Thinking about the new year...

Happy New Year's Eve! Every year I spend a week or two in December mulling over ideas for things I have hopes for doing in the new year. One thing I'm trying to go for this year is posting here more regularly, if for no other reason than it makes me feel slightly less the suburban hermit, holed up in my climate controlled cave, with the wolves (er, dogs, cats and little animals) who raised me as their own. At least I'm putting something of myself out there on a regular basis. I don't know what kind of a start this is, but I've been crazy for the pictures lately, so I thought I'd close out 2012 by sharing some of my favorite December photos.

 My brothers, Nick and Mikey, sent me this photo from their west coast tour with Scars and Stripes. So nice that California welcomed them with a television interview. In 3D, no less. You guys are such nerds, and I feel I can take some of the credit for setting a good example in nerdliness.

Next: Here are Scott and I waiting for the Xmas parade to begin in the small mountain town of Bryson. (I almost claimed not to remember the name of the city. See if *you* can figure out how I miraculously figured it out.) Not shown: Darcy, my best friend, behind the camera.

 I love this picture of my sweet and tolerant Goosey, allowing me to dress him up in Revco's favorite snood, made by For Paws and Home, another fabulous Etsy shop I just can't stay away from. I ended up ordering two more of these in Halloween and Xmas colors. He's wearing the red and green one today since it doesn't interfere with his dislocated/relocated hip's recovery.We even sent a couple more, plus some of her cool snakey toys she makes (Rat Terriers love any toy they can shake the life out of) to his Secret Santa over at the People Honoring American Rat Terriers group.

And finally, here's a picture of my little troublemaker, Violet, doing her best to look angelic while being dreadfully naughty, having climbed to the top of the Xmas tree. We finally had to get out her nemesis, the compressed air container, to convince her to leave the tree alone--all it takes is the sound of the air escaping, possibly because it sounds like a gigantic invisible tiger hissing at her? Not sure.

I had to add one more picture at the last minute. You may recognize this little sweetheart from my avatar I use pretty much everywhere, my business cards for my etsy shop, etc. He's Vincey, and he passed on yesterday. He was about 3.5 years old, which is quite elderly for a rat. He had been slowing down and slowing more until finally, yesterday, his little body just gave up. I wish him an auspicious rebirth, somewhere safe, around others who will love and cherish him the way he deserves. He loved scritches behind his ears and a treat in his paws. He was a loving brother to Howard, who passed on about 6 months prior, who he clearly missed and greived. He bounced back to his happy, box destroying, nest embellishing self and lived quite happily to the end.

I want to thank Carolina Pet Rescue for entrusting these precious little lives to my care. Vincent and Howard brough so much love and fun to our home, I hope I can repay you somewhat by fostering others. Stay tuned to see who.

A Spine of Pure Evil

Yeah, my spine is in rare form lately. Nasty, desperate pain is really getting to me. At least there are a few things that keep me going. For example, check out these supercute kittycone images I found at a collage sheet shop. I then created these:

Then, there's my poetry, which is in the current issues of The Other Herald, The Whole Beast, plus you can see a couple of my poems at Vox Poetica.

And finally there are my sweet goofballs:

Scott, included. BTW, check out those tiny feet Revco's propped up in the crook of his arm. Those are Rev's *back* feet. His front are below that. Aww.

 

Off to lick my wounds. Ow.

Eat Your Pancakes

 

Revco and Violet are officially friends. I wouldn't have guessed that the two of them would hit it off, but they love to snuggle. It's very cute. She's so small, she nearly makes Mr. 12lbs look big. I think he secretly enjoys this. Forgive the long nails in the above photo. It's on my list of things to do today.

I'm taking the Kit-tastic class at Big Picture Scrapbooking. May Flaum is the instructor, and she has a great website you should check out. For this card, I used this months Simon Says Stamp kit, though as you might notice, I didn't use any stamps on this particular card, despite the fact that the kit came with some really nice floral stamps I intend to test drive later today. It's a very neutral kit, which is so not my style, so I added a little gold and a lot of black to make it more interesting. Check out the washi tape with the teensy paw prints on it. I thought it was super cute along with the Westie theme.

I used the sketch from the Paper Players Sketch Challenge, which you can see here.

More to come! Have a great week! P.S. Eat your pancakes!

Simon Says Stamp Kit Club

Well, I was on the last few words of my post and for some reason the entire page deleted itself and I had to start over completely. Nooooooo! Not a good way to begin a much belated post, but what else can I do, when the "undo" refuses to "do" anything? Start again, I guess.

