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Happy Halloween to all our readers and customers.  We hope you have a ghoulish and spooky time.  Our daughter is going to be dressed as Hermione from her fav Harry Potter books.  We’re also going to attempt to carve a pumpkin - not the easiest of tasks.  I remember when spooning out the pumpkin and putting a candle in it was enough, but now there are all sorts of weird and wonderful carvings that you can do.  And they can be done easily…..according to this web site that I came across.   It seems all you really need is a pumpkin, spoon, knife and some imagination - just follow the guide.

Have a great time and remember to keep pets indoors tonight to keep them safe.

One thing that we love about the new Wish clothing that will arrive “any day now” is that most of the outfits that are made to fit your American Girl Doll come with little extras that, amazingly, don’t seem to add to the price.  All of the little purses are our favorite!  Now personally I am not a purse person.  I never felt the need to have a different purse with every outfit - I just buy one and use it until it wears out.  But I feel differently about dolls.  The accessories are always my favorite, so a purse that matched every doll outfit would make me very, very happy. 

With this fun little craft we found you can afford to do just that and make a purse for every American Girl Doll Outfit.  The craft is easy, fun, inexpensive, and best of all, will stir your daughter’s creativity.  Any color any trim.  Emily wants a satin pink one with a row of sparkly sequins.  No problem.

Of course we do offer some very cute purses on Emily Rose that would make great stocking stuffers.  The designer purses are our favorite but we also have a bronze shoulder bag, a silver shoulder bag and more just visit our fashion accessories section.

 
Considering the current state of the economy we have started to think very seriously about the best way to save money on Holiday shopping this Holiday season.  Here are five ways to help your family keep on budget for gifts this year.  We’d love to hear your ideas too!

Use Your Points

With the airlines cutting back on miles seat availability and increasing the number of black-out dates most of us find it almost impossible to use our credit card points for flights these days.  Why not use them for your Holiday shopping?  Most miles/points clubs offer gift cards to major department stores in exchange for points - some even offer actual products.  You can use the cards to go Holiday shopping or just give the cards as gifts.  My point program also offers magazine subscriptions and movie tickets - both of which make great gifts.

Pollyanna

Well we call it a Pollyanna but you may have another name for it.  I’m one of four children.  Three of us have spouses, not to mention 6 children between us.  Holiday shopping can get crazy.  When we reached adulthood we made a Holiday deal.  We would all put our names in a hat and pick one name each.  The rules are that you only buy for the person you select and the gift must be $35 or less.  Of course this means all the girls are crossing our fingers that we get picked by my brother who manages a jewelry store :-).

Let Your Creativity Blossom

Don’t deny that your favorite gifts of all time are those given to you by your children when they were young.  I know you have all those hand-prints and glitter laden handmade cards stashed away for safe-keeping in a closet somewhere.  These are our favorite gifts because of the obvious love and sincerity that went in to making them.  Why not use your creativity to create gifts for family that they will want to keep forever?  Are you a writer?  Write a poem for your Mom or Dad and use beautiful calligraphy and a photo frame from Target to make it in to a keeper.  Have a fun photo session with the kids and Photoshop some fun and funky photos for relatives.  Create a special scrapbook for a loved one with the commitment to complete a page a month for the following year.  Who needs another “thing’ after all - gifts of love like these will be remembered.

Give the Gift of Time

In today’s busy world the most precious commodity of all is time.  A gift of your time will be appreciated by anyone on your list.  How about presenting a “personal chef” coupon to your friend who is a working Mom?  You will come over once a month to cook a meal for her family.  How about a gift of one-on-one time per child for your horde of nieces and nephews?  You could present your Aunt with a “gardening company” coupon.  Do you have special skills?  How about giving computer lessons to your Grandma, or sewing lessons to your sister.  Even better - declare this Holiday a “time gift” only Holiday and challenge your whole family to create special gifts of time.

Give on a Deferred Payment Plan

Do you want to give a more traditional gift of flowers or books?  Many companies out there offer a “Book of the Month”, “Flower of the Month”, “Fruit of the Month”, “Wine of the Month”, etc…  With most of these types of gifts you can choose to pay on a monthly basis rather than all at once.  We have our own “Gift of the Month” program with our Collector’s Club.  You could send an outfit a month to your favorite doll lover and only pay on shipment.  Give a year-long gift or only 3 months it’s up to you.

For more Wordless Wednesday fun visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

Title: Minnie and Moo and the Musk of Zorro by Denys Cazet

Storyline: Minnie and Moo pretend to be Zorro and a partner.

Favorite Character: Minnie because she says your stomach is more
important than thinking. She always eats sugary stuff.

