Gifts for a... Science and Space geek...

subscribe

An ideal gift for someone into science and space is a magazine subscription, this way they can keep up to date with the latest geeky news. I would personally recommends BBC's Focus magazine and New Scientist magazine.

BBC Focus magazine is a British magazine that covers all aspects about science and technology, as well as regular celebrity features and interviews. It also features regular articles to correspond with the BBC television series. It is certainly the much cheaper option as it is issued monthly. You can chose between paying £16.00 direct debit every 6 months (giving you an annual saving of 32%) or paying for 12 months by credit card for £38.50 (but with this option you will only save 25%). Subscribing will also entitle you to free delivery for each magazine. And if you buy this magazine before the 31st December you will also earn your choice of a free gift; you can chose between the 'How To Grow A Planet' DVD or 'Why Does E=mc2?' plus 'The Quantum Universe' books by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. If your geeky boyfriend is also tech savvy (which I have no doubt he is), then the subscription also allows you free access to digital issues of the magazine through the iPad app. Just give them his email address when you subscribe and they will send him the details of how to register a digital account.

subscribe

New Scientist magazine reports, explores and interprets the results of human endeavour set in the context of society and culture. New Scientist is the much dearer option at £143 annually, but you can manage your payments by breaking it down into quarterly direct debit payments of £35.75. This will give you an annual saving of 24%. Also, as it is a weekly magazine, it will seem like one huge gift, or you could think about it as 52 little gifts - this will earn you a great deal of girlfriend brownie points!

forbidden planet, image from

A personal favourite gift of mine is a great little book called 'So you created a wormhole: The time travelers guide to time travel'. This book is hilarious! Humans from H. G. Wells to Albert Einstein to Bill & Ted have been fascinated by time travel, but in order to travel safely and effectively, newbie travelers need to know the dos and don’ts. Think of this as a handy little guide book of essential time traveling knowledge. This includes; choosing the right time machine, the complications of creating a time paradox and how to befriend a dinosaur and subsequently fight other dinosaurs with that dinosaur.

You can buy this book from Forbidden Plant.com for £9.99 (£7.99 and £2.00 postage and packing). I would highly recommend buying products from Forbidden Plant as they package their items extremely well. Or if you are lucky enough to have a Forbidden Plant locally, I would defiantly drop in. These shops are usually little treasure troves full of amazingly geeky goodness. Some stores include; London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Liverpool, Newcastle and Southampton.

lazy oaf

If you happen to live with your boyfriend, or if he has a pad of his own, you could buy him this cool moon bowl from lazy oaf. Made from melamine and at 35mm round it would look great on any boy's coffee table, or why not buy him a plate hanger and have him mount it on his wall? You can have this quirky center piece for £26.99; £23.00 and £3.99 postage and packing.

tesco direct

Or, if you really want to geek out his house, why not go the whole 9 yards with this outer space double duvet cover for only £10.97! It is even available in king size for just £12.97 - what a bargain! When you place an order with Tesco Direct, not only do you earn clubcard points, but you also have the option of collecting from your local Tesco store for free. Recently I discovered that you can also collect from your very local Tesco express stores. Our local store is at the end of our road, so you can imagine my joy when it came up as one of the store options - how convenient! The duvet set is machine washable and can be tumble dried.

Gifts for a... Train geek...

Did you know there are many different names for a train enthusiast? These include; railfan, rail buff, trainspotter, gricer, anorak, basher, metrophile and zeds. These rail enthusiast can also take on many forms with a range of interests. Some are more interested in steam locomotives, whilst others have a passion for diesel engines and some even have a particular interest in metro subway and underground systems. And their interest often span to much more than the trains themselves. These interest usually include; visiting disused lines, tunnels and stations, railroad photography, timetable collecting and railway restoration

I grew up in a family of train lovers and my own Dad is a model railway enthusiast. Not only does he have a model railway he has been hand building into our loft for the last 30 years, but he has also built another model railway which he exhibits all over the county with the Elizabethan Model Railway Society. If you, however, are new to the whole model train thing then there is one major piece of advice I can give you - never call it a 'train set', always call it a 'model railway'. Otherwise you may find yourself getting an ear full!

ebay

A great gift for any type of rail enthusiast are these replica customised British railway totem signs. I bought one of these signs from this same ebay seller last Christmas. As Dad is a model railway exhibitor, I thought it would be a nice idea as he could take it to display at his exhibitions. However, you could always buy it for someone to have on display in the garage, in his shed, in the garden, or somewhere in the house.

