The Mother Teresa of stray cats?

There's been a new stray kitty hanging outside on my porch. This one I feel particularly attached to because he/she reminds me of my other cat Ein. I guess most torie cats look similar, but this one bugs me out sometimes. I'll see him/her (still can't figure out if it's a girl or a boy..I'm assuming girl because most tories are) stroll by and freak out thinking Ein has escaped to the outside. I also feel bad for it because it's not a full grown cat, more like a teenager. And I imagine that this cat doesn't know what kind of hardships it really has ahead of it. I have a discarded cat scratching post in the corner on my porch that she likes to sit on until 4 in the morning, then disappears until the next evening.
She's really friendly too. The other day I was thinking about a news story I read about a young kid that set a cat on fire and I really got worried. Was I doing a disservice to the cat by being friendly to it and getting her used to humans? I can't protect every stray in the area. Is being feral the only way to protect themselves from heartless human beings? Lou said no, it'll be fine. But I can't help worrying.

This is my inside kitty Ein. Doesn't she look like my stray friend?







Aside from being the Mother Teresa of cats I've been trying hard to stay motivated and get my pictures uploaded, edited, and listed. I have almost all of my Halloween Plini figurines up and then a few more to go, and one custom order I've still been working on. I can't wait to get that one finished. It's coming out really cute! Pictures to follow soon.

Halloween Preview

Just a quick preview of things to come very soon! I'm busy taking and uploading some photos of new things for the shop. And as usual, it's taking forever because taking photos is like homework for me.
I'm pleasantly pleased with myself for actually getting some things created in due time for it's corresponding holiday. That never happens! Time management..not usually one of my strong points.

more ventures in rubber stamping!

A few blog posts ago I shared my cupcake stamp that I had carved from a rather soft piece of linoleum. While it was nice to carve into, it was kind of crumbly. So I scoured the web for a sturdier block. I read that a certain kind of rubber eraser also works well for carving into stamps and Peaseblossomstudio also suggested it to me, so I tried it out this weekend.

Everything comes with a lesson I suppose. And when it comes to rubber stamp carving, next time I'll make sure to flip the image before I carve it!



What's pitiful is I didn't realize until I tried out the stamp that the image would stamp backwards. dummy.

But I definately plan on buying more erasers. It was fun and fast!

A sailboat on a rainy day.

My pop-pop's birthday is coming up. September 11th. Can't say I'll ever forget that! I decided to make him a card. Usually when I give cards or gifts, the recipient doesn't receive it until a week after their birthday. I'm a terrible planner. But this time I'm determined to get it to him before his birthday.

I drew a silhouette of a sailboat on tracing paper. Layered it on top of a nice piece of textured cardstock and carefully cut it out with a super sharp X-Acto blade. Then glued that to a another piece of card stock. Layered that with a matching piece and punched holes up the side. And finally threaded some matching green rope down the side to hold everything together. Resulting in a 5x7 inch card..roughly speaking.

[don't mind the terrible sickly lighting. It's a blustery rainy day out.]




I also thought I'd share my sailboat silhouette in case you'd like to make your own sailboat card for your pop-pop. Just right click and save the image to your computer then print out and do the same thing I did with the tracing paper. All I ask is that you don't use my image for commercial purposes (i.e. making cold hard cash off of it) without my permission. Because that wouldn't be very nice....or legal.

The cutest shoes in the world....

These might be the cutest shoes I've ever owned.



Aren't they sooooo adorable?


Yeah...they don't fit.



*sniffle*
I bought them on super-final-we're-not-kidding-sale clearance online. They only offered whole sizes. I'm an 8 1/2 and I got a 9 figuring it was better to have roomy shoes than shoes I couldn't even wear at all. But these are far too roomy, even for me. Now what am I supposed to do? I feel like I'm wearing clown shoes. How does one "take in" a pair of shoes?!?



Side note: See the baby kitty poking his head out from behind my legs? So nosy.

i feel the luv!

So I'm going to finally attempt to catch up on some lovely blog awards I got recently from some lovely peeps.

I'm going to do a little bit of cheating/combining [shh!] because the two awards have relatively the same rules. The first award came from the lovely Ismoyo. And the second from both Pink Lemonade Stand and The Mum and The Rose. Thanks so much for thinking of me you guys! *tear*





The rules are...
1) Put the logo on your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3) Nominate at least 5 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on yours.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

There were a few blogs that I was going to nominate, but I know they've received this award already, so I'm going to try and pick some new ones in hopes that I don't create some vicious circle of nominating. hehe..

Greener Pastures-A City Girl Goes Country : Ok yes..it's my mom's blog. But I love reading her stories about moving to the country. They're so funny and honest.

Black Lily Pie : I'm not sure how I stumbled on her blog in the first place. But I loooooove her artwork.

Artist as Art: Ego as the Exhibition : A lovely artsty friend of mine. It's always great to talk art with her. And she's an awesome painter/photographer!

Purrverts : A lovely blog on kittehs! A good read no doubt.

Spike's Travel Log : The travel blog of my dear dear kitty Spike maintained by my boyfriend. It's still in its infancy stage, but I see great and hilarious things on the horizon.

rubber stamps....my new interest?

Well I had myself a nice long holiday weekend. It involved crafting and a large helping of videogames. For once I managed to play and not feel guilty that I was wasting my time or I had something I needed to get done. It was so lovely.

But relaxing aside..I managed to carve myself up an ever so cute stamp from a linoleum block. [on my break from work. remember? this is the only time I have to myself] I'd been meaning to play around with linoleum for a while now [since college when I took printmaking]. But who has the time? I forgot how satisfying it is to carve away slices.



I was thinking of making some to sell. But I have to find a better material to work with. This block that I have is like butter. Nice and easy to cut into, but I'm not sure how durable it would be in the long run.


I also added some more things to the shop. My camera is still acting up, so it's been difficult. I literally have a mountain of things waiting ever so patiently to be listed.