Christmas cutoff and gift certificate sale!

Due to an amazing amount of orders
(thank you! what a blessing!)
we had to move our Christmas cutoff earlier a couple of days
to ensure all of your presents will be able to ship in time:



If you can't order by wednesday,
we have gift certificates that can be ordered right up until
Christmas Eve!

They are emailed to you immediately
(sometimes they go to spam).

Plus we are having our gift certificate sale again this season:



A gift FROM you = a gift FOR you!

Everyone loves gift certificates
and you know they get what they really want :)
(no guessing)

And you get to shop after the New Year (bonus!)

*****

Thank you for all of your support and understanding!

the duck march.

Tonight we had some extra time before the Out of Control Comedy Show
(a tradition we always go to when we come to Orlando
and my whole family laughed to tears!)
so we stopped down the street at The Peabody Hotel
just in time for the evening duck march!



These ducks live in the hotel,
they have their own penthouse,
and they march down the elevator every morning,
and every evening,
to splash in the fountain for about 20-30 minutes.

This was my first time to see it,
(Ryan saw it once in Memphis)
the kids loved it-
well worth the stop if you ever get the chance :)

notes in the sky.

Yesterday we watched a little plane
write us notes in the sky
over Orlando, FL -
first time I've ever seen this in real life!

Trust Jesus.



Love God.



Amen!

* * *

Use coupon code cybersale for $5 off your order today.
That's like FREE U.S. Shipping :)

relaxing and the beach.

This morning Ryan, my dad and brother Tad went golfing,
and the rest of us relaxed around the house-
we rented a 5 bedroom house we could all stay in together
with a heated pool and game room complete with a pool table,
foosball and a basketball goal, so there's lots to do,
(can you believe it costs less than a hotel?
Ryan finds the most amazing deals!)
then headed for Cocoa Beach in the afternoon.

It was beautiful at sunset.









Tessa was really catching some waves!



I thought it would be too cold for the kids to get in
so I didn't take their swimsuits.
Obviously I was wrong :)



Eden was not impressed with the ocean.

Ryan put her feet in the water
and she just ran away.



Instead she built sand castles with cousin Andrew :)







As always,
we stopped at Ron Jon's Surf Shop for a souvenir,
it's a tradition.
I got a new coffee mug :)



Tomorrow we are heading to Disney!

black friday specials!

Tulsa friends,
join us for Black Friday fun!



And for our online friends,
one of our favorite necklaces,
our sign language "i love you" necklace,
is on sale for $39,
normally $46 (black friday only!)



and if you spend $100
(after discounts are applied)
and get a free pair of pearl earrings!
(black friday only)
Simply type "earrings" in the extra notes box
and we'll slip a pair in your package!



Hope you score some great deals today!

how to cook a turkey.

from Tessa, age 6.



Happy turkey cooking :)

blessed with turkey and pie.

Since we are leaving on our
Disney World trip tomorrow,
(we fly out Thanksgiving Day morning
with my dad and brother
and my other brother and his kids are meeting us there)
we weren't planning on making/eating Thanksgiving dinner this year.

But at breakfast time this morning,
Ryan's mom shows up
armed with a turkey
and an entire Thanksgiving dinner for us!



She popped the turkey in the oven
and then came back at lunchtime to finish it all up
complete with pumpkin pie!

Ryan came home for lunch
and we all ate until we were stuffed :)
It was SO yummy.

Thank you Trudy, what a blessing!

And now,
I can't put it off any longer,
I must go pack...

a few new pieces (in time for Christmas!) GIVEAWAY

Vintage Baby Feet with a Charm necklace
(you can also get the ready to ship version here,
you can customize with our ready to ship initials!)



build your own Eclectic Charm Bracelet:
(matches our Eclectic Charm Necklace)



Dainty Layered Squares Necklace:



Mosaic Tile Bracelet:
(I absolutely adore this new bracelet!)



Let's give one away!

Just tell us, which one of your favorite???

Blog and tweet for extra entries.

holiday open house and winners

Our holiday open house saturday night
was so much fun!



We had several giveaways,
yummy food,
wish lists to fill out,
and lots of customers stopped by...

our little shop was packed all night long!



Our friend Tiffany made the prettiest
Christmas tree cookies for us (below right),
we saw people sneaking them in their purse for later!
Thank you Tiffany, your cookies were a BIG hit!


And Renee made the most incredible Christmas cupcakes!!!
They are mini cupcakes and would be perfect for a family or business Christmas party!
If you would like to order some, email Renee at ChinaCakes@ymail.com.


THANK YOU to everyone that came!
If you took a picture while there we'd love to see it.

* * *

We had 3 giveaways, and the winning tickets are:



If your ticket number matches one of these
please call us or come by the store to pick up your prize!

winners, emails and a party!

