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Mr. Happy book bag and journal September 3, 2012

Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Holidays, Office, Smiley.
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4 comments

During our trip to Texas last week, my family gathered for a giant birthday party (Jennifer, I, and all three of my sister’s kids celebrate birthdays within a few weeks of each other). The party was mostly for the kiddos, but Uncle Smiley got presents, too! Including two awesome smiley gifts!

What more fitting gifts for a writer than a book bag and a journal to write in? And what more fitting gifts for a collector of smiley faces than Mr. Happy paraphernalia?

I loved the Mr. books when I was a kid — didn’t we all? — and I still get a huge kick out of these smiling shapes! Of course, technically, all the Mr. Men had smiley faces except Mr. Forgetful, Mr. Mean, Mr. Fussy, Mr. Grumble, Mr. Quiet, and Mr. Worry. So any one of those guys would have been a terrific gift. But when you think smiley faces, you have to start with Mr. Happy!

Thanks, Sara and Red and the kiddos! This was a terrific birthday present!

Greeting card December 2, 2010

Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Office, Smiley.
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Greeting card. From my personal collection.

There are plenty of cards out there with smiley faces on them, I know.  The smiley face is graphically simple, yet thanks to its vivid yellow (traditionally), it’s also dynamic.  That and its function as an icon of happiness makes it perfectly suited to greeting cards for almost any occasion.

But none of those are the reasons I posted this card today.  What makes this card special is the inside:

Greeting card (inside).

Back in August, I mentioned in my introductory post that my mother-in-law is the “enabler” of my smiley face addiction, to the occasional consternation of my wife.  This card, which is from my mother-in-law, accompanied a whole shipment of smiley face collectibles, and it belies my mother-in-law’s conspiracy to provide me with all the smiley-face gear the world is able to produce!

This week is my mother-in-law’s birthday, so this post is my way of saying thanks.

A note on punctuation: Yes, I noticed the missing apostrophe in “don’t”.  My mother-in-law is a teacher and a stickler for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  Seriously, the woman carries a rainbow of Sharpies in her purse so she can correct errors in signs, regardless of the color of the text (or the location of the sign, for that matter).  I sometimes suspect she’s the real author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.  So there’s no way this is her mistake–this is a printed card from the company that sent the gifts, so I’m 100% positive that she wrote out the message correctly and, in classic Cake Wrecks fashion, the company somehow omitted the apostrophe.  Just wanted to clarify that.