I think I'm Becoming More Bazaar Everyday...

A cute felty ball fetish is fairly normal... Well by my standards it is so let's just go with that for this discussion. Okay. But what about when someone gets way too excited about fancy roving (aka. wool used for felting for those of you who haven't researched this and become obsessed) that they can buy to create yet more felty balls? (Picture at right is from the Etsy store http://www.copperpot.etsy.com/ ) or maybe because it just look so pretty I could fill fancy jars with it around the house... I already have my dark pink and light pink felty balls from this afternoon in cute little glass cups in my kitchen. I'm 'drying' them... I will adhere them to my fancy silver plated bobby pins soon, when I'm quite sure they're plenty dry... and then I will in fact list them on Etsy. Should I become concerned that my dreams now incorporate random felt and roving thoughts? Sprinkled with the odd felty ball? I woke up to go to the bathroom at 5am when Mr. Pretties was getting ready to leave for work and I think the only thing I muttered at him before going back to bed was 'There's felty balls in my dreams...' Yeah...

So I left the computer on lastnight because I'm getting tired of it taking 10+ to boot up in the mornings (Yes, clearly leaving it on 24/7 will solve that problem!), I did this day before yesterday too. I heard the power click on and off early this morning and thought 'Crap, I hope that wasn't enough to shut the computer down...' so I was happy to see when I got up that the light was still on and humming away. I turned the monitor on and wiggled my mouse... only to see my entire desktop is enormous. This has happened before and I was equally impressed then. I'm talking HUGE, MSN is the size of the entire screen. It makes it very difficult to do anything. Mr. Pretties fixed it last time (And screwed up the colour some how, but I need to see more than I need proper colours) but he's at work. My only hope is that he'll phone on his lunch in an hour and remember how he fixed this. This is a big hope, Mr. Pretties doesn't remember too much after he does it. He'll probably have to come home and tinker with it, which means I'm stuck trying to do Etsy, reply to emails, make labels and pin cards with a screen that's twice as large as would it should be. This really relates back to the whole pink Dell situation. If anyone has one they'd like to donate to the Clippie Cause right about now that would be super. Think of all the fun stories I could have about a pink laptop? Think how much improvement there'd be on the Blog, and there's no doubt it would increase my creativity on Etsy as well. A pink laptop for me would benefit everyone all the way around! So... you know... if you've just got one sitting around and didn't want to offend me by offering it a few days ago, go ahead, I have no pride ;)

Does someone want to explain to me why those bobby pins with the little plates on them are so flippin spendy? Is it just because they're silver plated? Or because they have the tiny extra piece of whatever on the end? Or because it's known that I have really adorable felty balls that need to be adhered to them with some e6000 and everyone is afraid of how absolutely adorable they're going to be? I was checking this situation out yesterday and it would seem that a 24 pack is like $6.50 with shipping... now $6.50 itself isn't that much, I know that. But alligator clips are far less spendy and yet so much more involved... It must be the silver plating. I guess that's trendy or something. personally I don't see anything wrong with the fancy brown ones with the globby ends they sell at the dollar store... but that's just me and obviously I am not trendy and happening. I guess I'll bite the bullet and purchase 24 pins and test out this felty ball situation. Worst case scenario I have 24 really cute felty ball bobby pins to utilize. I'd be okay with that. Guess what everyone'll be getting for Christmas? The clips people sell with felty balls on them seem to be really spendy as well. I was browsing prices to get an idea of what was out there and what they were selling for. Three bobby pins, $10.50. What?! I'll sell my felty ball pins 3 for $6.50 just because the pins are a little spendy and I actually had to roll all those little balls myself and make them all cute and felty like. Then when they go to the consignment shop for sale as well I'll still make $2.75 after they take their 50%. I'm also going to purchase a felting needle and foam thing. I'm going to felt me some cool shapes too. This could be a lot of fun! I keep forgetting we're having the Little Boy Person though, and that might become time consuming in the next couple weeks... you know how babies sort of need stuff and all... I'll work something out. Do you think they'll let me bring my glue gun and felting needles to the hospital?

I think that'll be my closing thought for now. Trying to function with this great bloody huge desktop is cramping my style and my sense of humour today. It also made me forget all the fun things I had planned to blog about lastnight when I was trying to sleep. Hopefully all appears normal I'll be back with something remotely witty and/or funny. We'll see.

Is It Wrong To Think Felty Balls Are Adorable?!

