DeNami Summer Splash Blog Hop

Good morning everyone! Welcome to the DeNami Summer Splash Blog Hop! Are you feeling all warm and summery yet? You should have come here from Barbara's blog. If you didn't, remember you can always head back to the DeNami blog to check out the full list of participants.

When: The blog hop starts on July 14th at 6 AM, PST. However, you have until July 15, 2013, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs (to be eligible for a prize).
Why: To be inspired by fun DeNami Design creations and also the chance to win mini shopping sprees on the DeNami Design website!
Prizes: We are giving away THREE $20 gift certificates to our website! We'll be giving away one gift certificate to a random participant (DT members not eligible) and then we'll also be giving away TWO gift certificates to TWO people who comment along the hop!

Ahh summer...in our house that means time to head to the beach! Which, incidentally, is where I am now as you're reading this. Yes, I might be rubbing that in just a touch. It also means that our kitties get left home alone though I always think they have a mini-vacation themselves. Can you guess where this card is heading? ;)

Kitties at the beach!

Hey, I'm convinced it would happen. After all, there are yummy fishies to be had! Those cute little watercolor representations of my furry babies were made with the Cuddly Cats and Kitty Toys stamp sets, absolute must-haves for kitty lovers everywhere. The 'sand' was created with some Tim Holtz Distress Paper, the 'surf' features the Fiskars wave punch, and the 'sky' is from a My Mind's Eye paper pack. The handwriting is mine...try not to judge.

Jasper, Liam, Cassie, Rowan, and Lochlan

I miss my little ones, but I'll see them tonight with fresh catnip! I hope you enjoy my lovely little beach scene, now you're off to Emily's blog for some more summer fun!

Happy Crafting!

p.s. Don't forget the big Christmas in July on Etsy sale is going on now through the 21st! Stop on by and see what goodies we've stocked the shelves with!

How Much is that Kitty in the Window?

 I'm so excited that I can finally share this card with you! A good friend of mine asked that I make his wife a special birthday card. While I knew she dyed her own yarn (how freaking cool is that?!?), they also adopted two kitties recently and are putting in a new garden this year. So, put that all together and what do you get:

Today is a gift, that's why they call it the Present

 Two little gray kitties (one has a white tummy) chasing her balls of yarn and looking out the window at the garden, of course! I'm not even going to pretend to be modest and instead just say that I outdid myself on this card.

I. LOVE. IT.
Thankfully, so did Tina. I hear her "husbeast" needs to get a frame for it next... :)

I wanted to give myself lots of card square footage, so this lovely measures 6"x6". Of course, turns out I don't have envelopes that big (gak!) so out came the tissue paper instead. Hey, it's extra padding!

Closeup of the window...wait, did I smudge that? Dang it!

The window, kitties, and basket were all cut out with my Silhouette Cameo, aka my sexy, sexy craft beast. I think I found the basket in the Silhouette store, but the rest were SVG files that I imported and cut myself. The vines and flowers were colored in with Liquid Pearls and Stickles. Those clouds are from one of the My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper packs, as was the "wallpaper" I believe.

One little, two little, three little yarn balls...

For the yarn, I pulled out my baker's twine and just got rolling. It took me a few false starts, but in the end I knotted one end and just started wrapping, much like I was rolling a yarn ball. Yes, I've done it before; my Gram knits and my son likes decorating her apartment with yarn. Sigh. The basket backing wasn't solid, so I hid the patterned paper with a bit of chocolate Stickles. Ta-da!

Get back here, you evil ball of yarn! I'll keeel you!! Meow!

Then there's the kitties. They became gray as their little furballs are, and rumor has it they do indeed chase the yarn. Then again, have you ever met a kitty that wasn't enticed by that lovely ball of wool goodness?

Last shot. Yeah, I still love it.

The wall hanging was also done on the Silhouette, then hung on the wall with some twine and a square brad after its edges were inked up with Distress Stain (I think I used Gathered Twigs). The saying is one of my favorites, and lovely for a birthday.

Now, everyone go show Tina some love and buy some yarn. I promise, it's awesome.

I'm linking up to: Pink Cricut Link Up Party

Happy crafting!

Cassie and the Jingle Bell

Hi there - I'm getting prepped for not one, but two craft shows this weekend! Eek! I'll be back next week with fun crafty things, but in the meantime, enjoy a crazy cat story. :)

So right before we left on vacation back in July, my Cassie cat (aka Mama's GORGEOUS baby GIRL! Yes, I'm biased) managed to pop her collar off somewhere in the house. Not the first time a kitty has done that around here, so I didn't think much of it. I informed her to go find it and leave it somewhere for me to find and put back on her.

Yes, I realize this makes me sound like a crazy cat lady. However, it's actually worked with her brothers!

Fast-forward to this week and the collar is still missing. So I cave and buy her a new, pretty pink one. Now, those of you whom have ever bought kitty collars before will have noticed that they all come with little jingle bells attached. I'm not sure of their actual purpose, but around here they're known as Kitty Torture Devices. Many a laugh have been had watching the boys chase the bell that's following them before taking the humane path and removing it from the collar.

On this day, I wanted a laugh. I was still peeved about Cassie ditching the first one, so I placed the collar on her, bell and all, and waited for the floor show.

It never happened.

My brilliant baby girl simply proceeded to strut around showing off her new pink collar, then proceeded to successfully sneak up on her brothers. By the time they heard the jingle bell it was already too late.
That's right, my little girl became a stealth ninja bearing a jingle bell of doom!

Cassie and her little pink jingle bell

Just when you think you understand cats...