The great thing with these signs is that you can choose how you want to customise them. My Dad's sign read ANNSTON  (the name of his model railway) as the main text, then in the smaller writing at the top I wrote his name, and in the smaller writing at the bottom I wrote E.R.S (the initials of the society he exhibits with). They come as 305mm x 85mm (12 inches x 3.35 inches) and are avaiable in a range of colours. However, you must be careful when choosing your sign colour as you have to make a choice. You may not know that railway signs are colour coded to their region and, therefore, you have to decide whether to order a sign in their favourite colour, or choose a colour relevant to their region. I chose maroon as my Dad's railway is set in the Midlands. Don't worry, if you decide to buy a colour relation to a particular region, the colours and corresponding regions are clearly stated on the webpage. This sign will only set you back £13.95 (£11.95 and £2.00 postage and packing).

NRM

If your boyfriend travels a lot then maybe a wash bag would be the ideal gift for them. The National Railway Museum are selling this faux leather 'Flying Scotsman' wash bag for £24.95 (£20.00 and £4.95 delivery.

john lewis

Another option could be to buy him this enamel Hornby mug from John Lewis for £8. However, if, like me, you don't have a local John Lewis store you can always order it online for £11 (£8 and £3 postage and packing).

Gifts for a... Star Wars geek...

Star Wars is a hugely popular trilogy and is still, to this day, the number one selling brand of toys. However, as it has been around for so long it becomes difficult to buy something they haven't already seen or bought before.Well hopefully these ideas will help...

amazon image from

The first gift I would suggest is a hilarious comic style book called 'Darth Vader and Son'. Hopefully I'm not giving the ending anyway by saying that Darth Vader is actually Luke Skywalker's father. But what if Darth Vader took an active role in raising his son? What if "Luke, I am your father" was just a stern admonishment from an annoyed dad? In this adorable little book, Darth Vader is a dad like any other - except with all the baggage of being the Dark Lord of the Sith. Celebrated artist Jeffrey Brown's delightful illustrations give classic Star Wars moments a fresh twist, presenting the trials and joys of parenting through the lens of a galaxy far, far away. Life lessons include lightsaber batting practice, using the Force to raid the cookie jar and the special bond shared between any father and son.

amazon

From first glance 'Star Wars: a pop up guide to the galaxy' looks like just another Star Wars book, but believe me when I say that it's in a whole other league! Published in 2011 to celebrate the 30th anniversary, Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy is a pop-up extravaganza that takes readers on a 3-D, movable journey into the fantastic Star Wars universe. Each spread contains a variety of novelty features tonnes of pop-ups, side flaps and it even has working lightsabers!
You really have to see it to believe it.

forbidden planet

If your boyfriend likes Star Wars, but also happens to like Chinese food then maybe this is the gift for them. Forbidden Planet are selling these Darth Vader lightsaber chopsticks that actually light up! Unfortunately they aren't due for general release in stores until the 16th December, but you can pre-order them now online for £16.99 (£13.99 and £3.00 postage and packing). These are also available in Luke Skywalker's blue.

John Lewis

Or what about this Lego Darth Vader alarm clock from John Lewis. This clock stands at 23cm high and 14cm wide and batteries are included. The LCD also has a 12/24 hour display and a backlight to view the time at night, all for £19.99. Yoda and Stormstooper versions are also available.

Gifts for a... Batman geek...

The popularity of Batman has risen a tremendous amount in the last few years, no doubt due to the release of the recent Batman films; Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Therefore, as the latest film is due for release on the 3rd December, this would be an obvious gift choice. You have the choice to either wait and purchase it in stores, or you can pre-order from places such as play.com, which usually guarantee your item by the general release date. You can currently pre-order The Dark Knight Rises from play.com for £10 on DVD or £15 on blu-ray. Or if you looking to get him something he will really love, you could pre-order the Batman: Dark Knight Trilogy 5 disc DVD boxset for £23.00 or £25.50 on blu-ray from amazon.

