Tag Archives: Stickers

How to make Birthday Bags on a Budget

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How to make Birthday Bags on a Budget – it can be done!

My son recently had his birthday and a part of me was disheartened by the fact that I couldn’t afford to throw him a birthday party, one where his friends could come. We had family things going on all week but nothing with his school friends.

After talking to him about it one afternoon a week before his birthday, I asked him if he would like to do anything for his birthday on the day besides attend school, He said that he would like to share his favourite things with his school friends. I thought it was a lovely idea so we chatted about what sort of items he would include. After a lengthy conversation I decided we could do some birthday bags, and I hunted around for the best bargains. I was on a strict budget to I checked where things were on offer and started making a list.

So how do you make up a birthday bag?

You need either a birthday bag or a party bag, there are many varieties available online. You can get them usually with a handle so they are perfect for little hands to hold.
I also chose to buy the plastic cones because I didn’t want Oreos to break up and/or go stale in the bags. This worked perfectly to break things up into sections, the Edibles and the Toys.

How do you stick to your Budget and get the best value?

✩ Sabrina’s Top Tips ✩

There are several ways to stick to budget and also find the best deals, here are my tips.
1. Decide your budget and make a list of what you need to buy.
2. How many are you buying for? Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy 50 bags than 20, bare this in mind.
3. Watch out for “lowest price in 30 days” and other useful slogans on offers.
4. Compare supermarkets online before you go out to do the shopping.
5. Use supermarket offers if you have a discount card with them.
6. Visit budget stores and compare the items you have seen online.
7. Always read the online reviews and filter by most recent as well.
8. Bulk Buy – Depending on whether you can reuse an item in the future for something else or even sell the remainder of the items on, bulk buying can be beneficial. (For us the Oreo’s were cheaper to bulk buy and so were the party bags). My son will happily eat any leftover biscuits let me tell you.
9. Work out the maximum you would like to spend, divide that by how many you are buying for, let’s say it’s 20 children. So divide your budget by 20, and you will understand how much it will cost to do a bag per child. Once you’ve made some essential purchases work out what is remaining of your budget and only spend what you have left. It might be that you have to buy a massive bag of sweets and divide them by hand into little sweet bags like I did with the Oreo biscuits.

Think smarter with your money and not buying things simply for convenience.

Why did we choose the items?

Picking for a mixture of genders is always tricky, but I don’t know a child who doesn’t love stickers and sweets / chocolate biscuits. Oreo is the choice because my son has food allergies but luckily he can eat original Oreo. The cars were because they were pull-back and super cool but also a car is gender neutral in my eyes, same goes for the bouncy balls. I asked all the parents (or my son told me) what peoples favourite colours were, and then labelled the bags and added the toys in accordingly. If I had someone who loved Red they got a red tie on their biscuit cone and they got a red car and a red ball. I would’ve loved to have included bubbles too but they would have sent me over budget. You could swap the bouncy balls for bubbles if your child would prefer those.

What did we include in the final bags?

20 Pull Back Cars cost £7
35 Bouncy Balls cost £7
Stickers cost £2.00 (50 sheets)
Oreo Biscuits cost £4
22 Haribo Sweets (Individual Packets) cost £3
100 Sweet Plastic Cones cost £3
40 Happy Birthday Bags cost £4

I divided the stickers between the children’s bags and kept the rest for my own reward charts at home, meaning each sheet only cost me 4 pence. Bargain!

Total Spent: £30.00
Total of Children: 16
Cost per Child: £1.79

I don’t think this was too bad, 16 happy children for less than £30 (as we had leftovers) and it was much cheaper than throwing a birthday party. My son got to share his favourite items with his friends too!

We have also got left over bouncy balls, birthday bags, cone bags, 6 sweet bags and 4 cars. The leftover pieces we can use whenever we like or give away at other occasions.

At the end of the day you can’t put a price on a child’s happiness and my son was over the moon to help me give out these little bags of joy to all of his friends at school, so that they could all celebrate his happy birthday together.

Thank you for reading this blog post today, I hope you have found it interesting and perhaps got a few useful tips in case you ever decide to do bags for your child’s birthday or a birthday party.

