McGrath’s tavern opened on February 22nd 2009, on the eve of my best friend, Mark’s 21st birthday. Since a lot of us were already 21 we joined him for a round (or 2 or 3….) of drinks in the cozy downstairs bar. Mark’s cheeks turned rosy within the hour and we stayed up most of the night sharing memories, making new ones and laughing. His dad stood behind the bar mixing our poisons- wait, what you say? Mark’s dad was the bartender? Yes, indeed he was, but that’s because he’s also the owner and builder of the bar. It had been finished just in time for Mark’s birthday and proved to be an awesome birthday present from his parents.

Alright, so it might not have been the best idea for my friend Mark’s parents to give him a bar for his 21st birthday. A fully stocked bar-with no eye-popping, credit card-maxing bill at the end of the night. Even though it probably wasn’t the best idea, it still happened. Mark’s parents opened their basement bar on the eve of Mark’s 21st and if they would have charged for drinks they would have made back all the money it took to build it within the first weekend. That was a few years ago and thankfully, Mark survived the countless nights of living up the gift he got.

Now the bar has become his pride and joy-his baby, if you will. He won’t allow anyone else behind the counter and insists on making everyone’s drinks, no matter how many people are there. He dutifully scrubs the granite counter top, and hands each drink to a guest like he’s working for tips. The bar mirrors, and neon signs have added to the tavern ambiance Mark has tried to create, but it still feels like a basement bar rather than a cool tavern. It has all the regular ingredients a good bar should have, but it’s missing the one thing that could put it over the edge and into feeling like a real tavern.

Luckily, with personalized foil stamped napkins at Giftsin24m Mark can have the perfect variety of personalized napkins fit for what he wants. A true bar, with a pride in what it has to offer, it should be personalized. It should have a signature. With the foil stamped napkins Mark is getting, he’s also getting a signature. A little piece of something that transforms it from a bar in the basement to (almost) a tavern.

My cousin Chuck just celebrated his 50^th birthday.  While he was busy lamenting not being able to visit his family in Minnesota or Colorado for his birthday, they were busy planning the biggest surprise party of his life in Illinois.

His sister Margie asked my mom if they could throw the party at our house so he would be completely surprised. Despite the sudden shock of stress my mom got at the thought of planning a party from start to finish, she was comforted by my Margie’s reassurance that the personalized reminders would be taken care of.

Getting catering and prepping the house for about 35 guests was enough to keep my parents busy for a couple of weeks leading up to the party.  What the personalized notes were going to look like was the least of their worries.

The image of my mother opening the beautiful envelope containing the fold over note is one the of the most memorable parts of the whole ordeal.  She had just finished cleaning one of the bathrooms and was starting to crash from her cleaning mania when she saw the crisp ivory envelope sitting on the kitchen counter.  She opened it and I swear, my mother almost shed a tear.  After spending almost a full work week preparing the house she was moved to see that Margie had spent as much time carefully selecting and personalizing a note card.

She knew that everyone had gotten this gorgeous notes and was so grateful for the gesture from Margie.  Party invites can set the tone for a party that’s months away.  A phone call would not have match the amount of effort my parents put into throwing a successful surprise party, but this personalized fold over note certainly did.

The party was a huge success.  There were tears from the birthday boy and a whole evening of laughs, cake and fun.

Don’t forget the personalized notes and other stationery for your next party.  Giftsin24.com makes it easy to select the perfect product for your special occasion.

Lately I’ve been thinking more about the future.  My mind has been wandering from jobs to kids to apartments and everywhere else it could get into trouble.  All of this thinking about the future is exhausting.  Seemingly trivial decisions start to morph into headaches when you’re constantly thinking about what’s going to happen next.  Sometimes,  the future seems too abstract and I just want to relax and let whatever is meant to happen, happen.

The one concrete thing I’ve been thinking about (and actively changing) is my impact on the environment.  I’ll admit,  I haven’t completely given my life an eco makeover, I do still own and drive a car and my house doesn’t have solar panels,  but I have made some small steps to lessen my footprint.  I’ve started walking when I can instead of driving, recycling more, leaving the lights on less, all things that are simple and easy.

My new favorite good for the environment routine?  Buying Eco-friendly personalized stationery.  My friends and family always compliment me on the thank you notes, invitations and other special notes I send them and I’m really excited to transition all of my stationery needs to completely recycled papers.  Even my personal notes for leaving around the house are making the switch to eco-friendly.

Thanks to giftsin24.com I don’t have to sacrifice any of my favorites like monogrammed notes, or banner cards.  I can still send wonderful personalized notes, but now I can do it with the comfort that it’s all 100% recycled paper.  There’s no sacrificing quality either, the switch to eco-friendly notes was stress-free.  All of the eco-friendly stationery is triple thick and comes in a gorgeous sandstone brown color.

There’s always something easy that can be done to prepare and make the future better, my personal favorite comes from my love for sending personalized stationery.  I’m looking forward to getting my first batch of personalized eco-friendly notes out to my friends and family.  Maybe I can even convert a few of them.

This Chinese Proverb wasn’t uttered in a time when smart phones were taking over the world and yet they still hod as true (if not more) today. What can’t be shared in a phone call that can be shared in a personalized note?  A lot, actually.  Although most of my friends and family appreciate the time I spend writing a handwritten message on a personalized or embossed note, there are still some hold-outs who wonder why a simple call won’t suffice.

For one, a phone call can be made practically anytime and requires little to no preparation or thought.  Writing a note takes time and effort.  First there’s the act of picking out which personalized note works for you.  Is it embossed? Raised ink?  Monogram? Floral?  There is such a large collection to choose from that the decision truly speaks to you personality. Some of my friends think this part is the biggest pain, the time and money it takes to get personalized stationery.  With these friends I just showed them my secret: Giftsin24.com and they realized that personalized stationery can be affordable and fast if you know where to look.

Once you’ve personalized and finalized the stationery you have to ponder what to write. What you say in a note can’t be unsaid. While memories fade and conversations are incorrectly remembered, what’s written on a note is permanent. A note can be kept, and revisited, a phone call can’t.   Your words have to be carefully selected and crafted.  Even if you’re deciding to write simple thank you or happy birthday, how do you say it?  A letter on a personalized piece of stationery shows time and effort was put into whatever words rest on the page.

We’re all used to picking up the phone and in some cases merely hitting a button to connect with each other.  The art of writing personalized notes is becoming a true art, phone calls are for amateurs.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to convince the few hold-outs to order and send their own personalized stationery, but I have secretly witnessed some of them pull notes out of a special place to revisit the words scribbled on them, try that with a phone call.