Smarty Find: Hot Tops!

You’re probably familiar with the latest fashion trend in tweens, teens and young girls – the bottlecap necklace, originally designed by two young Texas tweens with their Snap Caps necklaces and bracelets. My girls absolutely L-O-V-E these and it’s our current fave for birthday party gifts at a Smarty price tag of around $12. Snap Caps are available at local toy and gift shops such as Black Forest Toys in Eastover, Alphabet Soup in Morrocroft, Toys & Co in Cotswold and Learning Express in Stonecrest to name a few. While researching this blog, I stumbled upon an even cooler design of the bottlecap necklace, Hot Tops, created by a local Charlotte mom, Elise Redmond. Why is it cooler? Well let me tell ya – 50% of the proceeds go to charity and you get to pick your charity! It doesn’t get much Smartier than that!

Elise Redmond is the Co-Founder of Cookies for a Cause and The Divas in the Kitchen Foundation, two organizations dedicated to raising money for charities in honor of her best friend, Kristi Crates, who passed away in 2007 at age 35 from lymphoma. Elise has been participating in bake sales and cookie parties for charity and recently came up with the idea of bottlecap necklaces, which has absolutely taken off! We had the privilege of working with Elise and decided to try out a few Smarty designs of Hot Tops to jumpstart the trend in Charlotte. You can check out our designs at www.cookies4acause.com (and see presh photos above:) and order straight from the site. Half of the proceeds will go to Cookies for a Cause and we have selected Kindermourn to receive the other half for any sales on these three designs. Kindermourn is a local organization that provides support and resources for families grieving the death of a child and children grieving the death of a family member or friend.

Another angle of Hot Tops is for you to create your own design. Elise and her team will accept custom designs with school logos so if your school needs a fun spin on the ‘ole Sally Foster paper fundraiser, consider Hot Tops. You only need to order a few to get the word out, the rest of the orders are fulfilled right off of the Cookies for a Cause website. Elise does all the work for you, truly out of the kindness of her heart, not kidding! She doesn’t earn a dime. Elise’s goal is to raise millions for charities nationwide.

So what are you waiting for, Smarties? Order your custom CSP Hot Tops today and feel good about raising $ for Kindermourn. And don’t think your ‘lil Smarty Pants needs to be a CSP reader to bust out this fashionista piece! My girls have been wearing them to school and all of the kindergartners especially like the title of “Smarty Pants” on the charm! Plus for $10, you just can’t beat that for a fab birthday present.

Let’s spread the word about Hot Tops and a big congratulations goes out to our Smarty friend, Elise Redmond, a true angel in Charlotte.