A Few Updates and Birthday Craziness!

Hi all!  Just had a few things to share.  First, Barbara has claimed her prize and it is on its way in the mail.  Congrats!! :)

In other news, you've probably noticed that I've added a music playlist to my blog.  It was fun finding some of my favorite songs to share with you.  I'd love some feedback.  Do you enjoy it, or do you find it too distracting?  One nifty thing about Mixpod.com is that you create your playlist using Youtube videos.  Most of the songs I chose I tried to find high quality recordings, so I didn't go for the better videos.  However, I did add my favorite song from "Veer-Zaara":  "Lodi".  This one has a nice video.  So if you go to the bottom of my blog and listen to "Lodi" on my playlist, be sure to click the word "video" under the picture and you can watch it, too. :)  Sorry, I couldn't find one with English subtitles.  If you want to understand what they're saying, you can follow this Youtube link HERE.  Enjoy! :)

Things have been pretty crazy around here.  Tomorrow is my middle daughter's birthday party, so I've been frantically running around the house trying to get it ready.  Have I mentioned that I'm not the best at keeping my home pristine? :}  Between now and tomorrow at 2 pm, I need to clean the bathroom, clean off the flat surfaces in the kitchen, clear off the computer desk in the dining room, clean the girls' bedroom, sweep, mop, and dust.  Plus, I need to pick up a balloon at Dollar Tree (tomorrow), wrap a present, decorate for a party...okay, so maybe I'm just a teensy bit stressed, but I know it will all come together.  It always does. :}

To add to all of the craziness, my daughter got an ear infection at the beginning of the week.  She's on antibiotics, so her ears are feeling much better, but she still has a really bad cough and a stuffy nose.  In fact, all three of my daughters are coughing and sniffly ('tis the season), so I'm not sure how many moms are going to want to have their kids around my kids tomorrow.  Just pray that at least one or two are brave enough so that my daughter has at least a few friends there. 

I thought I'd give you just a little preview of tomorrow and showcase one of my favorite Bonanza.com sellers at the same time.  I have made purchases from Jessica at Factory Twenty 9 on Bonanza several times and couldn't be happier with her work.  She does phenomenal bottle cap necklaces and has the best prices on either Bonanza or Etsy for this type of item, hands down.  Not only that, her customer service is out of this world! :)

Jessica has done several of the necklaces I've used for my dolls, including Charlie's Buzz Lightyear necklace:

Hailey's "Tangled" necklace:

Claire's "Princess and the Frog" necklace:

and Emily's Sully necklace (shown here on Charlie...this was before Charlie informed me that her Pixar fave was Buzz):

When I was trying to find party favors for a Plum Pudding party (not a very easy job, let me tell you!), I contacted Jessica, wondering if she could find some images from the newer version of Strawberry Shortcake.  I'd looked through all of her items she had listed, and she only had the older version. 

That same day, she added several current Strawberry Shortcake and friends images that I could choose from.  She gave me several options on what type of necklace I could order, sold them for an excellent price, and even threw in some extra goodies for the birthday girl!  Thanks so much, Jess!  These party favors will make my daughter's party EXTRA special. :)

For the party favors, I ordered flattened bottle caps with ball and chain necklaces.  The flattened bottle caps are a little wider and not as poky as the regular ones.

Each necklace came wrapped in its own little gauzy bag.  The girls are going to love these! :)

This was the extra she included for my daughter.

It's a Plum Pudding magnetic necklace.

The "chain" is a stretchy material band attached to a washer. 

Each bottle cap has a strong magnet on the back.  Now, my daughter can have a necklace showcasing whichever of Strawberry Shortcake's friends she wishes. :)

Jessica offers several different options when you order from her.  You can do necklaces in these different designs (magnetic or ball and chain), or you can just order the bottle caps alone.  There are probably more options too...but these are the ones I'm familiar with.  What I did for my dolls was ordered the bottle caps by themselves, but asked Jessica to drill a small hole in them so that I could make my own doll-sized necklaces. 

Hope you guys enjoyed the birthday preview!  After this weekend, I'll post some pics of the party. :)