Friday Flop: The Tide Bounce Bar. Or, where I look a gift horse in the mouth and say “BOOOO! Hiss!”

Disclaimer: I love Tide laundry detergent.

It’s the only detergent I use to wash my clothes.  I adore the way it smells and it is the only laundry soap that my husband’s overly sensitive skin can handle.  We’ve tried every product under the sun, and we always come back to Tide.

So when Tide had a booth at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this summer, you can bet your sweet behind I was front and center with outstretched palms gathering up every single free sample they would give me.  I got tiny packets of laundry detergent and some new boost packet thingies.  I also received a sample of their new product, the Bounce Dryer Bar.

What is a Bounce Dryer Bar?

It looks like a bar of soap stuck in a mounting device.  You stick it to the inside wall of your dryer and it stays there for 2-4 months working as a constant fabric softener.  In other words, it’s a replacement for dryer sheets.

Oddly enough, this is not my picture.  This picture of a Bounce Dryer Bar is courtesy of rockinfree on Flickr.  I don’t even think he has a review blog.  He’s just taking pictures of his dryer bar.

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My Pretty, Pretty Sorrelli Jewels – and discounts for you.

If you read my personal blog, you might have noticed yesterday that I talked about some free jewelry I was getting to wear to the BlogHer conference this week.

I didn’t get to pick it out myself, so I’ve been anxiously waiting to see what I was getting and whether or not it would actually match anything I own.

Feast your eyes on these beauties:

I am so excited that I am getting pieces from the Peachy Keen line.  Namely because it will go with damn near everything, and I have spent the last week looking for something brownish to go with the shirt I’m wearing Saturday, to no avail.  I’m also thinking I might be wearing this jewelry with a black cocktail dress on Friday night – but I’m not sure.  I’ll be bringing back up.

I’ve never worn Sorrelli, because quite frankly – I am too cheap.  But I’ve lusted after a friend‘s collection from afar.  I’m anxious to see it close up so that I can determine if it’s worth all that cash.

In other words – this isn’t a review!

I’ve never worn Sorrelli.  I’ve only looked at it on someone else and thought it was very, very pretty.  And told her over and over again it was pretty.  Until she finally got sick of listening to me and asked someone to please, for the love of God, send that lady a necklace.

Anyway.

If you already know and love Sorrelli jewelry, they are having a Summer Sale right now (until Friday)and offering 15% off of orders of $100.  Because you pretty much spend that much at least if you go to their web site.

AND…

You can get an extra 5% off all orders from today until Sunday by using the code BLOGHER5.

(If you spend $100 between now and Friday, you can combine offers and save 20%.  Woo hoo!)

Tell them some chic on the Internet sent you.

Laptop Backpack Bag – I am in LOVE.

A friend of mine recently mentioned that carrying a laptop through an airport is much easier with a laptop backpack, as opposed to a shoulder bag.  I’m headed for Chicago next week for the BlogHer conference and had kind of been dreading hauling my laptop around for four days.

The laptop backpack seemed like the perfect solution for my aching shoulders and back.

I jumped on Twitter and asked if anyone had any recommendations for good laptop backpacks.  Within seconds, @ShredderFeeder told me about his Swiss Army bag and @Laci_Loo told me about a laptop backpack on sale at Amazon.  As luck would have it, it was a SwissGear bag (which I am almost positive is what Swiss Army bag means) that was on sale!

My new SwissGear laptop backpack arrived this week.

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Recycled Business Cards from 123 Print

I’m the kind of person who wants to be environmentally concious, but loves to save a buck.

These two values have come into conflict on more than one occassion.  It can be expensive to choose eco friendly products, and the easiest way for me to help the environment is usually to just consume (and buy) less whenever possible.

And so it was with extreme hesitation that I began the search for recylced business cards – that is, business cards made with recycled paper, not someone else’s business card that they’re no longer using because they got fired or something.

I’m going to a BlogHer conference in Chicago this summer and I want to take business cards with me.  Apparently people show up to these networking events and expect you to have more than a cocktail napkin with your email addresss hastily scribbled on the back of it.   If at all possible, I’d like to hand out business cards that are printed on recycled paper – because I’m pretty sure that most of them will be used to hastily scribble someone else’s email address on the back of them and it would be nice if they were at least doing it without killing a bunch of trees.

However, I will be paying for these cards myself so cost is a major factor.

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