That sort of sounds odd... and if you just tuned into us here at Meaghan-Marie you may currently be under the wrong impression... Have you seen these felted wool balls? These are from http://www.handbehg.etsy.com/ and she makes these adorable little balls of cuteness. There's just something about them that makes me want to squeal with delight! So much in fact that I purchased the felting wool stuff lastnight and am going to attempt fuzzy ball making this afternoon. I'm so excited about this that when I woke up at 5am this morning I really had to fight the urge to run and get my felting supplies and run to the bathroom to make me some fuzzy balls. I want to make some clips featuring these sweethearts but, I'm afraid after all the hard work of felting combined with their sheer loveability I may not be able to part with them. They're made out of wool, which came from a sheep, so to think of them as a small adorable, round pet isn't all that wrong, is it? I didn't think so either. Some people are so judgemental about things like that. Mr. Pretties is for sure. He came to the conclusion lastnight that he must be the only person insane (according to him he must infact be insane at this point) enough to marry and stay with me. Sure thing Mr. Pretties you just keep on thinking that, there are loads of people who would think my felty ball obsession is completely adorable and a sign of high intelligence. But whatever. Why am I taking offense from someone who doesn't know what a hair clip is or where you put it? I'm not.

Also on my shopping excursion (Read: Trip to Walmart *gag*) I noticed they are clearancing out their fabric section, which in itself makes no difference to me because I have yet to make a fabric purchase there... until lastnight! As I've mentioned, we repainted the kitchen recently. It's light tan with dark brown accent walls. Originally black and white combos were to be the accessory accent. Then I realized how gross it looked and how little it was doing for that room. I then decided we were still going to use the black (Where else would my windup clock go?!) and the cream accents with some chocolate brown. So lastnight I happen to be browsing through the precut pieces for fabric and came across the most gorgeous piece of chocolate brown taffeta. I did infact walk around WalMart petting it because it just felt so good. I have a window mistreatment - the picture is Nester's sisters house with the type of mistreatment I have already (To read more about window mistreating, how to hang currents with a high heel, and how to use your glue gun for almost everything imaginable just out the Nester's Blog http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/search?q=sister+mistreatment) but it sort of when wrong when I dyed it. Instead of black it's a rather dismal shade of grey. Very, very, ugly. But I hung it anyway because I was determined it would not look ugly when it was hung. Yeah, it still looked ugly. But by then I really didn't want to go get the hammer again, remove all the upholstery tacks and admit defeat. So I pretend I loved it and that Mr. Pretties was a knob for not being able to see it's greatness. But, now that I have this amazing taffeta I'm ripping that sucker down and retacking this metre long hank of gorgeousness. I plan to hot glue the edges (As in I am not sewing it at. all.) and then purchase some trim (I had some in my hand at Walmart, where the flip did it go?!) and jazz it up - with my glue gun. Nester explains how it is perfectly acceptable to use your glue gun for things like this, and I'm greatful for that since I have two sewing machines both with more attitude than me. Thus, they stay in the closet. One has been grounded in there since the spring of 2006. The other one slightly less, but I think it's on it's way to perma-grounding (aka. the garbage) because it is just too useless. So new, gorgeous window treatments are on today's agenda. Along with recovering the lamp shade in the kitchen with the remaining taffeta (There will be some remaining damnit!) right along with felting some fuzzy balls. Excellent.


I replaced my glue gun lastnight. That's a big deal for me. My old glue gun has been at my side for many important things... scrapbooking, altering BLP some 'Ragamuffin' flip flops, (again, picture courtesy of www.NestingPlaceNC.Blogspot.Com, these are hers, but mine are small, pink & brown and furry. BLP loves hers to death) I lined the insides of the flip flop part (The cheap plastic part) and the toe thinger with chocolate brown minky so they'd be comfy and she always puts them on and says 'Ohhh nice and cozy and wwaarrrmmm...' so I made myself a pair too in black and white and lined mine with black velour. Totally cozy! Love them! Have you noticed yet that I do not come up with original ideas myself? No, no. I wait for someone else to come up with a genius idea and then I figure out how to make it too. Different ofcourse, and to fit my needs. But once in a while it would be good of me to come up with my own genius half-assed idea to share with everyone. One day. I'll work on that, I promise. Anyways... so I bought a new glue gun. It is pink. My old one was also pink. It was imperative that my glue gun be pink, a pink glue gun is conducive with allowing optimum craftability. In addition to that important aspect, it also has to match my pink and brown scissors, my pink and brown paper cutter, and my many, many other pink crafting tools. If it's not pink it just doesn't feel right, and therefore probably doesn't work right. I only replaced the OGG because it was copping some serious attitude about this hair clip brigade I started. It didn't want to put the glue sticks through, it didn't want to melt them, it wanted to get too hot, and then it wanted to melt a whole glue stick at one time pouring the entire molten glue glob all over whatever important hair piece I was working on. That kind of crap is not going to fly around here. Not at all. Not to mention the 50,000 third degree burns I've acquired from this glue gone in the past few months. Most of them my own fault, but still. The time had some where I was concerned that it was getting so hot it was planning to simply melt itself and be done with it all. I did the kind thing and threw it in the garbage. That's a big deal for me too, I don't part with things very often because I feel sorry for them. I did give it a little kiss and a pat on the barrel as a farewell when no one was looking though. I even managed not to get teary eyed. I am making some serious progress here! Although I'm a little concerned that the only reason I'm not such a wuss anymore is because of this little ball of testosterone I'm carrying around, once the Little Boy Person gets here I'm afraid I'll go right back to a sobbing little weiner that feels terminally bad for the little desk lamp at the side of the road on the old Ikea commercial. Yeah. It makes me teary-eyed. Poor, poor little lamp, what did it do to anyone?! You can only hope that doesn't happen or this blog could get pretty disgusting! Just a warning.


