It is with a bit of a heavy heart that I have decided it is time to shut down The Smile Collective.

I started this little venture a tick over two years ago and had some big dreams for it! It was a real passion project for me as it combined my two great creative loves – writing and design. So I am a bit sad at my decision but in the end, it is the right one. Unfortunately The Smile Collective needs my full-time attention but it is not getting it. I have quite a large writing load at the moment and my hubby needs my help running our design business. Oh and of course there is the small matter of a little baby girl due to arrive in early April!

So where to from here?

Well I have a frightening amount of stock sitting in the Smile office which means we are having

A VERY BIG SALE {click here}

over at the Smile Online Shop. Everything is less than half price and there is fixed price shipping as well. (Unfortunately we can’t ship outside of Australia for this sale – long story).

Once the sale is over you will still be able to purchase certain prints via Café Press which is a print on demand website. And you will also be able to purchase a digital package containing all the other manifestos.

In the meantime, you can still find me blogging over at kellyexeter.com.au and I doubt my manifesto writing days are over so please come and see me over there … or on facebook.

Finally, I’d just like to take this chance to thank you all for your wonderful love and support over the last two years. It has been a really fun ride and who knows, one day I might find myself with the time resources to start back up again

Kelly

Well we’ve heard your cries and we’ve created this beautiful pack of sixteen printables especially for those hard to buy for people in YOUR life! There is a print in this pack for everyone and all you need to do is print off the appropriate one, pop it in an 8×10 frame (which you can get anywhere) and voila! Christmas is sorted and you have created a unique and meaningful gift as well.

A Manifesto for a Simple Life is hands down our most downloaded print to date and it’s been included in this pack!

If you want to get your hands on this special pack (it is only $12.99!), just head to our store here.

And click through the images below to see exactly which printables are in the pack!

[View with PicLens]

So when Catherine from Cup of Tea and Blog came up with her very own manifesto a little while ago, I thought immediately of my in-laws and thought ‘hey, there must be a TONNE of tea lovers out there, time to share with the Smile crew’.

So here is is – a collaboration between Catherine and myself – we bring you ‘A Manifesto for Tea Lovers’. As always – click on the image below to download a pdf of the manifesto

Mrs Woog’s parenting posts are not just funny and educational, they are also inspirational. I particularly love the way she embraces her son Jack’s love of ballet and all things sparkly and pink. It is clear that Jack has grown into a wonderfully self-assured showman and I love reading about his exploits. Jack was also born deaf and has benefited hugely from the work done at The Shepherd Centre in NSW.

Which makes the timing of this post very perfect as tomorrow (Friday October 19th) is Loud Shirt Day, with all proceeds going to The Shepherd Centre. I know Mrs Woog and Jack would be ever so grateful if you not only wore a VERY LOUD SHIRT tomorrow, but also made a donation to The Shepherd Centre.

In the mean time the below manifesto was inspired by Mrs Woog’s wonderful e-book which is totally worth every bit of the measly $5 she charges for it! Click on the image to the right to buy it.

And as always, if you would like to download a copy of the manifesto below, simply click and a pdf will open up

As always, click on the image below to download the free printable.

And that’s when my friend said something very wise – she said “new passions flourish in clear air”. Meaning if you free up space in your life, it makes room for your passions to come forward and find their place. And when you do, it doesn’t matter that life is busy, because you’re loving it!

And that is where this week’s manifesto comes from. As always, click on the below to download

Luckily, about 18 months after his retirement we (his children) quickly produced three new grandchildren for him. Dad already had six grandkids but they were all grown up so this second wave came along at just the right time to give him a new lease on life. My dad is the absolute #1 in all our kids’ worlds. Time is now on his side and he will spend hours patiently playing with them, taking them to the park or watching their favourite program with them. When he is around, they don’t want anyone else – not even us, their parents!

I love the special relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren and the grandfather relationship in particular is a really sweet one. I think a lot of men from my dad’s era didn’t get a heap of time to spend with their kids when they were small which is why the love the time they have with their grandkids. They also love the fact that they can spoil the beejezus out of their grandkids in a way they couldn’t do with their own kids.

I hope you guys like A Manifesto for Grandfathers. The lovely Denyse again helped me with it and it combines her husband’s suggestions with the things I loved about my own Grampas as well as my dad.

While we’re talking about Denyse, some of you may have noticed that I recently shared on Facebook a gorgeous little project that Denyse’s granddaughter conceived. Sophie has created a beautiful little e-book that she is selling for the humble price of $1.99 with all proceeds going to World Vision. I have my copy and would love it if the Smile community got behind Sophie as well! Simply go to Denyse’s website, scroll down till you see the e-book image in the sidebar and then click ‘buy now’. Easy peasy!

In the meantime – I hope you all enjoy A Manifesto for Grandmothers as much as I enjoyed writing it!

That’s the sound of me getting this week’s manifesto into this week by the skin of my teeth! Phew – I am still on track with my goal of creating a manifesto a week for the rest of the year though and that is a very cool thing (Denyse, if you are reading this – grandmother’s manifesto … next week … for sure!!)

I think the below manifesto is pretty self explanatory but if you want to read more about the thinking behind it, check out my Coping with Jane column this week. It’s short and sweet and one I am quite proud of As always, if you want to download a pdf of the below – simply click on the image.

Well I am thrilled to announce that something I have been working on with a very clever friend of mine launched on Friday. It is a cool new site for women who can’t help but want it all (which is women like me really) and to celebrate I turned the ‘About’ page I wrote for the site into a manifesto because I thought it worked really well!

I am the contributing editor for the site and my (gulp) first weekly column went up today. If you want to read more about Jane and the thinking behind the site, check out the interview I did with her on my personal blog.

In the meantime, if the words below resonate with you, head on over to Coping with Jane, a website created especially for YOU!