I hope I see you here again soon!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Are You Looking for Personalised Stickers? Do you want High Quality and a Unique Style? Then you should consider Sticker Market UK

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“Sticker Market is an online custom sticker printing provider in the UK. We are a one-stop-shop for stickers, labels, postcards, business cards, magnets, swing tags and many more.”

This month I am collaborating with the UK business Sticker Market UK. I was approached by them due to my honest reviews and already having worked with many UK based businesses. Thank you for choosing and trusting me to give your business the shout out that it so definitely deserves.

I have been really looking forward to bringing you this blog post, I have had lots of fun designing, and then testing and photographing this particular unique product. As someone who likes to stay organised I am always using stickers, be it on my wall planner, journal, calendar, reward chart for my son (the list goes on), but to be able to design and have printed my very own sticker, now that was something I had never done before.

Sticker Market provides printing for your own custom designs and can print a wide range of sizes and shapes to suit your needs. I chose Circle stickers for my set, however Rectangle and Square are available too.

Some of the types of stickers available include Art Paper Stickers (in Gloss/Matte/Uncoated). Kraft Paper Stickers. Standard Vinyl Stickers. Bumper Stickers (available in PVC Gloss/PVC Matte/Transparent Gloss/Hologram).

Sticker Market pride themselves on offering Cheap Personalised Sticker Printing in the UK and offer competitive prices. They also do Business Cards.

What Did I Design and Why?

I have designed my own personal Sticker so that I can easily organise my sons school items, water bottle, lunch box, snack box etc. It’s so much faster than writing out a label and sticking it on, it’s neater and far more legible too! Plus my son chose stars on my design so he knows that it is “his” sticker. I have also used them around my home for items that only my son uses such as his nature pot which houses all the rocks we find on walks and days out. As well as his lunch items I labelled his tray that we use for school paperwork every week.

Stickers are a fun and easy way to keep things organised and in this case so that people know what item belongs to whom etc. I chose to use this collaboration for my sons benefit, but during the product photography I found myself dreaming up all sorts of ways you could utilise this type of product.

So my final design reads “This belongs to Arlo” and my son chose stars as a symbol to make it his own.

When I realised I was able to design my own sticker it took me a few hours to consider that I was better off designing one to make my life easier. And that’s why I chose to make one to label all of my sons belongings that will be heading to school with him in September!

It took me a couple of hours to nail the design that I wanted, and then another hour to knock it out on my Photoshop software – bearing in mind I had to Google how to do a few things because I only ever use the basic editing tools for my photography like the brightness! – but making my own sticker was lots of fun!

I showed my son the final product and he read his name out loud before giving me the thumbs up. It was a simple yet effective design that I hoped he would soon learn was just for his items. After emailing it in and receiving the final proof from Sticker Market, I was very happy to go ahead and they got to printing. The whole start to finish was slick and I was well informed of the progress right up to when they shipped the box out to me.

Products in Use and Product Testing

Once the stickers were in my possession I found it really useful that they were cut individually, and not in sheets. This saves so much time and also storage space by having them in a neat little stack this way. Sheets take up so much more room I think (and yes I’m a parent with many sticker sheets and reward charts!). The Sticker is printed Bright and Bold and Sharp. My Sticker design looked just like it did on my screen from when I created it, I was very happy.

Now the time had come to get peeling and get sticking!

I gathered all of the items that I wanted to place stickers on to, and began to photograph them as well as test out the stickers durability by handling the items the stickers were attached to. I was impressed with how sticky they were on the variety of surfaces that I chose to use them on.

As you can see in my photography the Stickers I created stand out on a variety of different coloured surfaces and I was happy with their overall look. I chose my background colour so that it would stand out against many things. Knowing the lunch boxes were all blue, I didn’t want anything that would get lost against their vibrant colour. People need to bear these things in mind when designing their own stickers and think, what am I going to use them on. You might also consider whether or not you will need waterproof stickers and other aspects too.