I'm off to felt me some balls now (?) but I'll be back later to report how that went. In my head I have images of making these perfect little round balls on the first try. Frequently those images are horribly wrong. I may end up with little felt blobs instead... I need to go find that felting page again and review this process... it involves hot water, soap, and lots of rolling, doesn't sound too hard, eh? We'll see...


I totally forgot an imporant thing! See this adorable little consignment shop? (http://www.littlesproutsturnabouts.com/) The owner has decided to take come of my hair clips on consignment! That means taking a hit on what they're worth when they sell, but since I'm going to be taking some of the Little Pretties clothes in anyway, it would be a great way to pass around the word in an up and coming little shop (It only carries that name brand stuff so it's way better than Once Upon a Child). So that's a fun little tidbit of info that I'm excited about. And don't worry, I'm not even going to mention it to Mr. Pretties (Until I require him to drive me an hour to Hagersville...) so that we don't have to relive the 'That's Nice' debadacle again. Twice in one week will not be tolerated, but since Mr. Pretties doesn't understand that concept I'll just save myself the aggervation and not mention it. All-in-all Mr. Pretties is a good guy, don't get me wrong now, sometimes he just 'doesn't get it', that's all. He is a man after all.

Did someone order a bowl of the most adorable pink and magenta felty balls you've ever seen? That's right, I didn't have to because I made my own! I can't wait to get my card reader for the camera so I can post my own pics everyday. Let me just tell you, those wee little felty balls are adorable and easy to make! A little time consuming I guess, it took me an hour to make like 18 of them, but that's like what 3 minutes each? That's not so bad. My hands feel a little 'rolled out' but that's a small price to pay! Never mind the pride I feel about this. Think of how often this will come up in a conversation! 'I just got my masters degree, I'm so proud of myself!' followed by 'I know exactly what you mean! I just figured out how to make really adorable felty balls!' Uh huh... this might be one of those pridey things I keep for the blog ;)

*To the super nice commenter yesterday I left you a comment in yesterdays box because I couldn't reply via email. If you'd like to contact me through http://www.meaghanmariepretties.etsy.com/ or at MMPretties@hotmail.com that would be super!*

Hmm... So Etsy does have it's faults...

Have you ever done something and wanted to beat yourself for it? Then realized it wasn't your fault at all and want to beat the other party? Me too. At 12:54am lastnight I could have beat Etsy senseless. I've been fine tuning my descriptions, tags, what nots and was just finishing up when I made the mistake of pressing the 'back' button on my web brower. No big deal, right? The back is infact for going back, right? Wrong. Very, very, wrong. If you press the back button during the editing item part of Etsy you will simply delete that item and all the work you put into listing it. So PSA - on Etsy editing 'Back' button = Delete button. Don't do it. And certainly, if you do it once, please don't do it five more times after that just to prove what a knob you are. I personally wouldn't know anything about doing things like that, but I imagine a person could do it, and then really want to beat themselves. Not only is it a pain to relist items, you also have to pay a whopping .20 a listing and because the item has been deleted anyone who has 'hearted' it sees it as sold, which it's not, which just annoys me. In addition to this little bit of aggrevation lastnight I also paid to have my three most popular items in Showcase - excellent! Except for the part where while Mr. Pretties and I took the little pretties to the beach for the day all three of those items sold out. So my $7 listing listed... you got it - Nothing! Oh the hilarity. Not that I'm complaining, I'm thrilled to be selling my items! It just would have been nice to have them showcased. I knew I shouldn't have left the house... And I'm sure the people at the beach who were exposed to my Casper-esque whiteness and pregnancy inspired whale-like appearance feel the same way ;)

I think my computer is just trying to mess with my head. I came onto the blog this morning to check out the traffic (or lack there of...) and the blog was puke green. It had no traffic counter. It had no Etsy-Mini. It was very ugly. And my first thought was 'Omg! Someone broke into the blog and stole everything!!!' After several long seconds of panic I convinced myself this simply was not possible, no matter how cute everything is. Phew. So when I signed in and looked at the blog is was fine. I hope when I sign out and posting this it's also fine. I would hate to think I was looking at such an adorable blog this whole time while you all were looking and that nauseating pea-green piece of uglyness. That would explain the lack of comments, I know you all wouldn't want to hurt my feelings or anything, but if that happens again I need to know because we just can't be having that!

