Cutest Kid in a Halloween Costume Contest!

Hi Friends! I hope everyone is as excited for the weekend as I am! It's been a long but fun week here at The Tickled Tutu. With Halloween quickly approaching, I have found myself staying up far too late at night filling orders that have been so extremely fun to create. Since I don't have much time to write today, I just wanted to give you a heads up about the new contest being held by The Tickled Tutu: Cutest Kid in a Halloween Costume!

The contest has just begun and will end on Sunday evening. To participate, simply post a photo on The Tickled Tutu's facebook page (www.facebook.com/tickledtutu) of your cutie in his/her Halloween costume and send your friends/family over to vote for photo! The photo receiving the most votes by Sunday evening at 7pm MST will win a gift certificate worth $50 in Tickled Tutu merchandise. It's that easy! So hop to it and post those photos!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend; enjoy your friends and family!

FYI: All orders placed within the last week will be shipped out by tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 22nd) with the exception of Christine B, of which will ship out on Monday, October 24th. Take care everyone!

A Clean Room, A Stink Bug, and A Craft Fair

Hello friends! I hope you're all doing well as I write on this mid-weekday Wednesday. It's been a bit chilly here in Colorado lately, which has allowed me to actually get quite a bit of work done while staying warm inside! For one, I completely re-organized the upstairs "tutu room", which is a HUGE task if you have never seen it before. I would say it's safe to state that 360 of the lovely 365 days a year; the tutu room qualifies for a great episode of Hoarders, however I do always seem to know where things are (or so I thought, until I actually went through everything and found things that I've purchased multiples of simply because I thought I needed to....yikes maybe I do need to be on that show) and the area is CLEAN just very very full of fun things. Anyway, I started out with 4 sorting boxes; 2 for trash, 1 for seasonal merchandise and 1 for Goodwill/ARC. I ended up with 6 trash boxes, 2 seasonal boxes and 4 Goodwill/ARC donation boxes. As a result;  a room that I never really knew existed in my home!! Princess Dy - as I refer to my pink Dyson, the love of my life (in line after Owen of course but possibly equal to the love for Chris) even had the extreme pleasure of getting to make the floors look like new! She was very happy I'm sure. Hooray! Anyway, moving on.

Where the "business" side of the job is done.

So I typically receive a few emails a day with custom Tickled Tutu order requests. I even have a special hanging file folder for which I print the "Best Of" if you will, of the custom order request emails, because sometimes they are quite hilarious and on those days when I need a good chuckle, I walk to the file and begin reading. I have always said that I LOVE custom orders, and that is the truth. I am a creative person and LOVE working with creative people, so when approached by someone who has a new idea, I love to make it come to life. Yesterday, I "met" (well I guess I didn't meet this client since our communication was via email, but I will say met just because I want to) an awesome client who ordered 3 outfits, one of which was custom. I haven't asked her permission to disclose her name, so we will just call her Jill. Jill has a daughter who chose to be a "stink bug" in her school play. lol. It's really hard for me to write about this without laughing, and I'm not totally sure why, but something about the name "Stink Bug" gets me every time. Well Jill didn't seem extremely thrilled about putting her daughter in a brown and black sweatsuit to represent the bug, so she had a custom order request of a brown and black Stink Bug Tickled Tutu. I laughed each time I communicated with Jill and I laughed nearly the entire time making the tutu and then I laughed harder when my 2 year old son asked me "Mommy, what you doing?" I replied: "Making a Stink Bug tutu." He looks at me, looks at the tutu: "Stinky.....Daddddddd Mom's making a stinky tutu." :D So the tutu is complete, and I hope that Jill's daughter makes the cutest Stink Bug known to man because she certainly made my day yesterday.

I am sure this little girl will be the cutest Stink Bug ever!

In conclusion, I am now spending my time preparing for the Highlands Ranch Holiday Craft and Jewelry fair, while of course filling other Tickled Tutu orders. I haven't done a show in about a year and I'm really looking forward to this one, which is on November 5th if you're in the area--I'll even through in $15 off your purchase price if you mention the secret password "Stink Bug" at our booth. :) As I said before, I hope you are all doing well, and thanks for taking the time to catch up with the happenings at The Tickled Tutu today!!

Have a great week!

<3 TT

Minnie Mouse Fever!

Minnie Mouse Fever!!

(and more, of course)

Hi Everyone! So I just wanted to update you about new things going on here at The Tickled Tutu; it's been awhile since I've written a post that's actually applicable to my business so I thought - no better time than the present!

Over the last 2 weeks, Tickled Tutu's Minnie Mouse outfits have been "all the rage." (I totally hate that phrase yet it still makes me giggle, so why not use it) These outfits are also my most favorite to make, so I suppose that's a win-win situation. There is just something about Minnie mouse that makes things hard to screw up! However, the common trend among the clients purchasing these outfits is....nearly all of them are preparing for an upcoming trip to Disney Land or Disney World. Yey for them; but super jealousy has taken over for me!!!! I am so looking forward to when Owen is old enough to remember a trip to Disney (that's also code for, I'm waiting for the moment that my husband gives the green flag and books our trip).