My Overall Opinion

From start to finish this collaboration has been smooth and the customer service has been excellent. During the design process every question that I had was answered and my needs met.
Delivery was fast and I was kept up to date with regards my stickers being printed and posted. I was also sent an email with a proof of what my sticker would be like which was an excellent feature.
The quality of the Art Stickers that I chose are excellent, they are sharp and the colour is bold, the text is easy to read and the sticker itself is printed smoothly, there are no definitive lines from the printing process. I would definitely use Sticker Market UK in the future if I wanted any stickers printing.

As I mentioned earlier I was imagining lots of ways these Stickers could be utilised in daily life, so here are nine ways I have come up with, in which you could use Sticker Market products.

1. Weddings – Personalised Stickers for Wedding Favour Bags or Gifts or even sealing Invitations
2. Birthday Party – Design your own Stickers for a special birthday party or for Party Invitations
3. School – Whether you’re a teacher or a parent you could design a personalised set of stickers for your child/children or for saying “Great Work” to your class.
4. Keeping Belongings in Check – you might have several children with similar items, by designing their own stickers that they can attach to various items, nobody will argue again over what is there’s.
5. Holiday – Going on Holiday? It’s a good idea to mark up personal items and stickers are a fast way to do just that.
6. Small Business – Do you send out products as a small business? You could get business cards or seal packaging with your own unique stickers printed by Sticker Market UK.
7. Journals / Planners – You could design yourself a motivational sticker “You’ve Got This” and stick them where you need extra motivation to achieve, you can design many possible combinations.
8. Calendars – Need Stickers with peoples names on OR activities such as Swimming or Music Lesson, to save time writing it all out you could use stickers to keep track of your busy schedule.
9. Work Space – People in the office always stealing your stapler or holepunch? Not anymore because you can get your name put on some unique stickers and then put them on everything.

My Product Testing Ratings

Overall Appearance When in Use 5✩
Overall Product Quality 5✩
Customer Service 5✩
Delivery 5✩

I have based these ratings over a week worth of product testing including the sticker holding in place while objects are used and handled. I am satisfied with the durability and overall look of the stickers and rate this service as a 5/5.

Where Can You Find Sticker Market UK

If you want to find out more and browse products and current prices for yourself then please visit any of the following links I have supplied below. The website is your first port of call, because you can see exactly what is currently trending and any offers available. You can also contact Sticker Market directly from the website for any queries you might have.

The Sticker Market UK Website is Available HERE
The Sticker Market UK Facebook Page HERE
The Sticker Market UK X (Twitter) Feed HERE
The Sticker Market UK Instagram Reel HERE

Below are some examples of the types and styles of Stickers available at Sticker Market UK.

Sticker Market Quote “Premium Experts in sticker printing with endless product labelling possibilities. Premium quality custom stickers at the cheapest price.”

How I Created This Review

I have been provided with a sample of Stickers in order to provide this Review. Product Testing and Honest Reviews are what I pride myself in giving my readers. Compared to other collaborations this blog post is slightly different, I was first asked to design the sticker that I wanted. That way it was more personal to me, as if I were an actual customer. So I did this, emailed it over and then this design was printed and sent out to me in order for me to test it. I got to keep the product (stickers) in exchange for this honest blog post and the product photography. The company outlined below contacted me directly for the purpose of this review.

Sticker Market, 8 St James’s Square, London, SW1Y 4JU.

Thank you for choosing to read Severn Wishes Blog today, I hope that you have found this review interesting and insightful. I certainly learned a lot more about the types of stickers that were available nowadays through exploring what Sticker Market UK had to offer.

I hope to see you again soon for my next product review, you never know what I might be asked to test next! How exciting!

Have a wonderful final few days of June 2022!

✩ Sabrina ✩

February 2022 Treatbox Reveal and Review

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Hello! Welcome to my Reveal and Review of the Treatbox UK February 2022 box!


As we all know the month of February is significant for Valentine’s Day, so I was expecting there to be a love or at least a heart theme this box. Zoe strives to make her Treatboxes about self care, self love and being kind to ourselves, so I feel this box might be poignant in that way too.

Shall we see what is inside?


What was inside the box?

