New Offers Online!

Here at Atelier Mandaline things have been crazy busy, but I did have time to set up some new promotions in the eBay store. Anytime you want to see all the sales I have running in that store, which is my largest, head to http://www.ebay.com/sme/ab_art/offers.html  You can bookmark this page and check it monthly to see my newest offers in this shop. To keep up to date on all my stores, head to ateliermandaline.com and sign up for my newsletter (and get exclusive sale coupons when you sign up!).

This week I am working on listing vintage fashion, most from the 1990s. So far I have some shoes and boots up for auction, and I am working on a bunch of sweaters, so stay tuned. I finally decided I am never going to fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes, including my shoes because my feet got larger along with everything else, so I am selling them and getting them out of here. Some are post-baby, but still really small because they were pre-36, the age at which I started to have some serious problems with weight gain. It's a shame, because back then I had a lot more money to spend on myself and I had much higher-quality clothes and shoes than I do now.

I would have as many kids as God would give me, but I tell you, right now the three I have are keeping me poor and exhausted! We just finished Senior Prom and have Graduation coming up. After that we are taking a family trip to Disney to celebrate. I've been working on accruing gift card points for over a year to help pay for that. When we get back we are taking the younger kids to my parents' for a week so they are out of the way while we move our oldest into the dorms for an early-start program. I still don't have sheets or towels or anything for him, so I need to get on it. I think a trip to my happy place: IKEA, is in order!

Our oldest got out of braces a couple months ago and now our daughter went into them on her lower jaw. She has a torturous appliance across the roof of her mouth. I have to turn it with a key every night to expand it The hope is we can avoid extracting as many as eight teeth by stretching her palate. She has to wear the appliance for eight months before she can have braces on her upper teeth.

A couple nights before her appointment the orthodontist called wanting to see our youngest for new X-Rays, even though he did scans and models just a few weeks back. He is the doctor on our cleft team who's in charge of deciding when to start expansions and stuff for our son's bone graft, and he's having a tough time. Several permanent teeth are in the wrong places and the thinking right now is our youngest may have to go into braces on his baby teeth to push them out of the way so the permanent teeth can drop into the correct spots.

It might be easier as far as cooking if they were both in braces. Our daughter can't chew anything or suck because of her appliance and I am racking my brains for liquid recipes the whole family can enjoy so I don't have to cook extra suppers for her! I guess it's good practice, since our youngest will have to be on a liquid diet for several weeks before and after his bone graft surgery.

On the crafty front, I have been stocking a lot more doll making and repair supplies lately, since they are selling better than restored dolls right now. I several "blank" dolls in my Etsy shop for you to finish if you want to make a custom doll without making the doll herself. Those are nude Madame Alexander dolls to dress. My sister sent me a big box of alpaca roving for my birthday and I am itching to do some felting, so keep watch for those new creations. I'd better get them done before June, since we will barely be home all month!