Just wanted to say Alex has his "final" surgery tomorrow to remove the stent from his kidney. Hopefully all will go well.
Today I put a deposit on the 4/24 eleven day Med cruise- the one with a stop in Tunis,Tunisia. Tunis is the main reason I'm even considering the cruise. It'll just be the big kids and I. Anyone else doing that one?
Julie
Oh Julie! I hope this is the real and last turning point in a positive direction for this little guys hurdle! Thanks for the reminder. I'll say a prayer for him!
I'm thrilled that you and the older kids are going to do that cruise! It sounds amazing! It would be wonderful if someone from this group goes with you as well!
quick question for anyone who sent postcards from castaway!!! did any of your recipients receive their postcards yet? ...
actually we mailed one back to ourselves on the 1st day at CC and got it yesterday.....
Oh my gosh! You got it YESTERDAY!! I was expecting 4 weeks (not 2-3 months like Hadley's experienced!!)....I cannot believe you already got it...and in CALIFORNIA! Cool!
....Kimberly, I just wanted to tell you I was going through my F/E gifts again today and you really outdid yourself with so many cute little presents. I am thinking about making the highlighter like you did, where did you get the little beads - what section in the craft store?
Awe...thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying all of it! I got the microbeads at Michael's Crafts. In two stores I've been to here, they were placed right by the rubber stamps. Assuming you have Michael's, you'll see them on a very generic looking light blue card. There are other bead colors like multi, green, red, and more with the clear as well.
They come in a little vial, two to a package. I have seen the micro-beads on-line, too, but it's probably less expensive to go to Michael's. I could not find these at Jo-Ann's. If I recall correctly, you get one package (two vials) for $1.99. I *THINK* I used 7 vials to make 58 pens.
A few things to keep in mind if you make these:
1) Buy the pen-style highlighters with the least amount of tapering and writing. (I purchased Office Max highlighters.) This is important for many reasons. First, the pen-style vs. the barrel style will use less beads, thus less expensive. Second, the less tapering you have the less-to-none adjusting you have to do with the label as you wrap it around. Third, if there is a lot of writing on the pen, it could *potentially* been seen through the label. I made sure I wrapped the words on the label over the words on the pen. Once you put the beads on, it may not show through, but I wasn't going to take a chance.
2) Buy the SUPER adhesive tape to affix the beads. I purchased the Sizzix brand that has the red paper on it (I can't think of the Trademark name of it now). I used the 3/4" tape, which was $7.99 a package. So if you have a Michael's, that's one item to use your Michael's coupons with. I know there's another famous brand (can't think of it either) used for microbeads as well that can be purchased on the internet. Obviously the key is to make sure the adhesive works on beads.
3) If you have a heat-gun, use it! Heat up the adhesive of the label before putting it on the pen. You want that sucker to be as sticky as possible. I still ended up super-gluing some of them to make the label stay closed on the end of the wrap. I also headed up the super adhesive before applying the microbeads.
Finally, this is an awesome gift to make with Bic pens, too. That's the application where I first got the concept. It's a great office gift, a "thinking of you/pick-me-up" gift for your girlfriends (who will think of you everytime they pull it out!), or for the pre-teens/teens. The best part is that those pens do not have a taper. That makes it MUCH easier.
Let me know if you have any other questions. It really can go pretty quickly if you sit down and do one step at a time over several nights. The longest step was applying the super adhesive to the labels before you apply the label to the pen.
I forgot to tell y'all, on the last day of our cruise, we were getting our photos from Shutters and asked about photopass. The manager told us that they were in the process of making changes that they expected to allow them to use a photopass like system for pics on the ship. He said we could expect to see changes (if all goes as planned) around the end of the year. Wouldn't that be interesting....I would love to be able to just get a disk with my pictures on it!
Hallelujah! That's AWESOME news!! If you haven't already, you need to go to the main board and share this headline!
Speaking of pictures, I received my cruise photos from Snapfish today. Are you ready for this? I weighed the box. It was 11 pounds! These are cruise photos....I have yet to get my WDW photos! So this shipment has 3 sets of 445 photos. Wowza! BTW, they had a deal for new customers that you could buy one collage mug and get one free. So I picked up three, all of which are black. I cannot wait to get these, either! I'll give one to DM and DGM for Christmas. Check it out!
Mayyyyybeeeeeee
I need that official quote to come back first! I'm resisting the subscription to the WB TA Meets thread....not that I haven't looked a lot!
Welllllllllll..........I'm almost in!! I got a quote even better than I expected for a Cat 10. In fact, I emailed back making sure everything was included that I asked for like airfare and
trip insurance. I asked for quotes on Cats 9-11. She gave me quotes for Cats 6-10, except Cat 9. Cat 11 was sold out.
Because the Cat 10 quote was better than expected, I asked her to go back and look at the Cat 9 (Those poor TAs! You know that their eyes must be hurting after two days of being blasted with pricing requests.) I would be much happier knowing I was going to have a porthole than hope that I get some pixie dust from a GTY Cat 10.
So, the short answer is "YES! I am going on the WB TA with so many of you!!!" OMG...I'm going!!!!! (Unless, God forbid, something really bad happens with my job between now and then and I cannot take 2 weeks off.) Anywhoooo....I'm SO excited! I won't subscribe to the Meets thread until I KNOW it's mine though! I'll be traveling to Cincy tomorrow night, so I won't be on-line. If I get the word before I leave, I'll certainly let you guys be the first to know I'm officially in!
Oh well, the DIS is keeping me busy 
I was looking forward to Spain
I am sure there will be non stop action ALL weekend long..