As I open the box my eyes are met with a dark pink tissue paper, a chocolate heart has made its way out of the paper (cheeky!) during transit! The sticker reads “sealed with a hug” Aw thanks! And the February Calendar Print sits on top…

Treatbox February 2022 Calendar Print
Treatbox Original Tote Bag “Self Love Club”
Treatbox Original Keyring “Love Myself”
Bottle of bubble t Body Lotion in Peach
Heart Chocolate
Pair of Heart Socks
Treatbox Original Stickers Sheet
Treatbox Inspirational Card “Love Yourself Instead of…”
“You Are Limited Edition” Heart Biscuit


My Honest Opinion of the February 2022 box

I adore getting these socks! I never get tired of a new design because the quality is excellent, they wash and wear very well, and of course it would be hearts this month. A tasty delightful little chocolate and the heart shaped biscuit make up our edible treats this month, tasty!
I’m a big believer in less plastic and more reusable items so to see a tote bag this month is excellent.
A sweet key ring and a card that we can either choose to keep or to send on is a lovely gesture.
We of course have the calendar print which is useful, I have started to pin mine to my fridge door and write my evening meal plans on it.
Finally we have the original Treatbox sticker sheet which is super fun! And the bubble t body lotion which smells really nice.
I look forward to using or eating all of these fab items! Keep an eye on my Instagram to see regular Treatbox products in use!


Thank you for reading this Reveal post today, I hope you have enjoyed seeing what was inside.

Please pop by in early March to see the next Reveal and Review I do of Treatbox UK!

Have a lovely month and I hope I see you back here again soon.

✩ Sabrina ✩

Sabrina’s Kitchen Storage and Tidying Hacks and How to Make your own Labelled Storage Boxes

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✩ Sabrina’s Kitchen Storage and Tidying Hacks ✩

My blog post today is all about Kitchen Hacks for Tidying and Storage! I hope you are excited! I love helping people to get the most out of their homes!

Have you ever seen those awesome flat pack storage ideas? IKEA sell a load of them, but you can also get them from good homeware stores too. Well I have a few awesome life hacks for you for the kitchen, using this type of storage essential! They are normally designed for clothing but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them in other rooms.

For Example. I use a Sock Storage for the kitchen drawer! I use mine for my Tea Towels and cloths! You can also use this style of storage for your bedroom drawers for a variety of items, not just socks, but anything that is around that size.

I use a large coffee jar as a vase, and I also use a large coffee jar and its lid for cosmetic pad storage.

Just because an item used to have one purpose, does not mean you can’t then use it for something entirely different. I am always reusing items around my home to suit my needs at that moment in time. Let us take a look at some of my hacks now.

I use a sock organiser for tea towels in the kitchen drawer.

✩ Other Kitchen Hacks ✩

Reusing and Repurposing Glass Jars

An empty Herb Jar makes a great kitchen pen pot, stick 2 magnets on the back and it will be attachable to your fridge! I use mine for pens and fridge magnets!

Do you drink Coffee? Some large coffee jars are made of very sturdy and strong glass, not only that but they are often nice shapes too. You can reuse these as Pasta Jars, Vases for Flowers, Cosmetics Storage and so much more. Do you have a use I’ve not thought of that you love or already do at home? Please leave me a comment I would love to hear your ideas too.

Small Fat Jars from such things as Salsa, Jam, Apple Sauce and Chutney etc are a great size for when you make your own Chutney or Jam at home. If you don’t do a lot of cooking you could repurpose these jars as kitchen storage, one for loose buttons, elastic bands and the like. One could be for chewing gum and mints, or even sauce sachets and seasonings when you get spare from a takeaway say. Reusing glass is very economical, especially now that places have started to do “fill your own” with refillable food items.

Kitchen Storage Hacks – Labelled Boxes

So since I moved house I wanted to create some labelled storage boxes for my kitchen cupboards, but I was shocked to see online retailers offering just the labels at £2 plus each! Boxes that had names printed on for you started at around £15 a single box! Then you had to pay postage! Queue me putting my face in my hands… On a visit to B&M in my nearby town I saw a sheet with some lovely swirled writing silver stickers on which said Laundry, Cleaning, Cloths etc. I bought one for £2 and got inspired to make tidying up boxes to go under my sink. But I wanted to do the whole kitchen at this point too!


