Party Planning

It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since we closed up shop for our reno.

We're not renovating this year, but we will be making some changes in the shop.

I love this time of year.

We get to clean off the shelves, do our annual vacuum (I know. Gross), spit shine the place and, my personal favourite, get all the Christmas stuff OUT of the back room.

You can't even breathe back there.

There's so much merchandising and Christmasizing to do we will be closing the store Monday November 9th through until the beginning of our Holiday Launch Party (Friday November 13th from 6pm - 10pm) just to prepare.

You're invited by the way.

Bring a friend. Bring twelve friends.

We'll be doing lots of fun stuff this night. Think free goodies, toe-tapping Christmas music, discounts of up to 40% (you'll draw a candy cane at the cash for this one), a little cider (a little rum if you promise not to tell) and holiday cheer in general.

If it's anything like last year, you'll see items here that night that you won't be able to get afterwards.

Thing go friends. Especially the really different stuff.

Like, did you even KNOW we had a huge wall-mounted wire reindeer head last Christmas?

Well we did.

And it was super cool.

And it was sold in the first 2 hours of being on the floor, never to be seen again.

I bought another one this year. Not to mention piles and piles of other great stuff.

Hope to see you here.

Em

Pumpkin Patches and other cute stuff

I FINALLY made some stuff this weekend.

I'm mildly obsessed with putting clips in Clemmie's hair but it's hard to find ones that aren't incredibly dorky.

So I decided to make some.

It's what I do okay?

Since I am useless at crocheting (it truly has become the bane of my existence), I trolled Etsy for cute appliques and, as usual, I was not disappointed in what I found.

I bought a bunch of appliques of all sizes, some dollar store grosgrain ribbon and a ton of alligator clips.

All for about $15.

And then I went to town.

This is just a few.

My favourites are actually the ones I made using the crocheted circles you can see in my supplies shot.

They are to-die-for-cute and I am SO going to sell them in the shop.

I may even hold a little workshop in the new year.

Colleen and I have been brainstorming (also as usual) and I think this could be a fun way to generate a little additional revenue during slower retail months.

But I digress.

Hey. Want to see a happy kid?

We took Clementine to the pumpkin patch this Sunday, and the girl loved herself some fall fun.

We toured the chicken coop...
Explored the corn maze...

Went on a hay ride...

And screamed at some pumpkins.

This last shot I took thinking I should try to take the same shot every year so we can watch her grow.

She doesn't look it really, but she's actually crying in this picture.

After I took it we realized we hadn't changed her diaper in about 5 hours.

Excellent.

Last on the cuteness list, shop stuff.

My friend Melissa designed me an adorable little logo to use on some reusable bags.

Yep. Blackbird has jumped on the reusable bag bandwagon finally.

Free with purchases over $50, or $2.99 each, we'll donate $.10 to the Almonte General Hospital every time you use one of these bags, or opt not to take one of our paper bags.

And that's it!

Christmas arrives here November 13th so stay tuned for info about our Open House, or join the mailing list at www.blackbirdshop.ca.

Regretsy

I have a new favourite website.

Meet Regretsy.

As you know I LOVE Etsy, but along with all the fabulousness, there's a lot of wacky shit on that site.

For example:

The life sized pizza brooch.

I thought I liked pizza as much as the next girl, but I guess that's really only if the next girl isn't wearing a freaking BROOCH in the shape of a slice.

(ps.anyone else hate that brooch has 2 o's? I don't know how I'd like to spell it, but it just looks so pretentious with that extra o.)

The best part? I found it in the SOLD section of Regretsy.

Someone bought this! Granted, it was only $7, but you could buy a slice of REAL pizza for $7.

A really good piece too.

Maybe even a little side salad.

There are some pretty sick items on this site too.

Like a pillow with a silk screened uterus on it, a lapel pin made from a real turtle foot, and a "real" mounted, taxidermy stuffed black unicorn.

Barf.

Who would kill a unicorn!? They're so rare!

I wish I had a picture of my friend Josie's "regretsy" to show you. (I'll add it if I can find the picture on my home computer - Found one! What you can't see is that the dress isn't actually zipped at the back, and those gorgeous fake flowers are hiding the best part, but at least you can get an idea of the quality of the fabric. Jos, please don't hate me for posting these!!)

A few months ago she bought what looked like a gorgeous wedding dress on Etsy for something like $150 US.

The pictures online showed a beautiful bride running through a busy city street wearing this gorgeous frock.

About a month later the piece of garbage showed up looking like an upchucked wedding cake...only acrylic.

Honestly.

It's atrocious.

The fabric is so cheap you'd be nervous to be in the same house as an open flame, and the sewing is wayyyy off.

The bust is all akimbo and there are seams in places there should be no seams.

Not to mention boobies.

The bright side of this story is that we definitely got at LEAST $150 worth of laughs out of the thing.

And it'll make a great addition to her kid's dress up trunk someday.

Anyway. Enjoy.

It's the write ups below the items that make this site hilarious beyond hilarious.

Welcome to my new addiction.

Em