Lazy Oaf are currently running an extremely popular range of Batman clothing for Men and Women. In fact, these clothes are so popular that it they are continuously running out of stock! But have no fear, they do re-stock regularly. And as I am focusing on boyfriends, I would recommend this Logo short sleeve shirt with a small pocket detail on the front. This is available for £68.99 (£65 and £3.99 postage and packing) in sizes S to XL.

Or, if you fancy buying him something a little less formal, you could buy him these Batman pyjama bottoms from ebay for £13.98 (£10.99 and £2.99 postage and packing). These are also available is sizes S to XL.

amazon

Or if you think he would be more interested in the comic books then I would defiantly recommend buying 'Batman: Year One'. It was written by Frank Miller, who also wrote 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns' and 'Sin City'. Lieutenant James Gordon takes up a new post in the crime-ridden and corrupt city of Gotham, while billionaire Bruce Wayne returns to the scene of his parents' deaths, intent on avenging their memory. Each faces trials and challenges of their own, only for their lives to become irrevocably and potentially tragically intertwined.

This 144 page deluxe edition comic is available from amazon for only £6.71 - the perfect stocking filler to finish off your Batman themed gifts.

This year my aim is to share a range of alternative Christmas gifts for those whom we are closest to but also find to be the hardest to buy for and I am going to start with 'the boyfriend'. If, like me, you have been with your partner for longer than you can remember, then this time of year can prove to be difficult. Yes we do admit that they do always need new socks (how do they get through so many pairs?!) But socks aside, what else is there? As my partner and I are particularly geeky, I would like to start the ball rolling with a week of geeky gift ideas for geeky boyfriends. Each day I will post a range of gifts to suit a particular type of geek, and where better to start than with everyone's favourite lovable geeks.

Gifts for a...Big Bang Geek...

play.com

Most people I know love The Big Bang Theory, in fact, I don't think a day goes by without one of us quoting from it. Therefore, my first gift choice would be to buy The Big Bang Theory series 1-5 boxset for £39.98 from play.com. Hours of entertainment for the both of you and something to help the January blues.

amazon

However, for the more dedicated Big Bang fans you could also buy Sheldon's famous folding shirt board for £8.38 (£5.89 and £2.49 postage and packing). This is the same as the one he uses on the series.

ebay

Remember Sheldon's famous rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock game? Well you can buy this graphic game t-shirt for £7.98 (£6.99 and 99p postage and packing) in a range of sizes and colours from ebay. And for all those Big Bang Geeks out there, just remember - scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and — as it always has — rock crushes scissors.

amazon

Or, if you really want to push the boat out, why not finish it all off with the Sheldon and Leonard's periodic table shower curtain for £28.98 (£26.99 and £1.99 postage and packaging) from amazon.

It seems like we spend all year building up to Christmas. An enormous amount of time and effort is spent saving and spending for this one special day, especially if you have children to buy for. But in my experience, kids are easy! Toys, cute clothes, sweets - sorted. So what do you buy everyone else? What do you buy the people you care about the most, but whom already own everything they could ever want? Racking our brains trying to think if anything but chocolate, socks and bubble bath.
Over the next few weeks I will be looking at alternative Christmas gifts to help you guys out.

I would like to wish a very happy 30th birthday to one of my closest and amazing friends; Liisa! As it is such a special age I wanted to make a huge effort, so for her birthday I decided to take advantage of my creative flare and create a custom embroidery. I bought the 10 inch embroidery hoop for £3.20 and the job lot of different coloured threads from eBay. My design will hopefully appeal to her taste for Scandinavian home wear.

Recently I have been baking a lot of Birthday gifts for my friends. I am really into baking and I have been experimenting a little recently to try and create something really special. The cake above was a vanilla sponge cake with multi-coloured layers, chocolate icing and home made mini bunting. You can easily make your own bunting with some twine, washi tape and wooden chopsticks!
Keep your eyes pealed for a tutorial in the near future.

