Shopping for January Birthday Gifts - Snowdrops!

It can be tough having your birthday in January! And tough, too, for those who are racking their brains to think of a birthday present so soon after Christmas.

Not only is it the time when the credit card bills from our Christmas shopping start arriving but often a kind of 'gift-shopping fatigue' has set in, a reaction to all the frantic hunt for Christmas gifts. 

It's too easy to resort to rolling the Christmas and January Birthday gifts into one - sometimes a sensible solution but often disappointing for the person on the receiving end! Whatever we may say about not wanting a fuss on our birthdays, deep down most of us want to feel that our birthday is important, that our birthday is our special day.

So here are some ideas for making a January Birthday Girl - of any age! - feel very special!

Did you know that each month has a couple of flowers assigned to it - the Birth Month Flowers? You can read all about the Birth Month Flowers here:

 The Birth Month Flowers

For those of us who live in the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, the Snowdrop is probably the more familiar of the January Birth Month flowers - in winter and early spring, the only Carnations available would be hot-house grown. ('Snowflakes' grow better in the Southern Hemisphere - eg in Australia)

The tiny, pure white Snowdrop bells with their spiky green leaves are usually the first of the spring flowers to push their way up through the soil and open to let us know that winter is on its way out, even though there may well still be some freezing weather to follow. I have sometimes even spotted the first Snowdrops in my little garden while the snow is still on the ground! Sometimes Snowdrops don't even put in an appearance until February and certainly the poet who named them 'February Fair Maid' associated them with February. 

Snowdrop Quotation to Inspire You

(an earlier blog post about Snowdrops)

But, officially, the Snowdrop is the January Birth Month Flower - so I have created a collection of January Birthday Cards and Gifts that will show anyone with a January birthday that you have taken the trouble to find something really special for their birthday.

The 'Snowdrops' in my collection were originally silkscreen-printed, based on a drawing of a bunch of Snowdrops from my garden. Years later, I painted them again in watercolour and used the motif to make a repeating pattern as well as keeping the 'bunch' intact so that there's plenty of variety in my 'Snowdrops' collection.

The Birthday Cards in this collection are ready for you to personalize with your own message. And because the elements of some of them are presented as templates, they can easily be customized, as can most of the gifts. 

In many cases you can change the background colour and re-size the pattern or even rotate if for a totally different look! And the monograms and the 'shields' that enclose them, can all be removed if you prefer to leave the gift with just the pattern or floral motif. Playing around with the design elements is all part of the fun and is the way to make sure that your gift is truly unique!

Click on the image to see the full 'Snowdrops' collection  

Snowdrops January Birthday Cards and Gifts
by Posh & Painterly

If you've ever shopped at Zazzle, you'll be aware that the number of products on offer is constantly growing! Due to lack of space, I've only presented you with eighty "Snowdrop" products in this collection but if you'd like me to create a different "Snowdrop" gift, please contact me through my Posh & Painterly store and I'll normally have it ready for you in a couple of days, at no extra charge.

David Dimbleby,
chairman on BBC Question Time

Because my 'Snowdrops' collection features flowers, it is unashamedly focused on 'Gifts for Girls' (of all ages!). So what about the boys and men whose birthdays fall in January?

That's definitely more tricky, though I think we probably make false assumptions about flowery patterns when it comes to men - I've noticed that TV presenters and newsreaders often wear beautifully floral neck-ties and in the past, I've blogged about 'men and floral greeting cards' HERE.

'Snowdrops' Tie

So I've used my ever-growing stash of floral patterns to put together a collection of Floral Neckties - some may even appeal to the 'gals' as well as the 'guys'!

Click on the image to see the full 'Floral Ties' collection

Floral Patterned Neckties
by Posh & Painterly

And here's an article I came across with some useful tips on different ways to tie a tie -

Ways of tying a Neck-tie

However, gifts for the men and the boys can cause us females headaches for a variety of reasons and deserve a blog post all to themselves. 

So next time, I'll be focusing on some of the reasons that buying gifts for men, whether they're friends, relatives or colleagues, can be so perplexing - and offering some tips that I hope will make it easier.