Why is it after I made the most adorable envelopes known to humanity people all of a sudden want to pick up their orders? Are you trying to tell me something? Maybe I'm the only one who would be stoked to get cute mail. I'm wishing I had mailed the big-little pretty's preschool applications in one of these pretty packages, then surely the administration would see what a fun, cool, and dedicated mom I am and that they desperately need me on their craft board and therefore must admit BLP into their institution ASAP. Let me just mention, this isn't private preschool or anything either (Not that there's anything wrong with that - just out of our financial reach). Nope, it's just a normal co-op preschool which I have severe mixed feelings about starting in September. On one hand I'm so excited for BLP to being doing something so grown up, so kid oriented, and undoubtedly so fun. On the other hand this is entirely unacceptable. She absolutely cannot be old enough to be left at daycare alone, what are we thinking?! What if the other little kids make fun of her? It's really making me debate homeschooling, that could working couldn't it? Or I could be the classroom volunteer... every. single. day. I'm sure the other mother's wouldn't mind.

I wish I had something witty and funny to write about our trip to the beach yesterday but, I simply don't. It really wasn't that exciting. Not even a 'a seagull pooped right on my ....' story. Sad, eh? It wasn't very sunny, the water was pretty seaweedy, and I sat on the remains of a fish head. We watched the old man, who was very clearly doing his best impersonation of Magnum P.I. as he strutted the beach in his speedo with his cigarette pack tucked neatly down the side... We played in the water. LLP had 700 tempertanrums because her lips were blue, she was too cold to go back in the water, but desperately wanted to try anyway. I remember those days. Like most family outings this ended in screaming, crying, and everyone vowing never to go out together again. The kids weren't happy either. How do normal families pull off this whole family time thing? We must've missed that parenting seminar, because some families just have it down to an art and we're the people everyone else is staring at. Well not quite that bad. But close. We've had 3 1/2 years to practice this family together situation, I guess some people need more practice than others.

I hate Michaels. I never thought those words would come out of my mouth (Err... keyboard). I went there Friday morning to get some ribbon I needed and some fabric stiffener. They. Had. Nothing. I left empty handed. This does not happen. I was so flippin mad too because I want to get these wedding clips out in the mail to be double sure they're at their new home in time. What is wrong with Micheals?! It's like now that they have that 'Knack Shack' they have nothing else in the store and everyone will be cool with that. I for one am not cool with that. The ribbon I required wasn't even unusual, unpopular, or anything. It should have been there. So I asked if they had some around somewhere else, or if maybe it would be there the next day... no. But, they have the same sized ribbon in the same material in green, wouldn't that due instead? For sure! I have no doubt that my customer that needs brown satin clips to match a chocolate brown flower girl's dress will be equally thrilled with some sage green ones instead. Definitely. I wish I'd thought of that simple solution! 'Oh hey, yeah, about the brown clips... they didn't have any brown but, not to worry, I've made you some pretty sage ones instead!' Right. Thanks anyway. This is why I generally don't buy my ribbon from stores. Although with my ribbon sitting at customs right now ordering it online isn't much better. Why doesn't anyone want me to have my ribbon?! Why?! I have things to do people and I have to get them done in the next two weeks before the little boy person makes his appearance!!

Well I have about 7,000 clippies to make since Mr. Pretties is working over time today. I had planned to take the new pictures for Etsy (It's been voted by many, myself included, that I get new pictures, these aren't cutting it) and take some pictures of hair pretties in the pretties' hair to give people a better idea of how they look in. The weather was supposed to be sunny, clear, and wonderful. I even ironed the white linen sheet I was going to use as the back drop for my pictures (It was also voted that my knit sweater in the background was a 'turn off') and what do I wake up to? Rain. Clouds. And more rain. OH WAIT, hold the press, I just looked out the window and apparently while I typed this the sun has made it's way out! Perhaps in a couple hours it will be bright and dry enough to accomplish these things I want done before Mr. Pretties gets home (Mr. Pretties does not particularly get my hair accessory obsession and is not so helpful). Yay!

