Updates and Black Friday Details

      I realize that I have been the absolute worst at blogging. I apparently haven't posted since the end of  July! But I have been busy, and tired. I have had life throw all kinds of challenges at me, and then school started, which is it's own group of challenges. But at least for a little while, I am going to (try to) blog more often. There are usually a few times a year that are reliable for blogging. 

     I don't remember the things I shared about what is going on with my house, but I know I talked about the roof over my studio leaking. I gutted the whole room and rebuilt it (I did help a bunch over April break, but then I had to go back to work). It is now a lovely space that isn't too hot in the summer, or too cold in the winter (probably...). Even though there is no official heating or cooling in that room. It's just nice in there. And having a window that opens is delightful. It might be my favorite part. 

     I probably mentioned the lake of sewage that ended up under my house. If not, let me briefly explain. The sewer backed up, which cause a lake of sewage to form under my house. It was large and expensive to have cleaned up. I did manage to get my insurance to pay for it (I had forgotten I had insurance when my roof leaked, or I may have tried to see if that would pay for any of that), though it was a long ordeal to get that all taken care of. I also got $6500 from insurance to help with repairs of the underneath of my mobile home. The problem is, it cost me $18,000 for the repairs. So currently, I have a lot of debt from a lot of unexpected repairs that came all at once. But my house is repaired, updated, and snug. Things are a bit tough, but life is always tough, this is just a different degree. 

     And I am still having fun. I refuse to let challenges get me down for too long. 

          I happen to love mystery boxes. Blind bags, all sorts of things like that. And I love watching those videos of mystery pulls. Bead scoops, capsules, cards, whatever, I just really love mystery boxes. I think I first started watching those with crystal sellers. Which led me to live sales, which led me to buying a very large amount of crystals in a very short time. My love of mystery videos morphed into watching the journal supply mystery videos, and other themed type mystery boxes. I really enjoy those. I didn't think I could possibly be the only one, considering how popular those types of videos are. 

      So what do I usually do when I like a popular idea a lot? I see if I can find a way to do it too. I started live sales that were sort of modeled after LuLaRoe live sales. And now I want to have a mystery capsule game. I have done mystery boxes for years. And while they are all a mystery, and all different, you don't know what you get until you open the box. I don't even know, because I pack them up and then don't mark them in any way. If you play the capsule game it might end up the same. You will get a mystery box of miniature items, and you won't know what you get until the box gets to you. BUT, what if there were videos??? Now most people/companies will end up posting the drawing videos after the products get shipped, so what gets to you is likely still a surprise when you open the box. Though the videos are so much fun! I have never paid the extra to have a video made when I have ordered mystery boxes. But what if you could see your mystery video in real time? And for free? So it could be the fun of getting the blind box and the reveal part! I know the reveal is the best part. And playing with your new stuff. I decided that I am going to do my mystery capsule game live during my Black Friday sale! Which also means you get to come and hang out in my studio, since I have decided that is where we're having Black Friday this year. 

     You don't have to wait to play though, If you want to play the mystery miniatures capsule game just go to my NEW website, fieldofdolls.com, and purchase as many capsules as you want. You can get as few as 2 or as many as 20. Want more than 20? Add your choices into the shopping cart and get as many as you want. I have flat rate shipping enabled on the site, just like I always have for Black Friday. Pirate Ship also has some really good deals on international shipping, so I am managing to keep the shipping pretty low on that. 

     I am going to be switching things up for my Black Friday sale a little bit this year. Last year, and the year before (and maybe another year or so before... I lost track) I have done a semi-live sale. Well, I am kind of doing that again, but in a different way. It's not too hard to find the "mine" comments that claim items on my Facebook page. Other than the fact that Facebook likes to mess with EVERYTHING when it comes to comments. It will automatically switch to most relevant (you don't know anything Facebook!) and it changes the order of things, depending who is looking at things. I hate it. And if people claim after the the live portion is over, and I am not checking Facebook comments every few minutes I might miss a claim. Not only does Facebook like to decide which comments are the most important it doesn't like to notify me of comments on my studio page. I might get a notification hours after a comment is made, or not at all. That is not helpful and makes things more difficult for me. 