We decided to pick 5 winners instead of 3
for the $75 gift certificates to thevintagepearl.com

(tis the season!)



and the randomly picked winners are:

1. Joanna Galbraith: I have been eying the dainty initial hearts necklace for a while now, so that would have to be my choice.

2. leora :I'd buy the "I love you to the moon and back" necklace. I have been looking at that one for a while, plus my daughter's name is Luna. Perfect fit!

3. Kristen Fine: I {love} the Vintage Lovebirds. I would definitely pick that necklace. Thanks for the chance to win!

4. amygarland: just learned of your jewelry and love it all. i would buy my best friend the square names with heart necklace to put all 3 of her kids names on it. she is going through a really rough time right now and this would mean a lot to her. i would buy myself the circle chain bracelet too.
thanks!
AOG :)

5. Katherine: Here are my 3 favorites (I think I would have my husband pick, order and surprise me!): layered mama's nest, our family nest and the sign language I love you. Me, my husband and 2 boys all sign I love you to each other all of the time.

Please email us at customerservice@thevintagepearl.com to claim your gift certificate!

* * *

This week we have had a bit of trouble with our server
regarding our emails coming in through the website.

We normally respond to every email within 24 hours,
but if you have not heard from us
we are VERY sorry, we did not receive it like normal.

We are fixing the problem and will be
catching up on all emails today,
but please feel free to email us again
at customerservice@thevintagepearl.com.

* * *

And don't forget,
our Holiday Open house is tomorrow night!



Should be lots of fun,
we hope to see you there!

date night fun!

Last week my dad stayed overnight,
so after the kids were in bed Ryan and I snuck out
and did some late night glow-bowling!
I won the first game, then Ryan won the other 2,
but it was a blast!

Probably my favorite date night in a long time :)

* * *

What's your favorite thing to do on date night?

Merry Christmas tees!

At The Vintage Pearl we WILL be saying
Merry Christmas
this year!
(no happy holidays for us!)



Our new Merry Christmas tees
have our "santa birdies" on them
with vintage lettering!

So fun and festive, and ready to ship!

Limited availabilty, get yours today!

chunky love winner & GIVEAWAY fun with Nester!

The randomly picked winner of the
chunky love necklace layered with a
strand of pearls ...


...is Rebecca, who said: Oh how beautiful. Just when I think I know what I want to order, you add more beautiful things!!

Email us Rebecca! customerservice@thevintagepearl.com

* * * * *

The Nester is having a fun giveaway day!

TVP is joining in and giving away
3 $75 gift certificates
here on our blog ,
so you can win your choice of anything
from thevintagepearl.com!



To enter just tell us,
what would you grab with a $75 gift certificate
to TVP?
3 winners will be randomly chosen on friday!

Blog it,
facebook it and
tweet it (@thevintagepearl)
for extra entries!
(leave a separate comment for each please).

p.s. Don't forget to check out the other giveaways
going on over at Nester's blog.

Orange, Lemon and Strawberry (oh my!)

The flavors of the week from Renae...



Cupcakes in Orange, Lemon and Strawberry,
plus Chocolate and Vanilla.

She is also taking orders for PUMPKIN cupcakes for next week
(in time for Thanksgiving- I've had them, DELISH!)

There was a great article in the newspaper
about them here,
and you can read Renae's blog here!

They are $15/dozen, you can donate more if you feel led...
proceeds help them bring their 2 adopted girls home from China!

They are A.MAZ.ING. Better than any bakery in town, I PROMISE!!!

If you would like to order
(some have inquired, Tulsa area only please as cupcakes don't ship well!)
you can email Renae at
ChinaCakes@ymail.com.

our Christmas cut-off date (please make a note!)

The studio is bustling with Christmas orders!
We kind of feel like elves,
we just need striped socks and pointy shoes :)

Or maybe we should just get some santa hats... looks cute on our birdie!

Right now we are planning on the
Christmas order cutoff date to be
Friday, December 3rd
so PLEASE place your Christmas orders by then!



We may be able to extend the deadline as it gets closer,
but please plan on December 3rd!

We want everyone to receive their gifts in time to give!!!

* * * * *

Tonight is DATE NIGHT! Woo-hoo!
I've been looking forward to it all day :)

Anything fun planned this weekend?

t-shirts {now available!}

(no, these are not professional models, these are tvp girls! Top left is Anna, who is an assembler, them Tami in the middle who helps customer service (among other things), then Janice top right who is one of our shippers, and then Erin is bottom left, also an assembler. Thanks for letting me snap your pics!)

We have turned a couple of our custom stamps into t-shirt designs, isn't that fun?
(More are in the works and coming soon!)

We have the "faith" tee, "shutterbug" tee, and "i love you" tee.

We also have our logo tees now available.