 This time I can't blame my absence on the wee kitty, as you can see we have found the perfect storage option for her. ;) It's just been a very long and painful summer that both seemed to drag on for eternity, yet also flew by in the way things do when you're incapacitated and watching yourself fall further and further behind on the many things that need doing. Luckily my pain level has improved greatly. I've been able to get out a couple times a week and have even been able to take the little kitty on walks in her cat stroller, which is fun despite the fact that (or perhaps because?) it makes the neighbors look at me as if I'm some sort of lunatic.

But, onto the Simon Says Kit Club, which I am enjoying immensely. I've been working on halloween cards...

This one was made for the Do You Stack Up challenge using Kraft and twine (dig that tri-color halloween string!) and the Really Reasonable Ribbon challenge (another kit club I belong to) to use fall colors, including--of course--ribbon.

 

I also made cards for National Pancake Day on Sept. 26. Since it falls on a Wednesday, it is the perfect excuse to make pancakes for dinner.

 

Hey, are those chevrons (below)? Why yes, they are! That's the requirement for the Simon Says Stamp challenge (or you could use neons (sorry, grody) or hexagons).

I also discovered that there is also a competing pancake day in February, but it appears to be a religious holiday, while this one is secular, so feel free to sin it up. Or, you could celebrate both, which sounds like a good plan, too.

Where have I been?

No, I don't have amnesia, I know where I've been, the problem is I haven't been telling *you* where I've been. Well, as you can see from the above photo, I've been working on donation items for Rat Terrier ResQ. And, as you can see from the next photo, I've also been working on some special orders...

And, if you hit this link:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MjI3OTM2MTl8MjcyMzAzOTgyMg/preview-artists4animalsteam-bns-round-3
(Tell them I sent you in the comments and I'll promise to be a better blogger here from now on. :))
You can see a treasury for the Etsy team that I've been busy helping with (I do their blog now, so check out this link, too: http://etsyartistsforanimals.blogspot.com to see my other blogging venture.)

And don't miss this link: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/Nzg4MjcyMXwyNzIzMDQzNjg0/open-biddys-bns-round-26-total-sales-135
(Again, please leave them a comment telling them I sent you so they'll keep giving my Etsy shop the luv. :))
And click on my shop because the other thing I've been doing is restocking the heck out of my Etsy shop during the slower summer months. I've added several new lines of products and lots of new items in general. This month the donations I collect from my sales (10% on my regular items, 100% on the designated EFA Charity items) go to Arctic Breed Rescue, so I've been working on adding items featuring these breeds to my shop:

One more photo:

Shows another little thing that's (or rather who's) been eating up my time. Usagi found her under our shed and has since rued the day she brought the little nose slapper to us. Sorry, Usagi! She's staying! (We'll try to work on teaching her that dogs don't like being scratched or gnawed on, though. :))

Recovering from the Jamboree

No, not the country bear one, the Rat Terrier Jamboree, held every year in Tennessee. That was the inspiration for my card for my team at For Fun Challenges this week. It's a little hard to tell in my photo, I know, but the perameters this week are to use Green, Beige, and Blue. I apologize that the color's a little off in the pic. I made the card in the motel room, and the only sufficient light in the room for photographing anything was in the bathroom, so here it is, on the counter near the sink.

Play along with our challenge this week and you can win 3 stamps of your choice from those on this page: http://paperjewels.weebly.com/spesch-stamps.html

I *know* you'll want to see my pics from the Jamboree, and you can! I posted them on my Etsy shop Facebook site. Take a look!

http://www.facebook.com/scrappyratdesigns

Here's a little teaser to encourage you to click through. Just look how much fun Usagi's having!

Rabbits (and not the Easter kind)

bles a

This week's For Fun Challenge is brought to you by the letter "K", or more precisely, K-N-K designs. The theme is non-Easter rabbits, so I chose to go with a "Get Well" rabbit instead. Here he is, reading to a sweet wire-haired Jack Russell Terrier (or possibly a Parson Russell terrier. It's hard to tell from a digistamp, especially when the dog is question is mostly hidden by a blanket. It's not like I need to know specifically or anything. He's certainly not going to be used to breed. He's neutered after all. How do I know? Because, no dog I'm in charge of would be allowed to keep his goolies. I've spent enough of my life trying to find homes for the litters of puppies *other* people's unaltered animals have caused.

   

 Come to think of it, this card is actually quite appropriate for the newly de-nutted dog, to wish him a quick recovery. I've never seen one of those at Hallmark. Anyway, I hope that you'll be inspired to join us this week in taking on the For Fun Challenge.

    Doggie Break! Doggie Break!

Sleeping Usagi didn't so much as stop snoring when Revco decided to use her as a chair. Zzzzz.

Have a great Wednesday!