The Book of Everyone

I was really excited to be asked to review The Book of Everyone. I decided to make one for my dad as a Christmas present...



The Book of Everyone make personalised books suitable as Birthday, Christmas, Valentine's, Mother's / Father's Day and general keepsake presents. As Christmas is almost upon us I went for the festive option. The turnaround time was great; I ordered on November 27th and my book arrived on December 5th. I'm so impressed with it. The print quality and binding are excellent, the customer service was brill, and the trivia included is genuinely interesting. My favourite is the fact that my dad shares 45% of his DNA with a brussel sprout. :)



The website is incredibly easy to use. You begin by filling in a short 'who's it for?' form with name, gender and date of birth details. Next you input who the book is from, and their relationship to the recipient. Then the fun part begins! The basic default settings are awesome - the design team has done a fantastic job - with pages telling you things like what the top TV show was in the year of their birth, and even the most popular type of facial hair. There are still loads of opportunities to put your own stamp on the book though. For some pages this might just mean picking from a selection of colours or backgrounds, like the page pictured above, while others give you the option to upload your own photographs and add your own text. On the page below you could change the headline, and add your own photo. I chose one of my dad back in his teens:



I love personalised gifts and highly recommend The Book of Everyone. If you want to get one of your own, the books come in digital (£7.50), soft cover (£19.50), hard cover (£29.50), or deluxe (£49.50) formats. The latter three options also include a free digital version which is a really nice touch.

November Wins

Another great month for comping! :)

☆ Japan Candy Box. Anthony and I had great fun trying this out! Click the link for my review.
☆ The Christmas Grande from hampergifts.co.uk. It has been my goal since I started comping over ten years ago to win an expensive hamper. I was so pleased I finally managed it. :)
☆ Naomi Nursing Dress from Tiffany Rose.
☆ 21 Days of Christmas from Goodreads.
☆ The Drowned Detective (Neil Jordan) from Goodreads.
☆ £50 Amazon voucher from theprizefinder.com. I actually won this months ago but I hadn't received it - I sent an email asking if it had been sent out and got an email voucher the next day. It pays to chase things up!
☆ Wow Toys Town Advent Calendar from Melanie's Fab Finds blog. This is so cute; I'm going to put it away for next year when Marianna will be able to appreciate it better.
☆ Purina dog food sample.

Pocky from the Japan Candy Box.

☆ Reole's 'What's Cookin?' album from the Mother Distracted blog.
☆ Strictly Between Us (Jane Fallon) from Goodreads.
☆ Millie Marotta's Tropical Wonderland from the Diary of the Evans Crittens blog.
☆ Sometime Like Apes (J.C. Denham) from Goodreads.
☆ The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep (Carol-Johann Forssen Ehrlin) from the 3 Princesses and 1 Dude blog.
☆ Inkless Print Kit from the Chelsea Mamma blog.
☆ Set of handmade felt tags from the Attachment Mummy blog. I've asked for them to be personalised with Marianna's name and can't wait for them to arrive.
☆ £20 credit for Cheerz prints from the Rock and Roll Pussycat blog.

I won an inkless print kit last year, and planned to use it on Christmas Day. Marianna decided to drag things out so we actually used it when she turned a month old. Now I've won another I can do it again for her first Christmas, after all! :)

☆ A Reaper of Stone (Mark Gelineau) from Goodreads.
☆ The Announcement (Michael J. Gadja) from Goodreads.
☆ The Message Therapist's Handbook (Micahel Alicia) from Goodreads.
☆ Mister Cleghorn's Seal (Judith Kerr) from ?
☆ Sanctuary Spa shower gel from their Facebook page.
☆ The Mermaids Singing (Val McDermid) from Goodreads.
☆ Dead Pretty (David Mark) from Goodreads.
☆ I'm Working On It In Therapy (Gary Trosclair) from Goodreads.
☆ Personalised Christmas stocking. I got it made with Bracken's name, and I'm going to fill it with doggy treats for her.


Through the blog I've also had the chance to hold a giveaway for a carbon monoxide alarm, and to create a Christmas book from thebookofeveryone.com. I'll be reviewing the latter as soon as it arrives.

Mini Mart: C'mon Dolly

Supplier: C'mon Dolly
Website: www.cmondolly.com
You can also find them on Etsy, Facebook, G+, Instagram, and Twitter. The owner also runs a children's clothing brand called Little Noli.

Reproduction 1st gen Licca on the small pure neemo body.

Products: C'mon Dolly is a fashion doll clothing brand, with its main focus on Blythe sized outfits. I bought a pair of galaxy print tights, a pair of gold leggings, and a pair of metallic blue leggings. I was also sent a pair of pink leggings as a free extra - how sweet is that! :) They were all really well made and great value too.

2nd gen Licca tries out the galaxy tights - this is the smallest pure neemo body and they're a bit big.

Post and Packing: I ordered through Etsy on November 3rd and paid their flat shipping rate of £2.03. My package was sent by first class mail and arrived at the beginning of this week. The packaging was so pretty I saved the cardboard insert for crafting with.

To Self-Host, or Not To Self-Host

That is the question!

I started this blog back in January and have been really getting into it, posting daily and suchlike, since August. Part of my reasoning for setting it up in the first place was it would help with my comping - it means I can enter all those 'write a blog post for x' competitions. Not that I've actually won any of those yet but, still, I live in hope. What I have had is the chance to host competitions for other people which has been exciting, enlightening, and, er, some other adjective which keeps up the alliteration.

