new things in my life. I have been working on finding the ‘creative me’ with the help of Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way. A crucial element of this process is the writing of morning pages every day. While I write my pages I now drink my morning tea in a mug with this quote

I have also been getting into yoga and I am trying to be more mindful in my daily life. To remind me to be more mindful during the day I have placed this card next to my computer. It helps when things are at risk of getting a little out of kilter…

Thursday: A theme within a theme today – champagne related gifts to self! Thanks to a post by Champagne Jayne last week I reacquainted myself with a picture that I coveted for my walls when I was a poor uni student. After seeing it again I quickly tracked it down online.

The other champagne related item I recently bought myself are two hollow stemmed crystal champagne glasses. I got them from a vintage shop on King Street, Newtown.

I think they are beautiful – when you pour the champagne, the hollow stem creates a continuous bubbling affect!

For those of you that like your champagne glass history: these glasses apparently date to the victorian era 1880-1915. The style was banned from public use for sanitary reasons because they were hard to clean and are no longer made.

Wednesday: I feel like a new woman this evening after just getting my hair cut and coloured – always a great present to self!

Tonight I also ‘gifted’ myself membership to the Moonlight Movie Club. Check out the 2010/11 program, which was released today. If you join the club before 31 December 2010, you get 5 tickets for the price of 4! As a member any more tickets you buy only cost $11.

I love nothing better than getting together some friends, a yummy picnic and wine and heading to Centennial Park for a movie under the stars!

Tuesday: So I found out about Books & Nooks a couple of weeks ago on twitter because a couple of people that I am following were going. I checked out the website and thought – A Life in Frocks at The Victoria Room – sounded like a fun way to spend a Sunday so I signed up. The book arrived a couple of days later – all wrapped up beautifully – like a present for me! Looking forward to Sunday, 21 November – I’ll keep you posted…

Monday: My next gift to myself – a winnie the pooh christopher robin quote handmade original print from Raw Letter Press.

I just came across this tonight and I love it!

I’m going to hang up it up in my new ‘creative space’ for inspiration and for those times when I just need a little reminder.

Now I just need to decide what colour….