On Saturday I went through EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY PRE-MADE BOWS (nearly 250 or so...) and decided which ones will stay and which bows will be "retired"--25 bows stayed. It was a bit sad to say goodbye to the 225 others, but I donated them all to Goodwill hoping that someone finds them and makes another little girl smile. What's amazing is even though I cleaned out a ton of inventory, somehow I have already managed to fill the space up again!!! It always seems to blow my mind how that happens!

About 2 weeks ago I ran a giveaway to about 7 facebook Tickled Tutu fans and they received custom hand painted bow holders; so I have now added that fun little addition to the Tickled Tutu family. I have always loved to paint and making these bow holders has been a nice change of pace.

So now I've begun the Christmas holiday seasons of tutu and clothing making, which is always a blast. I tend to do approximately one craft show a year and usually choose one that's around Christmas time just because of the fun spirit in the air. There is a local garden/nursery near my home that brings in live reindeer on the first weekend of December. That's one of my very favorite days of the year, and I LOVE doing tutu photo shoots there! If you are a Denver-Metro area local, shoot me an email and I'll give you the info about where you can see these awesome animals. Santa makes his appearance here and there, but the reindeer...they are AWESOME.

So I'm leaving you with hopes that you have a wonderful week and enjoy these wonderful fall days!!

Until Next Time!

xoxo TT 

Oh the things the day brings!

Owen, age 2.



Owen; age 2 years and 3 months.

This is what I'm worknig with today.

 Cheers!
 

Oh such a lovely find! And zero to do with Tutus - FYI.

HELLO!! :)

So this evening was a very eventful one for me. Not in the business aspect, or really the fun aspect, but eventful in the sense that I have now traveled to nearly every pharmacy in the Denver Metro area searching for some muscle relaxant that I was prescribed for by my doctor that simply does not exist. This has been an on-going search for me, actually since September 28th and still, no such luck. Anyway, tonight's pharmacy adventure was far more exciting! My search ended at King Soopers (yep, simply .5 miles from my home--but wow, did I get to see some Colorado scenery on my drug hunt!) where I love to search through the giant "DISCOUNT BOOK DEALS!" bin. This bin is approximately my height and always over flowing with tons of random books for under $5. I should note also that my "favorite" finds are always those that are on the bottom of the 5'4" bin, so I have been inside the box to retrieve my goods in the past. The bin is located about 20 feet from the pharmacy, so you better believe that when I crawl inside this thing, there are people and probably multiple cameras witnessing my adventure. But tonight my friends; I found the ultimate find. And I didn't even have to get inside the box.

Tonight; I found...brace yourselves because this is exciting...MRS. MEYER'S CLEAN HOME NO-NONSENSE ADVICE THAT WILL INSPIRE YOU TO CLEAN LIKE THE DICKENS book! And you guessed it; only $5 for this gem, of which I paid for in quarters that I planned to take to Coinstar,..but that's a story for another day.

Now of course I purchased this awesome bound bunch of goodness, sort of hoping that Mrs. Meyer's published her personal phone number where I could reach her 24/7, hidden inside so that she could "teach" me her tricks by simply cleaning my house herself. You know--the whole teach one, watch one, do one? Is that the order? Who cares. Anyway, no such luck so far on finding the Mrs. Meyer's hot line number, but hey, I still have a few pages left to read.

So I must share some of the funniest blurbs I've come across as of yet--and let me back up a second; for anyone who doesn't know me, this is SO not a book for me, as one of the first rules written by Mrs. Meyer's is that every time you get out of your shower, you are to do a little cleanup of the shower curtain by applying a baking soda based paste and then top it off with a spritz of lemon juice--this prevents mold--duh. I don't even know that I've ever owned baking soda for the record, and that's why I also don't bake. (My neighbor takes care of making the cookies for me; she does a great job, so why give her any competition?)

Anyway, moving on to one particular paragraph that make my tummy hurt from laughing--It's titled, "As for the Smelly Stuff" (I have a feeling that Mrs. Meyer's didn't have a 2 year old son with an issue keeping what belongs in the diaper, in the diaper. Because when I read the title of this paragraph, I did not expect to read what you are about to read...) "Giving That Grimy Garbage Can a Good Clean. LOL. So by a show of hands, who has scrubbed their INDOOR garbage cans with an old toothbrush--which you keep at the top of your medicine cabinet for the monthly can cleanly duties as well as grout scrubbing needs for your floor tile? No hands are being raised here!!! Anyway, I'm kind of preoccupied by laughter right now, but if you have a King Soopers near you and there is a discount book bin inside, I highly suggest you find out some tips to keeping your home shiny and bright 365 days a year. And that's all I've got for today folks! May your week bring you cleanliness and if not, my sister-in-law swears by her cleaning crew, so I'd be happy to grab the info for you and pass it along :)

Peace Out. Kristen

 For something totally off subject but way more fun, visit us at: www.thetickledtutu.com