Keep an eye out for new non-crappy pictures early next week! Tomorrow I'll try to be witty and funny again, I'm on day three of three hours sleep at night and I'm starting to feel it. I guess the first thing to suffer is my sense of humour and writing skills. That's a real bummer for all you. I wouldn't have posted at all, to save you from having to read all this, but I didn't want my blog to go 'stale'. Yeah, like bread. This might have just propelled it straight into moldiness though. Sorry about that.

So I can make an envelope...

I woke up this morning and low and behold, I had my first Etsy transaction! It's not like I haven't sold clips before, but it is just so much cooler to do it from my 'shop' and have an email sent to me about it. It's sort of like a virtual pat on the back... I did a little happy dance in front of the computer and went off to tell Mr. Pretties about this. I just knew he'd be as excited as I was, he'd probably do a happy dance as well and then tell me what a cute, smart, irreplaceable wife I am. MmmHmm... He said 'That's nice'. Yeah. And it wasn't you know 'That's Nice!' = 'Wow, I'm so proud of you, that's so awesome, you must feel really good about it! It must be because your store is so cute and your blog is all pink and brown and stuff' No it wasn't. It was more like 'Huh... I'm not really sure what Etsy is, or a hair clip for that matter, but will it benefit me? No? Oh... well... Huh...' . Sometimes I wonder... So I'll phone someone (Read: Email someone since I'm a phone-aphobe) that cares and it'll be all good.



After filling some hair clip orders (I still receive them mostly from email, can't everyone understand how much more fun it is to do it through Etsy?!) and when I'd filled the orders I could for the day I thought about how I had to ship them. Then it dawned on me that I was out of shipping envelopes. Crap. I suppose I could just hand them to the mailman and ask him to deliver them as is or, I could just go to the post office/Staples/Office Depot and purchase those ugly orange spongey ones (Like any normal person would). Then I remembered seeing some really awesome handmade envelopes on Etsy and I just so happen to have a life time supply of patterned cardstock... So I went to work and came out with something almost exactly like the ones to the side. They're all pink and purple ofcourse. And super cute. They actually bring a tear to my eye when I see them. I am SO stoked about them (more so than I should be) and thought about telling Mr. Pretties about them when he phones from work tonight. Then I came to my senses and decided to pop them on the blog instead. No one appreciating them is far better than someone not appreciating them. I think. I cannot wait to ship out a batch of hair clips on Monday in one of these cuties. It's like getting a present in the mail... albeit a present you paid for... but a present none the less. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when people open their mail and receive this beauty. I personally would be so excited about this envelope I'd forget what I even ordered, or that there was anything even in the envelope. For atleast 30 seconds anyway. I have to go buy labels now since I clearly cannot write on these envelopes because you'd never see the addresses. Did I mention that I also glued a few random pink rhinestones to them too? They'll fall off in the mailing process, but I'll know they were there. I'm also throwing in a thank-you business card to match. All this for a $2.25 purchase. Come. On.


I'm a little disappointed my cupcakes aren't here yet. I ordered my felt cupcakes last week and got an email that they just shipped from the US yesterday. Does anyone know how long it takes to get mail from the US?! We're talking 9-14 business days. Business days. That's like three normal people weeks. They better be here sooner or I'll have to make my own damn felt cupcakes, and after the envelope extravaganza I just might do it too! My friend told me about a really cool place that you can go to and cut out felt shapes, I really need to go, think of the things I could cut out?! I really want to get some flowers made and things like that. The unfortunate part of my weirdness though is that I do. not. drive. ever. I let my driver's license expire two years ago infact. So if I want to go somewhere Mr. Pretties has to transport me. Which usually isn't a problem, but I don't really think he wants to sit in the car with the little pretties while I have a hay day in the resource centre cutting out cutesy shapes and suffering bouts of giddy laughter at all these things I could do with felt shapes. I could utilize some public transportation but as I've mentioned I'm 37 weeks pregnant and to be honest, I walk like a really fat duck and I would be 40 weeks pregnant by the time I got myself to this place of wonders. Under normal circumstances I can out walk Mr. Pretties anyday, now his sslllooowwww stroll is like speed walking to me and it takes forever for me to get anywhere that's not two centimetres away. I'll think of something, it's imperative that I have these cupcakes. And flowers.