I'll also be including a collection of Gifts or Cards for Men in nearly every subsequent blog post - so make sure you pop back often!

And in the meantime, if you have any particular gift-buying questions or tips - or even stories of a gift that went wrong, or a surprise gift that went down especially well! - we'd love to hear about them in the comments.

So till next time, good luck with your January Birthday gift-buying!

February Birth Month Flower - Violet

I’ve never much liked violets. 

I tend to prefer bright, colourful flowers like Pot Marigolds and Daffodils. By comparison, I always thought of violets as rather drab and dreary, too much leaf for such tiny flowers and anyway, purple is by no means my favourite colour, especially in the garden. I tend to think of Violet in particular as an 'old lady' colour . . . 

But I’ve noticed that when I draw flowers for painting or for making a pattern, it feels as if I get to know them. It’s almost like getting to know a person, like making a new friend.

And that’s exactly how it was with the violets I needed to paint for a new series of February Birth Month Flower Birthday Cards!

Violets, February Birthday Card for Cousin by poshandpainterly
 

In fact, even before I’d made the violets into a birthday card design, my enthusiasm had grown so much that I began to make ‘Violets’ repeating patterns and coordinates to create all sorts of pretty products for my Posh & Painterly store!

White Porcelain Teapot, Sweet Violets Pattern by poshandpainterly
   

I made my patterns using Photoshop and if you’re interested in how to do it, you’ll find some easy to follow instructions HERE, on some of my blogs from 2013. 

The main violet pattern was based on an ogee-shaped repeat, instructions in #4. But if you’re a newcomer to repeating patterns, you’ll probably benefit from starting with #1 and working your way through.


If you don’t have Photoshop, don’t despair! 

I made some of my best and most popular repeating patterns, such as this one, using paper, paint, scissors and sticky tape! 

Mock Orange and Weigelia Bone China Coffee Mug, Bone China Mugs by helikettle
 

I found the very clear instructions for making repeating patterns without a computer on another blog, Design Sponge .

Good luck with this - but just think carefully before you get into making repeating patterns - you may easily find yourself getting addicted like I am! 

Snowdrop Quotation to Inspire You

I love this quotation by 20th century American author, Anais Nin!

It fits so well with my belief that flowers, plants and anything that grows make the clearest metaphors for life and ‘what it’s all about’. 

I’ve never read any of Nin’s work so I don't know what sort of ‘blossoming’ she may be referring to. But that doesn't matter; there are innumerable ways in which we can all blossom – or alternatively, remain, painfully, tight in the bud!

Buskers take a very public risk!

So often fear prevents us taking the plunge, raising our heads above the parapet or however you choose to describe that moment when we show the world what we, uniquely, have to offer. 

For some of us it may be our upbringing that has held us back from being all that we know, deep down inside, that we are capable of being; or maybe it was something in our experiences at school. Or maybe we tried once before but met with failure or even ridicule.



But there comes a tipping point, when, as the quotation says, it becomes more painful to hold back than to take the risk. It has happened to me and I’m sure it will have happened to many others. Some will have been lucky enough to receive all the encouragement they needed. But even then, there were probably moments of self-doubt to overcome – few of us are totally self-confident.

Young busker in Abergavenny

Some will take the risk at an early age and live lives that are comfortably aligned with their true selves and their talents. Others, like me, take longer to be convinced that it’s worth the risk. We try all sorts of other things first, trying to avoid that fateful step from which there’s no going back, that blossoming, that ‘unfolding of our petals’. 

But it's never too late, as George Eliot wrote, to be what you might have been!

Are you one of those ‘on the brink’? Or do you know someone in that position, a friend or a relative you wish would just embrace their talents and, like the plucky little snowdrop, start to show the world what and who they truly are? 

The snowdrop doesn’t hold back from bringing beauty into our world and hope into our hearts, in spite of the worst that the winter weather can muster. 

So why do we?

Please feel free to download this A4 high-res sheet
if it will inspire you or someone you know!

 (Just click on it then right-click and 'Save as...')