Giving it the look of a boutique

I call my shop a boutique because it's simply too small to be called a store. Besides, it's way cooler than my other shops so it deserves a different title.

I have been working on the website, trying to get it updated, but it's been hard. I was stuck because, to be honest, I had no clue about what I wanted. I've been shopping with the same attitude. I don't know what I want, but I know that isn't it. Currently only my 9 year old will go shopping with me because the rest don't want to hear it.

I did finally decide on a new logo and will have the new website up sometime next week. the logo led me to a new color scheme and some new wallpaper. I was so excited when it finally came in. Tommy came up to help me because he is tall and I am not. We got the job done, but learned a few things along the way.

1. Wallpapering is HARD.
2. We suck at it.

Of course painting isn't hard and we sucked at that too. We need to take classes or find enough money to hire people because nobody in my family go the tools gene. Susi swears she can wallpaper and paint. I took this declaration as a promise to paint my ceiling next month. Lucky her.

The beam is papered as well as it's ever going to be and we left the hard part for my mom when she visits. She likes to wallpaper and doesn't say things like. "Hey did you know they put instructions with the wallpaper?? We should read those before we go any further." You would think that by now I would have learned to look at directions once or twice before I start a project. You might think that, but you would be wrong. I don't look at them often, only when I get stuck. By then it's often too late for the directions to be helpful anyway. In this case we did read the directions and changed what we were doing a little. didn't help. We still sucked at it.

We finished up and went to the movies. We saw Mongol, something I can't recommend enough. It's a great movie, even if don't speak Russian and have to read along with the subtitles.

Monkeys, Mermaids & Handprints

I have a new way to guage how much attention my window display is attracting attention - at least from the little people. Hand prints. If there are lots of little hand prints on my windows in the morning, then the kids were pressed against the glass looking at whatever was inside. So far the mermaid has gotten the most hand prints, with the monkey coming in second. I'm extra proud of the monkeys head design, so I'm going to blame Dan's body construction for it's second place showing. Of course beating a 5 foot tall mermaid can be tough, even for a 4 foot tall monkey.

My daughter's play

I went to see Waiting For the Parade Wed. night. It was really good, even better since my daughter is the stage manager. It's her first paid theatre job and she was really excited to have everyone come.

Since I have no clue what she does, I'm going to say that she did it very well. Everything looked good to me, even though she swears mistakes were made. Susi is a perfectionist, so mistakes are always going to be made. Perfection doesn't happen, but she keeps trying. Whatever it is that she does, it makes her happy and she's good at it.

The play itself was very good. I have not been to a play in ages and wasn't sure what to except from one with such a small cast. It centers on 5 women and their lives during WWII as they manned the homefront. The actresses are really good and the storys are engaging. For some reason lost to me the stage is shaped like a penis. Ask the director why when you go see the play.

Performances are at 8 tonight through Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at UMKC.

A $10 donation is requested. Seating is limited but may be reserved by e-mailing Kathryn Bartholomew at knbyt7@umkc.edu.

Store front pictures

A couple of new pics from the store. The lights are really cool. I took down the icky boring track lights and put these up. These are the ones that for some reason wouldn't light up without a bulb (from a previous post)

Bleah on teens who don't listen

I spend a lot of time at the boutique. That's a good thing, it's my JOB. I don't ask a lot from my sons, but today I asked the oldest to be on the lookout for my balloon order which was coming COD. He knew were the $$ was and all he had to do was ANSWER THE DOOR. He didn't. He let his brother get it. Said brother didn't know anything about the $$ and the UPS guy left with my balloons. He will bring them again tomorrow, but that puts me behind schedule. One thing, that's all I asked. Bleah on them! Oh and do you think that either of them could be bothered to call me. How about calling and saying "mom there's a guy here who says we have to pay for some balloons." Nope, couldn't be done. I'm trying to remind myself about why they have cell phones.

bleah

I want a sticker

Actually I WANTED a sticker. I started out wanting two stickers, got one and got denied on the other. What stickers? One from Betallic and one from Qualatex. I wanted to put them on my door since I use both types of balloons in my work and at the boutique. Betallic said no problem and they would find me something. Qualatex said no. Actually they said only if you are a member of the QBN (Qualatex Balloon Network) This is an "organization" that you pay to join and apparently have to be a member of if you want to advertise for them. I would have to PAY them in order to advertise the use of their products. Hmmm....I don't think so. I have instead chosen to reduce my use of their products. Betallic has long been my favorite twisting balloon although I still used Qualatex in my decor. From this point on unless the product I need is not available in some form in a Betallic product I will not purchase Qualatex. That pretty much means I will use Geos, spider eyes, agates and a few of the 3ft. prints from Qualatex. The rest I will get from Betallic via Mayflower distributing, TMyers and Continental Sales.

I have long been opposed to getting a CBA (certified Balloon artist) designation from Qualatex. I don't find it essential to my life or my business and I have met plenty of crap balloon artists with that at the end of their name. Mostly my hesitation has been a feeling that Qualatex does not exhibit real support to the twister end of business. For many years entertainers were treated as unimportant with their exclusive focus being on the needs of decorators. Betallic realized years ago that entertainers were an important part of the industry and LISTENED to them. Also persistent rumors have it that Qualatex engages in some shady business practices. It's not just coming from one person, but lots. If a distributor wants to carry Q products they will not promote B products - at least latex ones. The foil market still seems pretty open.

So, I didn't get my sticker, but that's ok. I just got pushed to vote my opinion with my $$. It may not be a lot of $$, but it's going to go to Betallic, not Qualatex.

Of course maybe I'm just venting and I'll feel totally different in a day or two.

Stupid things I have done

I'm going to blame my recent stupidity on the stress of getting the boutique ready to open. It's either that or old age and I prefer to blame the stress.

Two days ago I changed out my track lights which involved wiring new pendents to the adapters. It's very easy, even I can do it, still one of them would not work. No matter how Dan placed it in the track it wouldn't turn on. I checked the wiring but it was correct, so I was at a loss for why it wouldn't come on. Then as I was turning it this way and that I found the problem. Seems I had forgotten to put a light bulb in it. That's usually critical in getting the light to turn on. :-)

Yesterday I tried to make coffee. I ground some beans, got water, set the program, but no coffee. I pushed every button the thing has, but no coffee. Today I saw why. I have a coffee maker that doesn't have a pot, you dispense it with a button. Well, there is a pot, but you don't pour from it. I use that pot to carry water to the machine and pour it into the heating part. Except I forgot to pour it. There was no coffee because the machine didn't think it had water. No matter how many buttons I pushed there was never going to be any coffee. It's sad when I need coffee in my system before I can operate my coffee pot.

This week I've gotten the store together, so I will have fewer stupid moments.

I hope.