What you most liked: When Minnie and Moo have lipstick tied to a stick
and they do the “Z” onto two pairs of the farmer’’s long underwear only
it looked like a “P” and a “U” and they sprayed it with flower air
freshener.

What you least liked: When they are up on the hill under the tree and
Moo is reading and Minnie is yelling at her not to read.

Why you would recommend it to a friend: It is really, really funny
because these two cows who are sisters dress up like Zorro and his
partner and they creep up on stuff and spray it and make a “Z” with a
pink coral lipstick on a stick.

Book Review by Rebecca F age 9 Reynoldsburg Ohio.

I don’t know if any of you have ever visited the AGPlaythings.com website? They have a great message board over there for American Girl Doll Collectors and although I admittedly have a limited amount of time I love to browse the boards and see what’s happening. I don’t know how I missed it - especially since it is one of our customers biggest requests - but right there on the site they have free American Doll Dress Patterns to download and print out right from the site. Don’t think these are tacky American Girl Doll Dress Patterns either. No sirree - these are the real deal. The actual retired American Girl Doll Dress Patterns straight from American Girl themselves.

Here at Emily Rose we have been working with a number of our vendors in an attempt to get free patterns for American Girl Dolls to offer to our customers, just for being such great customers - but do you know how hard these are to get? We will keep trying. But in the mean time, if you do sew your own doll clothes, please send us photos that we can share with the class. There is nothing like doll clothes made for someone specific with a whole lot of love.

We do have some links to other free American Girl Doll Clothes pattern sources on the store. Check those out as well.

We love to publizise charty fund raising events.  Here is a good one in Connecticut.  CancerCare of Connecticut invites girls and their mothers, grandmothers and other relatives and friends to celebrate the spirit of American girlhood at the American Girl Fashion Show!  Lots of different historical and contempary styles will be on show.  The event will happen on Saturday, November 8, 2008 at Darien Community Association, Darien CT.
All proceeds will benefit CancerCare for Kids^®, a national non-profit organization that provides free professional support services to children affected by cancer.  So if you’re near that location please be sure to stop by.

Have you ever had that moment where you are out in public and your American Girl is not quite on her best behavior, and a stranger feels that it is important to point out the obvious. “Boy, you’ve got your hands full”

Sometimes people are just trying to be sympathetic, but you still don’t know what the appropriate response is. Well, I have two field tested responses guaranteed to make you and them feel better and see things in a new perspective.

1. Better full than empty!
2. Aren’t I lucky!

Now is the time to remember - there is always a rainbow at the end of a storm…

We spend a lot of time talking to Emily about finances and the importance of living within your means and given the current state of the economy it doesn’t hurt to think seriously about frugality.  We discovered an article on Extreme Ways to Save.  Hmmm… now let’s not go crazy.  Keeping your eye on the pennies and ignoring the big picture is often a big mistake.  But let’s see what they say:

Turn your car off — while it’s moving

Ummm….no.  Not only do I think this is extremely dangerous but I am about as coordinated as a tap-dancing giraffe.  I can only see smoke, fire, broken engines.

Reuse plastic sandwich bags

Although I actually laughed out loud at my frugal husband when I caught him doing this, I will admit that it is definitely environmentally friendly.  It’s worth the hassle for the environment.  Worth the hassle for $30 a year?  What do you think?

Stop saving money

I think the article needs to be MUCH clearer on this one.  If you read carefully there is a tiny mention of not saving so you can avoid credit cards… OK - I agree with that one.  No one wants to be earning 3% on their savings in the bank while spending 20% on credit card interest.  This article though seems to be giving carte blanche to not save “if you can’t afford it”.  Everyone can afford to save something even if it is only a $1.  I think saving is a discipline and once you get out of the habit it is easy to let go.

Make your own cleaning supplies

This one seems simple enough and a good money saving piece of advice.  Who needs a $12 bottle of pine-sol if vinegar really works just as well.

Stop drinking soda (or another beverage of choice)

Excellent piece of advice.  Soda is full of sugar and a ton of empty calories.  It’s expensive.  Once it’s gone I’ll bet you won’t miss it and neither will your kids.  I’d like to add bottled water to this tip.  There’s nothing wrong with water out of the tap - in fact most bottled water is tap water anyway!

Move back home with your parents, at any age

Ummm…no.  Do I need to elaborate?

Get rid of your carpet

This one make me scratch my head a bit.  Get rid of your carpet and do what?  Have a concrete floor?  It would take an awful long time for $200 a year to pay back the investment of a couple of thousand dollars in tiles or hardwood.

Hold a no-spend month

Very interesting concept.  I am off to read about it on Small Notebook and would love to hear from anyone who has tried it.

Tune in later this week for some saving ideas from us and our readers - anyone have something to suggest?