I also need to create some hair clip cards. I could purchase them. I should purchase them. But, as I've said, I have alot of cardstock. I also have a snazy pink and brown paper cutting thing that will zip said cardstock into perfect hair clip cards in no time. Will this be good enough for me? Hell no. Then I'll have to get a stamp/sticker/label with the MeaghanMarie logo on it to go on the top, and then I'll have to embellish it (Can you say 'If you give a mouse a cookie...') and then I'll hate myself and wish I'd just had them made. But I'm fun like that. Maybe I'll create them on the computer (Not mine ofcourse, mine is a real life piece of crap that does little other than make the internet work) and print them out? I could do that... it would be pushing my computer know-how but I think I could manage. If anyone wants to throw a new pink Dell laptop, 3-in-1 printer, MS Office, and Photoshop my way I wouldn't be all noble about it or anything...

My Feet Feel Like A Babies Bottom...

Ahhh... Sweet relaxation. I said I wouldn't share before/after pictures of my pedicure. I promised. I will keep that promise. But, I'll still going to tell you about it. Let me start by reminding you that the last time I received a pedicure not issued by Mr. Pretties (Who is not half bad, let me tell you!) was 5 or 6 years ago. Yes years, you know that grouping of 12 months at a time? 5 or 6 of those. That's a longish time. This wasn't one of those spas in a hair salon, or one of those really big spas you get lost in and have an agenda you have to stick to etc... etc... Nope this spa 'La Petite Spa' ( www.lapetitespa.ca ) was a little tiny... err... petite piece of decadence in the upper loft of a 100 year old building up town. You know how I feel about things that are old. If they had tried to rub my feet with a camels rear end I still would have thought it was fabulous (They didn't by the way). Besides the mass amounts of character this place exuded from it's antique wood work/ windows/doors/ceilings/lead paint... uhh... never mind... it was also painted the most devine chocolate brown on two walls, pink on a window wall, and had an amazing original rock and wood wall. This paired up with chocolate velvet curtains, antique and shabby chic pieces of furniture, and a pedicure 'throne' who I will soon be introducing as my boyfriend, equaled pure love. They even brought me my ice water in a champagne glass. Now that's class. All the accessories, including the nail polish remover were pink. Have I told you all how much I adore pink, especially when it's coupled with brown?

We'll need to have a post on that situation soon. Love it. I believe 30 seconds into my manicure my eyes glazed over and I mentally went to sleep. I'm sure my manicurist (Is that the right term?) thought I thought she was doing a crap job and was meerly trying to keep myself awake long enough to escape. I didn't even care anymore that I'm an excessive nail biter and that my hands look like someone chewed them up and spit them out. I now have hands that smell like grapefruits and legs and feet that smell like Fruit Loops. (I'm glad I had the fore sight to shave my legs too, that could have been ackward) So this was classified as the best birthday present ever, and affirmed my suspicions that my cousin loves me more than Mr. Pretties to issue such a wonderful gift.

As if that weren't productive enough I did infact get my Etsy and email pictures uploaded. It only took me an hour to figure out that my camera wasn't on therefore the computer would not recognize it, ergo, no pictures will upload. After that it was all gravy. I was in a hurry though because Mr. Pretties needed to be at work pronto, and I needed him to transport me home before he went there. So in my haste I emailed myself the 200 pictures I required (Out of the 740 I would have liked to have had) and patted myself on the back. From there I planned to upload them to Photobucket for safe keepings and future uploading extravaganzas. I got home all stoked to load the pictures to my Etsy listings (I'm so impatient I listed all my Etsy items already with no pictures, I'm shameless) and low and behold... no pictures. Crap. I forgot that Hotmail is not my friend and didn't like me trying to send 30MB of pictures to my inbox. It was so annoyed infact it didn't even bother to bounce the email back or tell me that it hadn't accepted them. I think it was being passive-aggressive. But my aunt came to my rescue and resent them all this evening and I got them uploaded to Etsy and emailed out to the group that wanted them. What a relief! Not to mention my Etsy listings look so much prettier when it doesn't look like I'm trying to sell a grey box. I laughed because even though there clearly were no pictures, people still clicked on the listing to see what was up. Maybe I should have temporarily listed them as 'invisible clips' and see how that went. Someone would probably order one to be a smartass though, and I'd have to come up with an invisible clip. Here's a small taste of some basic clips that were uploaded today through much time and effort:
There are more, but quite frankly this whole uploading/downloading/sideloading is tiring and I've done more of it than I care to discuss. If you want to see fruits of my hard labour (I mean the uploading part) they can be seen at http://www.meaghanmariepretties.etsy.com/

I'm off to answer some more emails now, send some pictures, and hopefully not mess up to many communications. Or maybe I'll wait until tomorrow, believe it or not, all that luxurious pampering managed to give me the first headache I've had in months. Must've hit the wrong 'trigger' in my foot, as long as they didn't hit the 'eject baby' button I'm okay with that...