Every tee (design and logo) has the same picture on the back:



And they run a tad small, so order a size larger than normal.

I get compliments when I wear one of mine a lot!

You can find them all here!

* * * * *

Which one is your fave?

adoption x two (guest post from Renee)

November is adoption month
and I wanted to share one of my most precious friends, Renee.
She and her family wanted to adopt a child from China,
then fell in love with 2 children
and are bringing them BOTH home {very soon!}



I have loved watching their adoption journey and can't wait to meet their girls!


Their baby girl Hope was the original inspiration for the
Hope for Orphans necklace!
A portion of every necklace sold helps bring
their children home!




Here's Renee:

I cannot tell you how many YouTube videos I've watched of parents getting their babies handed over to them on "Gotcha Day" of their adoptions. The sweet, slow, sappy songs, the statistics of orphans woven in, the before and after stories of how their child was and how they are now....I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF THEM! I am undone by adoption. I am in love with the idea, the stories, the heart, the children. I love orphans. I love people who adopt orphans. I love people who give to people who adopt orphans. I have found no greater cause, no greater passion, and no greater subject to give myself to than orphans.

It all started late one night while I was watching TV when I was about 15 years old. The images of children in orphanages was burned into my mind and the seed of adoption was planted deep within my heart. I can remember telling God that night as a teenager that when I got older I would go over and get one of those children in an orphanage and love them forever! And here I am, about 20 years later, and that dream, that promise, is about to become a reality as my husband and my three children and I travel to China soon to get Lily and Hope and make them part of our family forever!

This past summer I had the opportunity to travel to a special needs orphanage on a mission trip. I can remember the feelings I had when I walked into that orphanage on that first day. Feelings of fear and uncertainty. I felt so alone and so far away from my home. My husband and I had just made the decision to switch to the special needs program due to the ridiculously long wait in the "healthy" child program (we had already been waiting over 2 and a half years and our wait was expected to be YEARS longer). But that night in my hotel room in China I got really honest with God. I couldn't do it. It's one thing to check a box on a piece of paper saying that you would like to adopt a baby with a particular need. It's another thing to be in their world and imagine one of them being your child forever. My heart changed so drastically the second day that I can barely express to you why I was so fearful that night. But I remember thinking that I just couldn't do it.

I surrendered myself to God and said HAVE YOUR WAY GOD. I gave Him my sad, confused, scared, selfish heart before I went to bed and asked Him to change it that night. The next day everything changed. I no longer saw the children as a special need..I saw them as perfect, pure, eternal souls that needed love and attention and affection....and a FAMILY! I wanted to take them ALL home! Every last one of them.


To make a long story short, we are adopting two of those beautiful children! (Lily pictured on the left) That's all China would let us have at once! We have already fallen in love with these two girls. I don't even see them as orphans....I see them as MY DAUGHTERS. In fact, I find myself having feelings of guilt like I birthed them and left them in another country for all this time. And my husband and our three children are equally excited as we prepare to GO GET THEM!

I've heard many people say that adoption made them a better person...that they were the blessed ones, more so than their child. Now I get it. I'm so thankful to God that He adopted me. When I laid in that bed in China that first night all I could think of was how God took me and all my baggage, and imperfections and shortcomings and called me His own daughter. My flesh was speaking louder than my spirit that day telling me of all the problems that I might face with a special needs adoption. And even more so with the adoption of an older child. We had to take courses on changing birth orders, attachment issues, basically describing all the problems that adopting an older child could bring. We heard it all. But nothing mattered to us but saying yes to these two children that God had put on our hearts.

I've found that when you humbly give yourself to God in reckless abandon, you know what? He changes you. And He gives you grace and provision that you didn't have before. We are not the least bit scared. We have so much joy and peace when we can tell others around us are scared for us! Ha! My husband and I just look at each other and say ARE WE CRAZY? DO WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE GETTING INTO?! Yes we are crazy! Crazy in love with God and these girls. And willing to spend the rest of our lives loving and serving them!

There's no better place to be than in the will of God. There's no greater peace that when you step out to do something you feel confident He has called you to do. We are ready for this wild ride. We wouldn't have it any other way.


Reneé (with family above)
Jesus is Lord of all

***

p.s. the reason I have mingled in these yummy cupcake pictures
with Renee's post is that she had
a God idea to make "Hope"cakes and "Lily"cakes
to raise money for their adoptions!
(Hope and Lily are the girls names they are adopting!)
They are PROFESSIONAL and just simply
melt-in-your-mouth AMAZING,
and if you live in the Tulsa area
you really HAVE to try them.
They are $15/dozen
(you can donate more if you would like to, of course)
and they are better than any bakery, I PROMISE you!!!

Contact us to order,
you can pick them up at our store- (918) 935-2731