I made these pink vanilla and blue chocolate cupcakes with co-ordinating icing and sugar as a gift to Lucy S when she went on maternity leave. If you are making something like this for a leaving party or baby shower you could make people choose the cupcake they think the baby would be. So choosing a pink cupcake if you think it's a girl, or blue for a boy. The pink cupcakes disappeared first and sure enough she had a gorgeous baby girl.

I made this chocolate and smarties cake for my friend Andy's birthday. This was made in the same way as above, so that it had a surprise of multi-coloured layers inside. The Dr Oetker birthday candles came in a pack from ASDA for £1.52.

You can also neatly package your cakes in these handy cupcake boxes. This idea not only makes them look more like a gift (especially if you add co-ordinating ribbon), but it also makes them much easier to transport. These boxes can hold 1, 2, 4 or 6 cupcakes and come in a wide range of colours and patterns. You can buy them from a wide variety of locations - I even saw some in Home Bargains the other day! I bought this box from ebay for £12.99 for a pack of 10 boxes and free delivery. This works out at about £1.29 per box.

This is the first giant cupcake I ever baked; chocolate sponge and chocolate frosting with multi-coloured sprinkles. For an extra detail I pinned a ribbon and a bow around the base to cover up the join. Just don't forget to take the pins out before you cut the cake!

And this is the most recent of my baked gifts - a giant marbled chocolate and vanilla sponge cupcake with pink vanilla icing, sprinkled pink sugar and swirls of pink and white sugar balls, home made mini bunting and a number 6 sparkler instead of candles. Then, to finish it off I wrapped the base in wrapping paper and pinned a ribbon and bow around to hold it all in place. Handy tip: wrap cling film around the base of the cake before you wrap your paper around. This will ensure there are no grease marks soaking through from the sponge onto your paper.

Christmas is fast approaching, and with money seeming tighter than ever, I know a lot of my friends and family will be getting hand made gifts this year. But the great thing about hand made gifts, especially if made in bulk, is that the overall cost is a lot lower but the sentiment is much higher! Brownie points all round (brownies you can now afford with all the money you have saved!)

Now, I'm very stubborn when it comes to music; I tend to listen to the same old songs and rarely allow anything new onto my ipod. My friends, however, are really into their music and have extremely varied tastes. Therefore, this Christmas I will be asking my friends for mixed CDs. This type of gift is not only cheap, it can also be a thoughtful token of your friendship, especially if you've known each other for years.

So, if you decide to give some mixed CDs this Christmas, here are a few nice ways to personalise them...

This CD case was handmade by my friend Charlie, for his super gorgeous girlfriend Amy Hill. I love that he has given the CD it's own title, and the fact that it opens like a record sleeve is genius!

But Honestly...em blog

Or how about this little beut? The devil is in the detail here. Notice the songs are marked by triangles instead of numbers and it comes with it's own little string of bunting - adorable!

rock my wedding

Or make your own paper case with this handy step by step guide.

Today is the 25th birthday of the fabulous Nicole. As she is a very creative lady I decided to buy her a selection of postcards designed by a range of different illustrators and a stylish Sanna Annukka notebook from nineteenseventythree.com

However, if you don't fancy shopping for postcards online, many high street shops sell different styles of postcards to suit every birthday girl.

If you do decide to buy a gift set like this, you always have the option of framing one or more of the postcards to turn it into a gift for a new home.

Mid 20s are scary! Firstly, it's only a few short years away from 30. Secondly, we are finally at that age where it is actually feasible to do all the things we've always dreamed about; getting jobs, buying a house, getting married, having babies - and it's terrifying! But, whether these things are happening to us or our friends and family, they are life changing moments.

Photograph taken by Meredith at one sheepish girl blog

Well my bestist northern friend, Emma, is making a big deal about turning 25, and I don't blame her! But she has a big heart and loves her even bigger family. So for her 25th birthday I chose to buy her a 'one line a day' memory journal from Amazon. This is a 5 year journal to record all of the amazing things she is going to do in the next half of a decade (and knowing Ems, there will be a lot!) Also, I hope that this will be something amazing for her to look back on her 30th birthday and re-live all of those life changing moments.

