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My Story

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I am Deborah Blair, the creator of Tape-in Tinsel and owner of the FunHairShop.
My delight is to appreciate the unique qualities and personality of everyone I meet.  I believe each person has infinite potential and value - their own Special Sparkle!  I love to make people sparkle!  Stand out, be noticed, have fun, radiate!

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Well, here is the long, joy-filled story of my little female owned and operated micro-business, if you care to hear it.

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I have had the privilege of spending three decades owning entrepreneurial small businesses, while also teaching and inspiring young people to discover and utilize their own potential and start their own businesses. They are my inspiration and I work diligently to be theirs.
 

I am a full-time empty-nest teacher with more to give.  So I work nights, weekends, and holidays to overflow onto others.  I smile as I spin tinsel and send off orders because it allows me the joy of helping others shine too - not just my customers!

I love putting pink streaks in Susan G Komen breast cancer survivors hair after their awareness walks/runs.  I delight in sponsoring and visiting several impoverished children we support through Compassion International for the last 35 years. I also get to train street kids two nights a week on how to make better choices.   I dream of when Covid is over to find a Childhood Cancer event so I can put gold sparkle in their family's hair as a conversation starter about supporting childhood cancer causes.

 

My involvement in selling hair bling started back in 2008 when the bling string and long tail grizzly rooster feathers were all the rage.  Since you don't need a hair stylist license to put in feathers and fairy hair, I just YouTubed the best ways and ended up being asked to train in salons and beauty schools as I sold my bling string and acid dyed grizzly hair feathers.   I taught the best way to tie in the tinsel and how to use a silicone lined crimping hair bead to put in the feathers.  A whole rooster tail went from $30 to $600 by the height of the craze!  Fly tie fishermen were incensed! 

I was benefitting the hairstylists because they would buy a $10 pack of 100 strands and charge $2 a strand to tie them onto a single hair, which took a few minutes each.  (With the wefts of Insta-Tinsel, a hairstylist can put on over a hundred strands faster than she could tie on 5 the old way - and they were not removeable without plucking the hair out!)

I drove around after work selling these ridiculously difficult and very popular tie-in tinsel strands and hair feathers to hair salons all over the county. It was worth it because my sales goal was to give half to Compassion International and use half to take our family to Thailand to visit a couple  of our sponsored children.  We did it!  What amazing memories.  I smile thinking we affluent Americans can spend $30 to have 15 sparkling strands tied onto our hair and that amount can sponsor a child with everything they need for the month!!  I felt a bit like Robinhood, yet everyone wins! The hair stylists were turning a $10 purchase into $200, if they used all the strands and women and girls were glistening and smiling as they showcased the new trend.

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After that I was a bit exhausted from working after work and weekends.  10 years later...being resourceful, I could not toss all the sparking reels of tinsel I had.  I thought someday I could think of a craft my students could do.  I have 130 students, so creative supplies are always useful.  After enough brainstorming to make my head hurt, I realized interacting with all those hair stylists in salons, that they had taught me about hair extensions.  Since my hair is thin and fine, I was trilled to try every kind of hair extension there was.  In the end, I settled on loving the tape-in hair extensions and have been putting them in myself (with the help of my husband) for years. 

Then the idea of using tinsel instead of hair came into my mind.  I tried several ways to make them even, waterproof, heatproof, long enough....Several ridiculous experiments.  By the way, glitter glue is not a good idea!   Finally, I thought I had it.  My husband built the machine I designed to make my new invention of hair tinsel tape-in wefts and patented them!  Boy did I learn a lot about social media marketing after that.  Being an empty nester, I had no trendy tech help.  My students eagerly became my hair models and helped me package.  I hope to take on many interns from our high school who want to be entrepreneurs. 

 

I will use whatever avenue I can to help youth become successful, fulfilled adults. It is my joy to have them live up to their potential, utilize all their talents doing what they love. 

 

I also delight in training up children in how to make good choices in life.  I do this with the children at East Count Transitional Living Center, while their parents take GED, rage management, AA, NA and parenting skills classes.  While their family gets housing, food, clothes, both parents and kids receive life training skills and all the love they can stand!  It is amazing to see God transform lives and rebuild families in the 2 year program to help them get off the streets.   It is worth working extra after work and weekends to be able to see them smile and know that they are very special.  I now started hosting "work parties" with them.  I hire them to do piecework & packaging while watching a movie or sports game.  They are being trained and paid while fellowshipping with a supportive community of friends who want the best for them and their future.

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My next venture is to start "Sparkle Parties" - I am laying out the plan for several activity centers to make things and get girl glam, as well as identify their own "sparkle" within.

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If you actually read all of this journaling of my journey, then I appreciate you for your interest and am impressed that you can sit that long to stay focused.  I can't.  I am all over the place and can not sit still too long.  Oh well, Dori survived and so will I - noticing every little thing that sparkles!  It is a happy, industrious, playful, oblivious life!  :-) 

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I am convinced that we all overflow onto others.  We all shine our own special light onto others.  We work hard  to pass on our wisdom and talents to the benefit of others.  Light is a powerful, uplifting intangible, just like love and faith.  Let's all sparkle!

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So enjoy the pretty and playful spirit you radiate when wearing Inst-Tinsel Tape-in Tinsel Extensions any time or all the time! We hope you absolutely love our product and post a review with your radiant photos and mention what makes you Sparkle!

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Bling string, hair dazzle, sparkle strands, hair shimmers and fairy hair are all the same thing - Hair tinsel. But not all hair tinsel is the same. Do not install strands by tying them on one at a time, you will have to pluck out hairs to remove them, if they do stay in at all. Stop using a threader to clamp in beads holding harsh streaks of tinsel onto clumps of hair. Try InstaTinsel stick-on strips! They are removable and reusable! You can wash and heat style your hair for weeks with them in. They last up to 6 weeks, yet slide right out when applying common rubbing alcohol or hair healthy oil (coconut, olive, argon...) to the adhesion. Attach 150 sparkling, dazzling strands in 5 minutes on 8 easy to apply strips under a light layer of hair! Or you can cut just a half inch of one strip to put in a dazzling sparkling streak or two Perfect for special events, festivals, parties, costume, sports fans, school colors, dances, parades, exotic evenings, cheerleading, for entertainers and for every day. Adding brilliant bling strands for a celebrity, glamourous look that gets plenty of attention. Instantly attach or remove hundreds of strands waterproof. heatproof. reusable. We carry 30 colors - 7 holographic colors, 5 natural metallic hair colors, and plenty of vivid bright neon colors. We even carry two kinds of rainbow colors: neon rainbow and pastel rainbow. Still timid? Then try our clip-in hair tinsel strips. Eight clips in a package. Over 15 strands per clip. Use one or put them around the crown of your head for delicate shiny threads shimmering throughout your hair. Only available online. Custom crafted by Funhairshop.com

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