But I want more of it - lots more!

The problem is that even as my stats have improved, my blogspot subdomain address has been a millstone around my neck. Lots of people rave about WordPress self-hosted, so I looked into the pros and cons of taking the plunge:

Pros - 

• Top level domain - and the professional perception which goes alongside it. 
• More control over appearance. You can tinker with every part of the code, use more advanced templates, and WordPress.org offers plenty of plugins which bypass the need for manual coding. 
• No or fewer restrictions on type of content, advertising, etc.
• Your content won't be removed without notice for contravening T&Cs.

Cons / Counter Arguments -

• The cost of hosting - any ongoing cost is not a cost I want.
• Blogger templates can be modified to do most things WordPress can do, without worrying about third party code and plugins screwing things up.
• Blogger doesn't stop you putting affiliate links on your blog.
• Going self-hosted isn't a fail safe way to keep your content safe, and you can easily back up your blog yourself for free.
• I like the traditional blog look as opposed to a website - I didn't grow up on LiveJournal for nothing. 

This exercise confirmed that I didn't want to go self-hosted for various reasons, primarily the cost side of it, and my own understanding of myself. The web is littered with blogs I was once just as passionate about, forever festering in the back-up engines of Livejournal and its long forgotten brethren. If I went self-hosted my fear is that when (not if) I get bored and can't be bothered to keep paying up, all my content would be lost from the net.

A tiny little screenshot I found on the web of a former blog of mine. Ah, nostalgia.
Then I heard about a halfway option. I could stay hosted with blogger and their user-friendly interface, but still have a shiny top-level domain address. This 'vanity url' is like slapping on a coat of fresh paint - everything is exactly the same underneath, it just looks better for the visitors. Even so I ummed and ahhhed over it for weeks, worrying that it would be a nightmare to implement and I'd just end up out of pocket for nothing.

Yesterday I finally took the plunge! I bought a custom domain name from 123-reg.co.uk and got my blogspot redirect all set up with help from the geekalicious blog. It took about ten minutes from start to finish, and cost under £10 for three years ownership of www.babiafi.co.uk. So far, so good!

Are you self-hosted, vanity url-ing, or happy with your subdomain?

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For more posts like this, click the picture below:

Mini Mart: The Dolls House Mall

Check out the tiny safety pins and hair grips on the dressing table!
Supplier: The Dolls House Mall
Website: www.thedollshousemall.com

Products: I've been coveting half the inventory of The Dolls House Mall for years - I just put off ordering from them because I knew I'd end up spending a fortune. I did. But it was totally worth it! Among other things, I bought hair grips and safety pins, buttons and elastic bands, necklaces, a remembrance day poppy and a razor with spare razor blades. I was so impressed with each and every item - they are very true to scale, even the cheese grater which I had imagined would be closer to 1/8, at least.

They even make miniscule paperclips!
I also bought a bunch of printed paper products because it's so difficult to find stuff which is clear and legible in smaller scales. I got a palmestry chart, medical diagrams, a fold-out map, and stamps. I tried out the personalised photo frame service too. You send them a jpg image and they create a miniature framed photo for you. I chose a picture of Marianna (of course) and it's absolutely adorable! The picture they used comes on a sheet of 4 individual prints, so they sent me the rest of the sheet which is really cool.

No room in this house, miniature or otherwise, is complete without a picture of Marianna...
Post and Packing: The website is really easy to use, and you can check out with Paypal which is always a plus. Second class postage was £3, and my order was sent out in a thin box, so it could fit through the letter box which is such a great idea for miniatures. One of the items I ordered (a little medal) was out of stock so I was refunded and sent a slightly different medal instead. Definitely can't quibble with that!

Mini Mart: Rabbit Engineering

Commodore PET 2001N.

Supplier: Rabbit Engineering
Website: Etsy store. Website. Facebook. Twitter.

Products: The store's slogan is 'doing retro right' and it's not just talk. They make tabletop arcade machines and, via the wonders of 3D printing, Rabbit Engineering also offers miniature games consoles, ranging from the Xbox 360 Slim to the Hewlett-Packard HP85. I was really excited to find someone making miniature UK consoles like the Sinclair and ended up ordering three items.

My photos show that the scale differs between items so you need to read the listings carefully and make your own calculations. They're not as detailed as, say, the Yujin mass produced 1/6 scale consoles, but for the price the quality is really good.

Nintendo Gameboy Colour - c. 1/4 scale.
Post and Packing: I ordered on September 16th and my order arrived today (manufacture time is listed as 8 - 9 weeks) in a bubble wrap envelope, with each piece in a zip lock bag with an information sheet about the release date / specs / etc of the computer. Postage cost me £6 from the USA.

ZX Spectrum with a copy of The Hobbit - pictured here with a Re-ment television and various pieces from the Yujin Nintendo History series.

Mini Mart: Odins Miniatures

The kids check out their sweetie haul - the mummy mask and the orange ghost tub are from Odins Miniatures.

Supplier: Odins Miniatures
Website: odinsminiatures.com

Products: I always love to find suppliers who sell something a little out of the usual, and Odins Miniatures certainly fits that description. I picked up some really cool seasonal pieces, including Halloween masks, boxed baubles, and an advent calendar.

Some more Halloween antics.

Post and Packing: Postage is calculated based on the size and weight of your order. The web ordering system was a bit awkward; I wasn't given a postage option and had to wait for them to get in touch with me so I could pay it directly via paypal. Once it was sorted my order arrived very quickly though.