Monthly Favourites // June 2019

Hello, there July!

Can you believe it’s already July? I’m so excited for the upcoming month, Summer is officially here! How long is it here to stay though? July brings with it a stream of exciting weekends, my July Favourites are sure to be packed and full. The countdown is officially on for the 2019 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, I am very excited for this, it’s the biggest event on my calendar each year.

Before heading into July, now is the perfect time to reflect on the previous month, I love doing this by sharing my Monthly Favourites with you! It’s time to reflect on what happened in June. Thankfully, I’m able to speak about a range of different things, a lot went on and I’m excited to share them with you today. There are even a couple of product Favourites, instead of just being all about the events.

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Beautiful Prints with Beauty and Bentley*

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Today I am going to be introducing you to Beauty and Bentley, an Etsy store for Digital Downloads, Beautiful Prints and Home Decor. Beauty and Bentley was born from a passion to build something of her own. The woman behind Beauty and Bentley is the lovely Emma Ferguson, she created this hustle to help inspire and motivate women to find their inner girl boss.

She now creates motivational art prints and planner printables to help women be positive and take simple steps to improve their lives! Emma has such a good mixture of Digital Downloads, from Zodiac Constellation to Hello Spring and Coffee Blog Sleep Repeat. I swear there is something for everyone and to brighten up their day. Beauty and Bentley is a way for Emma to be creative and offer something to others.

Emma recently reached out to review and receive some of her prints, I received three different ones, Don’t be like the rest, But First Coffee and Blogging in Progress. They’re all so pretty and great addition to any room! I need to add all three to the collection on my wall to remind me to be positive. They’re all very similar in style and work well together, they’re perfect to put into a frame and hang up in your blogging zone.

12 Days of Blogmas #9 // Small Business Gift Guide

This Christmas, why not visit a small business to purchase your gifts from, over the past couple of months I’ve brought from a couple of small businesses. There are so many good businesses out there that hopefully will allow you to shop for almost anyone. Also, I don’t know about you but I swear it leaves such a good feeling in yourself.

I always try to explore places such as Etsy to come across gifts, with a simple search you can uncover a variety of gifts. Just be careful you don’t spend the whole day searching, once you start, it’s very hard to stop. I have got lost in Etsy a couple of times, thankfully I do purchase a couple of things, maybe more than I should have.

Today, I wanted to share with you a couple of small businesses in this handy Small Business Gift Guide.

Star Wars Wax Melts, Scoopable Wax with Geeky Melts

I adore supporting small businesses, as described in my How to Support Small Businesses post one of the easiest ways to support is to blog about them. I recently received a couple of goodies from Geeky Melts, home of Geeky soy wax melts. I have been supporting Geeky Melts for a little while now, it’s been great to watch the store grow and add new products.

All of her products are handmade by herself, congratulations go out to her here as she does this around her two years old! People like this are just so inspiring nothing stops them from being creative and doing what they love. Geeky Melts is the brainchild of Laura, an all-around geek, zombie enthusiast and cat lady.

Geeky Melts are made from biodegradable soy wax and high-quality vegan fragrance oil. Only biodegradable glitter is used so the sparkles are guilt free. Most of Geeky Melts wax packaging is plastic free and compostable, and whenever possible Laura even reuses postal materials too.

How to support small businesses

Since being a blogger, I have discovered so many small businesses that beforehand I would have never found. Over time the internet has opened up some amazing business opportunities for a lot of people. Now having your own business is something anyone could do and not limited to people with degrees. I am a firm believer in supporting these businesses.

They’ve done something that I could only imagine doing and I love how strong they are. There are some great businesses out there but without people supporting them, they wouldn’t be able to continue. Being supportive is definitely a must with small businesses. Over the course of being a blogger, I have supported some great brands, including Dorkface, The Birdhouse Calligraphy and Juniper Daze Designs.

JABbox March 2018

I don’t know about you, but I love receiving subscription boxes, nothing is better than the excitement of opening a box to find different goodies. There’s a variety of different subscription boxes you can purchase, to suit any interest and passion. If you’ve been following An Ocean Glimmer since the beginning of this year, you’ll remember that I introduced you to JABbox from Just Add Blog.

What is JABbox I hear you ask?

JABbox is a monthly subscription service for bloggers. This service has been created to help your blog grow, each month you’ll receive 5-7 different digital items, straight to your inbox. What makes JABbox even better is that all the content has been created by fellow bloggers, photographers and creative minded people. There’s a wide variety of items you could receive, anything from stock photos, how-to guides and fonts to printables and planners.

JABbox January 2018

I have definitely missed talking about subscription boxes on An Ocean Glimmer, during 2017 I regularly received Infinity Crates, an entertainment and geek-filled box, but once I moved to Aylesbury and money became tight, I had to stop this monthly luxury. I was very lucky enough to receive the JABbox from Just Add Blog, a monthly subscription service for bloggers.

This service has been created to help your blog grow as each month you receive 5-7 different digital items, straight to your inbox. What makes JABbox even better is that all the content has been created by fellow bloggers, photographers and creative minded people. There’s a wide variety of items you could receive, anything from stock photos, how-to guides and fonts to printables and planners.

The Birdhouse Calligraphy

Etsy is one of those websites that you can find anything created by a very talented person, be it stickers for your journals, cute illustrations or even notebooks and other stationery. I adore shopping around all these different stores, they even make for some great presents for your loved ones. Recently I came across the Birdhouse Calligraphy after Louise was on the search for bloggers who adored handmade items. I always love promoting new stores so I jumped at the chance to collaborate with Louise.

After checking out her Etsy store, I fell in love with her work, it’s all so beautiful and even better than that, it’s all handmade by Louise! None of her work is digitalised, it is all handmade when she receives the order, which in my eyes is amazing! You’ll always know that you are receiving something that has been hand created by her own hands. Calligraphy is something that I’ve always loved! I would love to know how to do it and do it well at that, so I am even more impressed by what she does.

Juniper Daze Designs

There are so many different Etsy shops that you can browse for pretty much anything, notebooks, stickers, planner essentials, what ever you can think of, there maybe someone who creates it. Recently I came across Juniper Daze Designs, an Etsy shop created by Steph Whyte from Juniper Daze. I follow Steph on Twitter and I absolutely LOVE her blog, so I jumped at the chance to have a look at her shop.

Her shop isn’t even a month old yet, so it’s still pretty fresh! I know of a few bloggers who own a Etsy shop, which is pretty cool as I don’t think I could run a blog, shop and work part-time! Steph is quite a crafty person, so the idea to open a shop was quite easy, as she wanted to share this with the rest of the world. As well as creating a lot of DIY crafty pieces for her own wedding.

Artemis & Xena February 2017

Subscription Boxes are becoming more popular amongst everyone, as no matter what your interests are, I guarantee there will be a box out there for you. As you know, I am subscribed to Infinity Crates, a crate filled with entertainment goodness. I love receiving this every month, as I never know what I’m going to receive until I open it up.

I came across a new Subscription Box, Artemis & Xena, I immediately fell in love as I love the concept of the box. Ani founded Artemis & Xena after struggling with her mental well-being as a teenager and during the first year of University. A change of thinking and lifestyle helped her to get through her difficulties, therefore she wants to help other women who may be facing difficulties too using what helped her.