A Winner, an Entry, a Giveaway, and Two Kitties

Toulouse (aka Goosey Goo) decided to give me a hand taking photos of my cards for my etsy site. Check out the nose lick! Cat tongues are so funny. They look like weird little strips of deli ham. He looks a bit like he's thinking about how tasty those guinea pigs on the cards might be. Naughty kitty! Don't eat the pets, please!

I've been working hard on card orders, both for clients and (mostly) for rescue groups who request items for their fund raisers. Ferrets and greyhounds have dominated my workboard, pit bulls are up next, then shelties, then more ferrets, followed by opossums and other wildlife--rescues are quick to find my shop, it seems. :) It's cool to be able to contribute this way, though, since I can't do as much hands-on rescue work due to my physical limitations. It's hard to clean cages, train rescue dogs, or keep up with the administrative needs of a rescue when you're hurting and easily fatigued. Hence: adaptation.

Anyway, this card with the cute Airedale Terrier is one I made just for fun, for a challenge at the Shirley's 2 Girls blog. I'm a fan of her adorable animal stamps, so when I saw that she was looking for Flocked or Feathered cards, a-flocking I did go! It's a bit hard to tell in the photo, but I used black flocking on this little guy's black spots, from tail to that one black ear. Wish me luck!

Continuing on the subject of fun, Saturday was my Stampin' Up party! It's been ages since I've been well enough to have any sort of get together, let alone a party for 12. Teresa, one of my best friends and my Stampin' Up demonstrator, totally made it happen. She was an amazing showman, entertaining the masses with her mad crafting skills, while I hung out with the group upstairs, awaiting their turn in the craft room. She even helped me put my scrap room back together before the party...as you may recall, it was a complete disaster since everything had been pushed to the center of the room so Scott could build cabinets and counters along the walls. I'll post pics in my next blog installment. Scott still has to finish the cabinets at the back of the room and put in the glass fronts in all of the doors, but it's still a kajillion times better than it was and if the amount of time he's spending working in the shed is any indication, he's either going to be done soon, or he's got a second wife living in there.

I forgot to take many pics at the party, but in the one, above, patiently waiting their turns and being adorable are my friends Kitty, Laura, Revco (he's the short one), and Eileen.

If you're looking for a Stampin' Up demo, Teresa is freaking amazing. She hooked me up with loads of free stuff for hostessing and she's a FABULOUS person in general. :) I can't *wait* for the UPS man to come to my door, and not just because he's kinda cute in that little brown uniform.

This little mousie is adorning a project I made for a Fiskateer challenge Angela announced during her tutorial video. Below, you can see the complete project, an envelope for toting around my mail that's in need of answering. My attempt at making the sides expand didn't go so well. I was a couple folds short of making it work, but so it goes. It was a prototype...the next one, hopefully, will actually have expanding capabilities. As for this one, it still does its job and I love that old Pizzazill cardstock I made it out of. Sadly, that line seems to have disappeared so I'm super careful about using up my precious stash. I think we all have something hidden away like that, that we like too much to use.

Relevant to that, I am taking May Flaum's class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, Adventures in Scrapbooking: Use Your Stash. I'm working on homework tonight, which includes picking out a box of stuff you've had on hand for a while and want to use during the class. Among the items are: rub ons galore, a box of ribbons I got free at an Archivers' event, a big tin of buttons in all sorts of shapes, a set of the old Stampin' Up copper Hodgepodge Hardware, and plenty more. Wish me luck!

In celebration of this class theme, I'm going to get some of my ribbon stash moving by sending one lucky reader 10 yards of ribbons from my private stash! These aren't ribbons I don't like or want to get rid of, but gorgeous ribbons I really like that I want to share with someone who is kind enough to read my yapping here.

Here's what you have to do...leave me a comment telling me about something you have in your stash that you've been holding onto for too long, just because you love it too much to use it. Don't forget to include some way for me to reach you, either via a Fiskateer number, an email address, or a link to your blog or whatever. I never received a response from my Martha Stewart winner despite my efforts to reach them, and if I don't hear from them by my next post, I'm going to have to pick someone else to win those supercool stamps.

Speaking of winners, Donna (comment #7), you are the winner of the book giveaway in my previous post! Contact me with your mailing address so I can send it your way!

Whew! Long post! Thanks for reading all the way to the end. :)