Feeling snarky, I won't deny it.

Why yes, I am feeling snarky.  I wanted the cat, and I wanted the fish bones, but I didn't have a sentiment that put the two together. Well heck, just go for it, right?

The cat is from Simon Says Stamp, and the fish skeletons are unbranded.  If anyone knows that the fish bones are a copied design, please let me know where I could get them legitimately.

The sentiments are from Simon Says and My Favorite Things.

On the next card I used a traditional sentiment, also from MFT. The brown cat's eyes are green, but they really disappear. I may go back and put Doodlebug Erie eyes on him.  Also, the back-facing cat should have more contrast, so I may change her up too. They had a lovely fish lunch, too

I used an old Amy Tangerine paper pad that I got at Tuesday Morning at least 4 years ago. Time to start using that stuff!

Edited to add:
I changed the contrast and enhanced the eyes on the forward facing cats:

Cats + Hearts = Purrfection!

Wow, I am still using up all the cats I colored back in May. Would you believe I'm still not done with them? Most of them were colored with Copics or Spectrum Noir markers and cut with my Scan and Cut, but these were on water color paper scraps, so were fussy cut.

Anyway, this week I ordered and received a bunch of basic shaped dies with double stitching around both the inside and outside edges. These dies, from Gina Marie Designs, are a value, priced much lower than the die sets from big-name companies, but are not no-name dies from China, either.

What I am discovering with these dies is that I must use the precision plate in my Big Shot, and if I want both ends to emboss the stitching evenly I need to put a little shim at one end only. My next project is to cut each one separately and mark the low end so I'll know where to shim them in the future. Oh boy.

Anyway, for the hearts in this card, I cut all three at once and colored each one separately with Distress Oxide Ink.

The front of the pink card base is embossed with the 2nd largest of the rectangle dies from Gina Marie Designs. It's very subtle.

The kitties, from My Favorite Things' Catitude set, were water colored and fussy cut. My Brother Scan and Cut is not so great at cutting things from heavy watercolor paper scraps. When I tape down the scrap the scanner wants to pick up the tape and it's too close to crop out. Yes, I need to get my cutting mat sticky again.

I finished up with some Nuvo Crystal Drops and Nuvo Jewel Drops.

Pawsome in every way!

More fun and funky cats from My Favorite Things' Catitude set. I still have a few more to use, so this isn't the end, my friends!

I stenciled the brick wall and setting sun with stencils from MFT and Distress inks, onto Bristol smooth card stock. The cats had been colored previously with Spectrum Noir markers.

I may go and get a little bird for the top of the fence. Maybe.

Happy Caturday, you're pawfect.

I sat around the whole weekend and avoided housework again by stamping, coloring, cutting and pasting. Since you didn't ask, I'll tell you: I have 4 whole cards to show for my weekend! And a ginormous mess on my craft table. And the floor next to the desk, and the shelves immediately to the right and left of the desk, and every other horizontal surface in there. I probably should put up the ironing board so I don't use it for another surface.

I got a new set of stamps with cat images, called Sittin' Pretty by The Alley Way Stamps. These cats are a little bigger than most Lawn Fawn critters, so they look more "important" on the card front.

My coloring isn't that great, in spite of the fact that I keep buying more markers. So I decided to paper piece the cats instead of coloring them. But in the end I liked the colored ones better than the pieced ones. Now I have quite a few stamped and cut out cats and it bugs me to toss them, but at some point I can't use all the images I make as experiments. What's a crafty type to do?

By the way I spent WAY too much time with the backgrounds here. I have really got to start using sketches and stick to them.

I think the way I colored the cat's tail here could be safely called a fail. I'm using it anyway.

Oh darn, I forgot to put the shiny stuff on their noses before I took the pictures. Oh well. Happy Caturday!

Treading water

I guess this is a mini-vent. My daughter and her husband moved in with me in November and I am kind of hanging on until they leave sometime next fall.

How can 2 grown people be so oblivious to filth? My house has white tile, and how can you walk past the cat's spit-up 3 days and not pick it up? I don't much care for cats anyway and this one uses her claws (not maliciously, she's just super nervous). Both the cat and its owners are treading thin, thin ice around here. They don't contribute to the household and currently they are not even keeping up with themselves.

I cave and clean the kitchen on a regular basis because I can't stand it, but I am getting mighty tired of picking up their slack.

AGGGGRRRRR!

OK, vent over.