I looked at my budget which was £20 and I figured out that I needed at least 8 boxes for my cupboard, if not more. I shopped around and found some fantastic letters on Amazon, a pack of 8 alphabet stick on glittery letters that would only cost me £4 with free Prime delivery. Get in! Yes! I ordered them and then went on the hunt for boxes. Having purchased Curver and Wham boxes in the past and being happy with their quality, I thought I wanted something similar. I used google to find that Wham were the only ones who did solid sided boxes that came in a range of sizes.

Once I knew what I wanted I matched their size to the width of my cupboards and searched for who was doing them on any deals. I managed to get them for just £1 a box while they were on offer online, and although I ended up having to pay for delivery it arrived in two days and I had just what I needed. I ordered 8 boxes of one size, 4 White and 4 Grey. Then I ordered 3 larger White boxes for my “Laundry / Cleaning” cupboard. I only have my kitchen and no utility or storage area, so every inch of space matters a great deal to me.

It took me 3 hours to stick down all of the lettering on to my boxes, working out which colour went well on each box so it stood out, and carefully making sure they were also in a straight line across the boxes. Then it took another hour sorting my cupboard out and placing the corresponding products into their labelled boxes. Overall I am really happy with how it has turned out, and I saved myself a ton of money in the process!

BEFORE
AFTER

Here are my before and after pictures for my kitchen cupboard, I can now see exactly what I have got and also when I am running low on something. As a single mother on a strict budget each month I find it very important to be able to do this effectively, meaning I don’t waste time looking through things every week. By having these organised boxes I can simply look at what remains in each one when writing out my shopping list.

When I finally got all the boxes into place I had wished I had found the time to do this sooner. It has made my cleaning and shopping life ten times easier.

Wow! Don’t they look great! I’m really happy with how they turned out!

I purchased the Wham Boxes online and the Letter Stickers I found came from Amazon UK.

I give the Quality of the Wham Boxes 5 ✩ and would buy them again.

Thank you for reading this blog post today and I hope I have inspired you to make some changes for the better, in your own home. It’s easy when you know how! Any questions just pop me a comment and I will happily get back to you.

✩ Sabrina ✩

Owl and Brolly Wall Stickers Let Imagination Run Free with their Incredible Quality, Unique Style and Beautiful Watercolour Designs

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Owl and Brolly Stickers are Unique, Colourful and Imaginative

Hello Severn Wishes followers. Today I have the pleasure of bringing a special review to you all. Owl and Brolly is a company who specialise in Wall Stickers, mainly for children’s bedrooms and play rooms. I have known Sue at Owl and Brolly for several years now, we bonded through an Endometriosis group and found we had mutual things in common. When I found out she was an incredible artist and saw her beautiful work, I wanted to shout about her talent.


Sue knew that I had just moved house into a rental property, and I couldn’t take the chance of ruining the paintwork in my son’s bedroom. So the plan was to do some tester stickers, an hour, twenty four hours and finally seven days. And luckily for me there was nothing wrong with the paint and I tried the stickers on several walls just to make certain. I can guarantee that it is a good idea to do the Tester Sticker when you may not know the condition of the walls in your home.

Delightful Christmas Bear

This lovely Bear is for my son’s bedroom, he hasn’t given him a name just yet, ha, ha! But the quality of this sticker just amazed me. Not just the printing of the sticker itself but the design. Owl and Brolly stickers are all drawn and designed by hand. What a talented woman behind such a wonderful creative business.

What I love about the Owl and Brolly range is the creativity and the infinite imagination that stems from items like these stickers. Any child would be lucky to have some of them on their walls.

Here are some examples of the beautiful Wall Stickers Owl and Brolly currently offers. I will be providing links to social media and the website itself at the end of this article. Check out these incredible works of art!