Ribbon...

Some of the ribbon I ordered weeks ago arrived today. Oy. I love ribbon, I really do. And the fact that it arrived in this big pile where it had nicely knotted together was great, truly, I even had to resist the urge to throw it up in the air and roll in it. Then a couple things occured to me. For one, I am not a cat. And two, I actually need to use this ribbon to beautify some sweet little darling's hair. So I began to untangle it.

Holy sh... shoot that was A LOT of work. Don't love ribbon so much anymore. Really don't love the person who mailed it to me either. I even paid a handling fee... do you think the handling part was when they smushed it up in a big ol' ball and jammed it into the envi? Yes? Me too. That's it, I don't pay handling fees anymore, we cannot risk having this fiasco again. I'll probably have ribbon induced nightmares now. As if I don't have enough problems sleeping at night.



Also, I have now enraged the boss. I had to spread it out to untangle it properly (and rewrap it onto ribbon cards) which meant I also had to use my other hand to wrestle the ribbon away from the cat who, for the life of her could not figure out why I was not sharing these goods with her. She eventually got fed up with my selfishness and stalked off with her tail in the air and will likely ignore me for the rest of the day. Good. She's not all that helpful with the rewrapping part anyway.

In addition, I listed some hair pretties on Kijiji last week. It was a great idea! Accept for the part where I took orders, and my husband, we'll call him, Mr. Pretties kept 'helping' by bumping the ad. For four days. In four different cities. When he he knows that I was bought out by another Kijiji mom and that I'm waiting on the rest of my ribbon to come in. I am beyond stoked to get to work with some of these moms to get their sweetie pies some hair pretties for their hair (or almost hair?). Usually I make pretties for mom sales and craft sales, so I make the clips and people buy them. Now people are knowing what they want and I'm making them especially for them. This requires so much more love, but that's what makes customs so much more fun! I finished off 20 clips today for a couple of moms, and have too many more to go. In addition to the extras for the Etsy shop. I go to sleep thinking about hair pretties, I have dreams about them (Who knew you could have nightmares about something so adorable!), and I wake up thinking about them. Now that's dedication! Everyone is so easy to work with and most are so appreciative just of my taking their order. Love it! Some people were quite angry that my ad was reposted on Kijiji when I was clearly out of clips. Totally understandable. Perhaps Mr. Pretties should have these emails sent to him. I don't like hate mail before I have my cup of tea in the morning. I think I smoothed all that over though, phew. I want everyone to like me and love my pretties. I know that can't happen, but a girl can dream can't she?

I convinced Mr. Pretties to go 'junking' with me this morning. Please note that Mr. Pretties does not like junking. Garage saling, yes. Junking and antiquing, negatory. But he put on his big boy panties and came with. Now we just finished repainting our kitchen this weekend, it only took three weeks. No it's not that big. Mr. Pretties just likes to take his sweet time. Please note that I painted our long hall, our little hall (these are technical terms now!), our diningroom, our bathroom, and the big wall in our kitchen in three days. With the kids up. I'm 8 months pregnant. But I got it done. I digress. But our kitchen was the most awful shade of orange and light orange (this is a rental) with white cupboards. It was very... cheery? In a nauseating kind of way... Now it is a much more acceptable 'Pony Tail'/'Noah's Ark' combo. Very trendy. And wouldn't you know, all my old crappy pieces of antique something-er-other match beautifully. I was telling Mr. Pretties that I required a clock for the kitchen, a real clock. Not one that glows green, gets angry and flashes at me, or other wise is unrealiable in the event of power failure. Mr. Pretties agreed. I found the clock on Ebay. 80 years old, wind up, still had the keys. It was only $171.00 + shipping. Mr. Pretties disagreed whole heartedly. I could not win this battle before the time was up. Literally. SO in our junking today I came across this little piece of heaven:

I know. Be still your heart. (Yeah, tilt your head side ways... I can't fix that) This IS now a picture of my clock, I had it sent over especially for the blog, because you all care so much about it... Let's go with that okay? So this is it in all it's glory in my kitchen, in it's 'shabby' (Read: Crappy) antique cupboard that now so perfectly matches my kitchen. It's one of those items that you walk into the room and go 'Wow... that's just so right!' Mr. Pretties does not understand this logic. He thought maybe we should throw away our digital alarm clock in our bedroom and put this one in there... uh... not so much. This was not made for our bedroom (I don't care that it's an alarm clock!) it was made for the kitchen. Mr. Pretties was the religated back into the bedroom to reinstall the alarm clock he had taken the initiative to unplug and prep for garbage. Doesn't he understand that at night I do require an ugly green glaring display of numbers telling me exactly how many hours of sleep I have left to enjoy at night? And what time I got up to go to the bathroom/let the cat in/get a drink/check on the kids so that I can then report it all to him in chronological order in the morning? I guess not.