     

     I have been trying to find the fairest way to do things for years. I may have it. It's the shopping cart on my website. There is no cart hold on a Square website. I can't change this, so you still have to be the fastest to check out or you might have something "stolen" from you. I know this is annoying, but I don't have a super expensive website where I can fine-tune all sorts of details (I can't afford a fancy website like that at the moment). What I can do is do partial refunds. So if you are really afraid of missing out on a thing, check out right away. I can refund extra shipping charges so you only end up paying shipping once, for your whole order, even if you place multiple orders. 

      The website will be a huge time saver for me in other ways. I don't have to chase anyone for a shipping address, or payment, and I don't have to do invoices. So in the already super limited time I have, I don't have to take days (yes, actual days) of time to do all the extra stuff involved in the old way of doing the sales. I really like Travis and I would really like to be able to spend some of the long weekend with him. And maybe I will get to see Elecktra more too. Now I might have time for that!

      There are also tons of payment options on a Square site. Including Pay in 4 and I think maybe one other option along similar lines. Credit, debit, all kinds of payment options. 

     So what is the same about my semi-live sale and what is different? The stuff that is the same is that I will go live on Black Friday, November 27, 2026, at probably 2:00 ET. I have done that for a very long time. I am not selling any of the Black Friday sales items live. If they are not selling immediately off the website, I may show them, but you can't claim on the live. That is the same as it has been for years. What is different? All the claims are purchases directly through my website; fieldofdolls.com. There won't be any Facebook claim albums. There won't be a series of designated times that claimable items get posted on my Facebook page. I will post the items on my website (which is already done, they are just not able to be seen yet), at some point on the 27th. It may be at 2:00 when I go live. It may be earlier in the day. I haven't decided that just yet. 

        So things that are the same. Live feed where we can interact. Stuff for sale, a lot of it at special discounted prices for Black Friday. 

        Things that are different. No claim albums. No separate times claimable items are posted. A website with a shopping cart for all purchases. The mystery miniatures capsule game. 

      That's about it I think. I knew that the website would save me time on Black Friday, but I am just now, as I am writing this, realizing how much time it is going to save me overall. I don't need to make and schedule a ton of individual posts. I don't need to double check the scheduled times for all those individual posts to make sure I didn't mess up the date/time. I don't have to make a super detailed list of exactly what time things go live for claiming. I don't have to chase anyone for their address. I won't have to spend half a day, or more, making sure I have everyone's claims correct so I can do invoices. I won't have to do invoices at all! I am really liking this new way of doing things. 

      So a warning now. This is really new to me. I don't know every detail of how all the things work. I am pretty sure this will work really smoothly and save me a lot of time and frustration. There may be some unforeseen glitches, because it's the internet. I still think it will be a lot of fun. 

      I really hope tons of people will come and play my mystery miniatures game. I love miniatures, and blind boxes, and interacting with everyone during my sales. Some of the variety of miniatures I have are in the first photo in this post. Some of the miniatures I have are already listed on my website as sale items (if you don't want to chance getting them in the game and just really want them). I may add some more. I have other miniatures I haven't yet posted.There are some items currently available on my website, including gemstone bracelets I made. I will likely add more jewelry items I have made. I will have things from my personal collection on there, just like I always offer some things from my personal collection during my live sales. 

     That's about it. The game is new. The website is new. The Black Friday live sale is not new. The dolls in this post will be for sale on my website on Black Friday. There will likely be some others that are not in this post, that hopefully will get into some post before then. I have a very wide variety of miniatures in the capsule game. Most are pretty much 1:9 scale. Some are just cool, like always. I may randomly decide to add other things to the website. You never know what might happen with me. I hope to "see" you on Black Friday, November 27th, 2026, on my studio page on Facebook. It should be a good time!