I will now give you some background about the company and how it all came about. As a small British Business they are always looking for support from fellow UK citizens who appreciate all the talented people in this country, and especially now during the pandemic, it’s a great idea to think about purchasing locally for Christmas this year. Perhaps my blog post will inspire you to buy from Owl and Brolly.

Sue studied a HND in Natural History Illustration specialising in watercolour, she enjoyed a creative career until Endometriosis forced her to change her way of working. In order to move with the times she made the decision to become more of a digital based artist than making art with traditional paintings. Her drawings are incredibly detailed and she has a unique style.

It was after helping a start-up company with their designing that Sue went on to illustrate her own range of wall stickers for nursery walls and kids rooms. She began combining her own special watercolour techniques and using some digital media to create the sticker designs. It was a decision that brought out her artistic skills and she is doing what she loves every single day. It was at this time that she started her company, and Owl and Brolly was born.

The stickers are all printed on a high quality removable and reusable fabric wall sticker, rather than a single use PVC vinyl. This allows them to be used more than once and are easily removed (gently) and then repositioned. Sue has a passion for wanting to create illustrations that will help to inspire children’s imaginations. Her beautiful watercolour designs are not only highly detailed but they look unique. They are printed to such a high quality that they look good on any wall space and have already made so many children (and their parents) happy with the designs.

The Stickers are thin but excellent quality, printed onto removable and reusable fabric.


Please visit Sue over on Owl and Brolly to see all of the wonderful things that she has to offer. There are so many beautiful stickers on the website I couldn’t possibly show you all of them on here. You’ll have to pop over to the page or website and become even more inspired.

I highly recommend the customer service, the quality of the items and the overall finish of the products available. Sue will also work on special designs if you have something in mind, just send her a message on her social media and see if her commission’s books are currently open. She is working hard every day to accommodate people’s orders despite the pandemic and she is a very talented woman who deserves so much success.

You can find Owl and Brolly across these links below:

Owl and Brolly WEBSITE
Owl and Brolly FACEBOOK
Owl and Brolly INSTAGRAM


Thank you again to Sue for giving me the opportunity to review her wonderful products, I have thoroughly enjoyed this collaboration.

And thank you for visiting Severn Wishes today, I hope you have enjoyed this product review, thanks for reading.

✩ Sabrina ✩

December 2019 Treatbox Reveal

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Hello everyone!
Welcome to the December 2019 Treatbox Reveal and Review.

It’s time to open the Treatbox for the month and we know that this box shall have a partial Christmas theme or treat inside!

This box has a lovely festive red tissue paper wrapping all the lovely treats inside. I can smell something wonderful as I open the cardboard lid and find the calendar print…

… inside the December box I find…

Calendar Print December 2019
Heart Shaped “Merry Christmas” Hang-able Christmas Decoration
Desk Calendar for 2020
East of India Page of Beautiful Stickers
Sass & Belle Re-usable Fold-able Shopping Bag Christmas Pudding
Korean Beauty Radiant Skin Pearl Hydrogel Mask
Recipe Card for Chocolate Log
Festive Smelling Soap Slice – Snowberry – Vegan & Handmade

December 2019 Treatbox

Don’t forget you can follow my social media such as Instagram for more Treatbox photos and updates throughout the month including me using items! @SevernSabrina

My Honest Opinion

Overall this box is great! I love the Christmas themed items such as the recipe which is a great to my recipe box. The decoration is well made and the bag is useful to carry presents to give out during the festive season.
The stickers are of nice quality and I look forward to using them during the next year.
I am a little disappointed to receive yet another Korean Beauty item, because I haven’t had the time to try the last mask yet!
However the Calendar for a desk or table is excellent and I like to be organised and use this sort of thing.

Are you thinking of ordering a TreatBox for yourself or for a gift for someone?
Then you can find Treatbox subscriptions and build your own box at their website

Check out my previous Treatbox unboxing posts in this unique category of mine called ‘Treatbox’ it is specifically for these box reviews and reveals – Severn Wishes Treatbox.

Thank you for visiting Severn Wishes, I hope you enjoyed this Review. See you again soon. Have a great Festive Season!

✩ Sabrina ✩