I also bought her an apple scented candle from IKEA; I bought her one for her birthday last year and she loved it so much she's never been without one since! I also got her a couple of little magnetic frames for her desk and drew some little illustrations to go in them.

Love you Ems xx

We all decided to go out for lunch and give Jenna her birthday gifts! A bunch of us chipped in and bought her a special edition lomography camera and film for her to enjoy while she's on holiday. The camera is wrapped in various deck chair fabrics, with the cloth cut from a different angle each time, so you can be sure that the camera is one-of-a-kind. This camera offers a wide angle lens, multiple exposures and easy to use focusing. It also takes ordinary 35mm film that you can pick up and develop in your local store.

I also bought her a child's sized Disney princess mug. It's horrendous quality but its part of a little in joke we have to do with ASDA, a bargain isle and a teenage girl in distress.

Happy Birthday Jen!

They say 'the best things in life are free', but it seems a bit tight not to spend anything on your friends' birthdays! But you don't have to spend much to give someone a really special gift. These cakes and cookies were given to me for my birthday by the fabulous Anisha and Nicole. Not only were they packaged beautifully but they were mouth watering-ly delicious!

These are the chocolate cupcakes (Hummingbird Bakery recipe) and brownie based cheesecake (Blissful Brownies recipe) I made for my parents for their birthdays.

And this is me having a great time using the giant cake cookie mold Lucy H bought me for my birthday!

But it doesn't always have to be sweet treats! One of my favourite gifts this year was a lovely long letter from my friend Krystin Dean, who lives in Georgia, U.S.A. We haven't spoken for a few months and I was very excited to see this little letter drop out of my post box.

I was literally showered with gifts for my birthday! My awesome friends from the studio gave me a range of beautiful and quirky gifts better than I could have ever dreamed of! So here they are...

The lovely Lucy S bought me this adorable little notebook by illustrator Debbie Greenaway. Debbie graduated in the summer of 2008 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration. Since then she has continued to keep a daily sketchbook using observational work and developing them into limited editon prints on fabric, paper and ceramics. This gorgeous little 'bird and feather' illustration has been screen-printed onto a Moleskine plain journal.

My friend Liisa got me this great tote with my initial and Paperchase notebook. The tote was bought from Selfridges but designed by Alphabetbags.com. Alphabet Bags is an accessories brand creating lovely items with an emphasis on simple, bold and cheerful designs. Alphabet Bags started out with the simple alphabet tote pictured above, available in every letter from A to Z. Now, however, they sell a whole range of apparel including initial coin purses (previously sold in Topshop), colourful summer themed totes and wash bags. They also run a sister site called Keep Calm Gallery; a stylish site that sells beautifully designed prints, post cards and tea towels.

Meg, indulging my quirky side, got me these great trinkets; a gorgeous bow headband with an vintage style deer print, a panda coin purse from new look and this awesome cat pen from Octopus in the Queens arcade in Leeds city centre.

 

My sexy, feline loving friend Lucy got me this giant cookie cake mould (as I love to bake on the weekends) and this brilliantly quirky face ring from Topshop (which is really great as I'm really into bold rings at the minute).

Jenna & Abbi G had the same great thought of buying me something nautical. The earrings Abbi bought are from a little treasure trove in Leeds called Culture Vulture. This little shop has everything from cards and gifts, to hair dye and fancy dress costumes!

And the stunning make up bag from Jenna is not only a perfect gift for me, as I spend a lot of time travelling back and forth from the North to the Midlands, but also because I love the bold print and attention to detail on the embroidery on the inside of the bag.

And last, but my no means least, my bestist northern friend, Emma, bought me this lovely rabbit top which features 3 of my favourite things - rabbits, glasses and cupcakes! I also received this tiny teapot necklace which has been handmade by jeweller and clothing designer, chung-rowe. This great gift will be a constant reminder of our friendship - as it is mainly based on drinking tea!

Thank you guys!