Making it personal

  A person’s name is such an interesting thing. We all have one. Many of us share the same ones and others are totally unique and different. Some of us love our names (yours truly…not to sound braggy, but I do!) and some (it makes me sad to say) hate them. If you really don’t like your name, you can even have it legally changed. As a person who likes her name, I’ve always been drawn to things I could personalize. From pencils to beach towels, key chains to umbrellas, sweatshirts to underwear…seeing my name embroidered (or even painted) on something always makes me smile. Throughout history the monogram has been used to signify social standing, royalty, identity and allegiance. Though few of us have a dire need for this type of formal identification (not to alienate my three royal readers), it is still a fun way to personalize something which might otherwise be considered mundane.

There is a neat company out there providing some lovely products and all of them can be personalized. If you haven’t heard of ThirtyOne Gifts, you’re about to. I wasn’t familiar with ThirtyOne until Santa brought me some awesome personalized stationery a few years ago. There is nothing I love more than cute cards and envelopes and these had my name written all over them (yay, puns!). Apparently Santa (aka my mom) had gotten in touch with our sweet cousin Jan who is a ThirtyOne representative. Jan told me that she was attracted to the company because it is faith-based (the name comes from Proverbs 31) and was started by Cindy Monroe, a true southern belle who grew her business literally from the basement up. It all began in the basement of Cindy’s home near Chattanooga, TN and now the company has grown to include representatives across the nation.

{all adorable product images captured from Thirty-One website}

Besides stationery, ThirtyOne offers all sorts of precious bags, purses, backpacks and totes which you can personalize with fabric, lettering and colors. My favorite thing about the products is that you can choose from lots of different fonts and over 25 colors of thread. I’m not being paid to talk about this, I just think it is a neat company and I like the stuff. I can think of all sorts of occasions when a personalized gift would be just perfect. It is sort of nice to be able to get something either for yourself or a friend and know that it is unique to the person.

Remember how popular paint pens were in the 90s? When I joined my sorority in college, I paint-penned my letters on anything that wasn’t moving! ThirtyOne Gifts sort of takes me back to those days, except this stuff is much classier than that plastic laundry basket I painted way back when.