Bubblemint!

I was admiring this beautiful treasury (wink wink) the other day and was thinking how lovely it would be to see on the front page and voila! It happened this morning. Sweet! And I have to thank Stacey and Christine for letting me know that it was on the front page, as well as Margaret for including me in the treasury.

I took the cats in for their annual checkups this morning and both got a clean bill of health. It was a bit tough juggling two cat carriers on my own, but can you imagine looking after 500 cats? Check out this link I discovered today. What an amazing woman! I think for the upcoming Christmas season, I will be donating a portion of my etsy sales to The Cat House.

Home... where the heart is.

I'm back home now... after going "home" to my parents' for a week. Funny, how I used to consider Saskatoon my home, but now I don't think I could ever live there again permanently. I told my sister that if Matt and I moved there, I think we'd just get fat. Saskatoon's not really a walking city like Toronto. Even biking seems kind of foreign there, as I didn't see very many people pedaling around. Plus, the way the sun beats down on you, you seem safer in a car. Though the skies are clear and blue there, as opposed to the smoky haze we noticed from the plane, as soon as we were over Toronto. If we didn't put on weight from being sloths, we'd surely gain some from all the food my mom fed us. Appropriately, we saw Wall-E while we were there.



And since it'd been more than 2 years since my previous visit, some things surprised me. Like the size of the trees in their front and back yard. HUGE! They never reached up to my bedroom on the second floor when I lived there, but now they soar above it. And the birds there seem plentiful. I heard and spotted a blue jay several times there and I swear they weren't around before. Or else I was too caught up in my teen angst to have noticed.

Then there was how dry it was. Almost every night I woke up having to go to the bathroom because my body wasn't sweating out the fluids. Even though temperatures were in their 30's most of the time we were there, it didn't feel as unbearable.

Still, there were some things that haven't changed. Most noticeably, all the brown in the house! If I work up the nerve, I will nominate my parents' place for a home decorating show as it is badly in need of some updating. Everything in their house is brown or beige. Well, almost. Their bedroom is an exception but baby blue curtains are not that hip either.

Our big project for a few days was to paint the exterior trim on the windows and garage door. Matt had wanted to repaint their deck too but my dad said it needed to be fixed first... by the time we left, it was in pieces as it required more fixing that my dad originally thought. Sorry, Dad :)


Other than that, we spent a lot of time eating like I said, watching Olympics and playing an array of board games including PayDay, Monopoly, Clue, The Game of Life, Sorry and Scrabble. I didn't do an ounce of my own work or catch up on my reading like I had planned on doing. In fact that stuff didn't leave my bag while I was there. Typical.


I also brought my camera but never took any photos (which accounts for the drawings and Internet image). I certainly took my vacation to heart this time. Which means I've got to get my butt back to work. The Fall Clothing Show is coming up next month so new tees are in the works. And some new things will be added to the shop in the next little while.

Running back to Saskatoon

August has been really slow so far in my etsy shop but when it's slow, instead of getting down about it, I have to take advantage of that time for creating new things. I finally made some more girl aceo's which are all listed in the shop now. My favourites are the pink and yellow girls. If I didn't have black hair, I'd want to be a redhead.

In an effort to get some new wholesale clients, I pounded the pavement today along Queen Street West. After the first shop owner was less than impressed about my drop-in, I decided to just get the rest of the owner's/buyer's contact info from each store. Lesson learned. But you never know until you try. Plus, I don't have a ton of money to invest in getting catalogues printed and mailed out right now, so a face to face meeting is the most direct and cost-effective way for feedback right now, even if it means dealing with some up-turned noses and dirty looks.

The highlight of my excursion was when I spotted a woman wearing one of my Bad Kitty shirts. I even held the door open for her, but was too chicken to blurt out that I'd made her shirt. I think that was the first time I've seen someone wearing one of my shirts.



And last week when I stopped by the vet's to pick up more pills for Suki I got another ego boost. The receptionist asked for my name and when I told her, she said "Oh you make those shirts! I have one (bad kitty)."

The feeling I get when I sell one of my creations, especially an original painting or one of my shirts makes what I do worthwhile. While it doesn't make the tough times go away - how I wish it would - it fuels my fire to keep doing what I'm doing. After all, Bad Kitty was the original design that started off my line of kitty products. If people are still interested in her, then I'm doing something right.


Tomorrow, Matt and I are off for a week to Saskatoon. It'll be my first visit in several years - I can't even remember how long it's been, that's how long it's been - and Matt's first time ever. I'm looking forward to my mom's cooking, seeing my sister's place, playing Scrabble with the family, catching up on reading and checking out the annual Folkfest that I used to partake in. I'm sure we'll be following the Olympics too. Hopefully the kitties will be fine here (yes, that's an old photo, but I haven't gotten around to uploading new ones). Our cat sitter has promised to keep us updated with daily emails. While I will have internet access, I probably won't be updating my blog until we're back.

Hope everyone has a great week!

A Sweet Giveaway

I love giveaways and will have one of my own sometime soon. But this one is from a new blogger that I discovered recently... she left a sweet comment on one of my recent posts. Her art is lovely and she's giving people a chance to win one of her very cute Birdie Says mugs.

These are my favourites:






If you're interested in a chance to win your own mug, check out Gisele's rules here.

It's My Birthday...

so I gave myself permission to take the day off and go shopping! The message inside the card (pictured above) that Matt's parents sent did tell me to "Be bad" after all.
In fact, "Be very bad!".
So I was.
My mom gifted me with some birthday money and told me to spend it on some new clothes.
So I did.
I was badly in need of a new bra and finally found one, aptly called "dream bra" by Maidenform. And with all the summer markdowns, I was also able to score some black capris and a new top both for less than the price of the bra!

And being the cat fanatic that I am, I was treated to some more feline greetings today: a hilarious animated e-card from my sister... it's funnier when animated, but the image captures still give you a sense of what happens...






and a sweet photo via email from a friend



Dinner's on Matt tonight at Red Lobster. Let's hope it's as good as I remember, from years ago.
And of course there'll be some kind of dessert. Yum.

Sweets for my sweet...

My exercise regime has definitely been pushed to the wayside this summer. I had good intentions to stick to a regular cardio routine but have not touched the dvd I ordered and received weeks ago. I blame it on all the opportunities for cake and ice cream during these few months. Plus the hot weather is another excuse to indulge. Matt got his favourite Dufflet cakelet last week for his 37th birthday. In a few days, it will be my turn to celebrate. I think an ice cream cake is calling my name.

I mean, really, it's not like I'll be donning a bikini ever again in this lifetime. As much as I'd like to lie on the beach some days, I rather prefer being indoors tending to my shop. Unfortunately I've been in a creative lull for the past few weeks, so nothing new to show except for these stationery sets from early July.




I redesigned my site again to coincide with my first paid advertising in the second issue of this sweet mag due out tomorrow. It's quite a bit more pared down and my art portfolio is only viewable via flickr right now. May as well take advantage of the ease of it since I just renewed my pro account.

Signing off for the rest of the long weekend now. Happy Long one to my fellow Canadians!