Well after that little piece of beauty I think your eyes'll need a rest. I told another mom I would take some extra wonderful pictures of my pretties for her selection tomorrow and I sort of need to get on that. Although I told her I could email them tomorrow, thinking I could upload them onto my aunts computer, but I'm not so sure about that now. I'll have to find my USB thing. Good lord. Better get on that too... this could take awhile. After the whole obstetrics appt., uploading of fantastic photos (Hear me camera?! f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c pictures. Not half as... arsed!) I have an appt for the first pedicure I've had (Besides the only Mr. Pretties issues occasionally) in six years. This is a birthday present from my cousin who must love me more than Mr. Pretties and my mom since they did not obtain this particularly wonderful event as a gift for me as well. Can. Not. Wait. I'm sure I'll be able to crank out pretties at warp speed with my toes looking all beautiful and girly like! Not to worry, I will not be posting after photos of this (Or befores for that matter, be extra thankful!) so you can still check back tomorrow and not have to worry about temporary blindness/nausea/or faint.

Now where is that USB cable... Next computer we're going blue tooth!

So Here We Are...

Hi There!

If you're reading this Blog then you must have heard about my 'No-Slippy Clippies'! Here you can read a little about me, what I'm currently creating, and what crazy things are going on in my house. Lucky you, right? Nows your chance... you can still turn back...

If you're still here then here's a little bit of info about myself. I'm a mom to two little girls and soon to be little boy (August will be a crazy month around here!).

I torture my girls daily by experimenting with new hair clips, and it is a known rule that unless there are dire circumstances we do not leave the house without having hair pretties. I used to be able to convince my 3yr old that we needed these hair clips because her hair 'looked like a birds nest' (Poor thing inherited her father's milkshake-thick/brillowy hair) now when she seems me coming armed with the brush, an ouchless (yeah right) elastic, and a the hair clip box she quickly runs away screaming 'No birds nest mom! I'm fine!' And ofcourse my 2yr old sees this and has also decided hair pretties are not to be had unless you go down fighting first. The neighbours probably think I issue morning beatings on a daily basis the way they go on about it. Once they have their appropriate clips in place they'll be the first to see 'Look Dad! I Pretty!' No thanks to me ofcourse. And we'll still have to have this fight tomorrow. Oy.

I have a blast making MMPretties but, I have a hard time selling the pretties because I form attachments to them all. Yes I form attachments to inanimate objects. This is just the tip of the iceburge here. We definately keep more than we sell, but I take the time to put love and personality into each clip, especially when I'm making it for a specific person, I want them to love it as much as I did. Sort of like finding a home for a beloved pet that you simply cannot keep because Animal Control is already high on your tail about the urban zoo you're already housing. I love getting feedback on these guys, so any ideas you have to change them up or improve them please don't hesitate to let me know, even if you think they suck. Someone has to, this isn't a perfect world and neither are my clips. Sometimes the fact that they're all hand made is lost on people. I'm not a robot, I do not have machinery that is set up for a clippie making assembly line and I just push the bottom. I try to make each clip as perfect as humanly possible, but again, I am human so it wont always be perfect, but it'll certainly be pretty!

In the next few months I hope to add a few of my other hobbies on here as well. I hope to be able to stock my 'boutique-style' burp cloths, trendy wipe containers, and frilly tutus. At some point I may punish you all by incorporating my scrapbooking fetish as well.











In addition to torturing my kids with fancy hair thingies I'm also obsessed with the antique market and all that entails.
In a perfect world I would spend my weekends garage saling to find beautiful old things that exude character followed by hauling them all up to the antique market where I would single handedly pair each beautiful old item with a new owner who will love and cherish them even if their paint is all full of things like lead and they've been hanging out in someone's basement for the last 60 years. It's would be a very noble practice if you ask me. But in reality all that leady/musty/chippy bunch of antique goodness would end up in my house. We would have to move because there would be no room for us. Thus, I am not allowed to make the antique market my business.

I think that about sums it up for now, especially since I just spent over an hour tweaking the layout of this post and it's pictures. That was a lot of work. For future reference my future posts may not be nearly as colourful or interesting (Or not?) as this clearly eats away from hair clippie making time!

Hopefully I'll have MeaghanMariePretties.Etsy.Com up and running shortly and that'll take care of the pictures aspect of my posts!

Thanks for taking a look and I hope to be supplying you with something ridiculously cute to adorn your little ones head! (Hmm... is that weird?)