Viva Le Chat

Giving a shout out to Viva Le Chat's shop.

Viva's shop started when her kitten needed heart surgery and she was trying to find a way to raise some funds to pay for the surgery. Unfortunately her kitty, Viva le Chat, she passed away before she could have her surgery - but the shop lives on in her memory.

Viva donates one third of her earnings from Etsy to imom.org, an organization that helps pay for vet expenses for low income families.

Stoli and Luxor absolutely LOVED her catnip mice. We'll definitely be shopping there again. It's so nice to support other people who give back to charity.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of Stoli and Luxor - I took about 30 of them and there were so many good ones, I really liked these though.

Read more...

A Day in the Life of Luxor

Luxor has finally learned that fetching is fun. For the longest time he would just play with the crinkle ball all by himself. So, I worked with him one night when Stoli was fetching his mouse. I'd throw the ball and Luxor would bound after it. Then he'd pick it up. Usually he'd just take it somewhere else and play with it but I made a ruckus to get him to bring the ball to me. I ravished him with praise - "Luxor, you good boy, what a good boy, you brought the ball to me, wanna play fetch" a long with some good petting.

So I would throw the ball and he finally realized that if he brought the ball to me, he'd get loads of praise and lovin'!

Now on to today:

My husband was filling the cat's food canisters and when he does this, it's a spectacle. The cats sit on the table with the food containers and my husband carefully fills the bins. Well today, Luxor thought he'd step it up a notch.

He used to just swipe his paw through the stream of food and hope to grab a couple of pieces. Today!!!!! Well, he looked at the stream of food and proceeded to hover his open mouth under it. He actually got a couple of pieces! Imagine that!

Read more...

ACEOs

I've always enjoyed painting and drawing. But I'm more of an architecture slash graphic artist. But I suppose that is apparent when looking at my sculptures. Modern lines, classic look, simple, minimalistic, that's me....


Except I'm high maintenance, ask my husband.


Here are my first attempts at smaller ACEO style works. I'm more of an acrylic person, but I have a beautiful piece in my In-Laws house of Venice with colored pencils. So I'm thinking of my overall theme - French. That's me. Cats. That's me. So I decided, to incorporate both ideas into my work. I'd love to have feedback on if you like......

Read more...

Jake & Micah

Jake & Micah is a shop featuring handmade kitty toys, collars and other accessories. Mei is the human behind the kitties, she's a designer and has taken her love for design and sewing and put it to use for all trendy cats.

Mei makes catnip fortune cookies that you can get in just about any color combination. Her products have been featured on another Indie artist's site, Pattern and Paw. I'll be blogging again about Jake and Micah after I receive my fortune cookies. Some lucky friends of mine will receive these as presents!!


From Jake and Micah's site:

The idea for Jake & Micah began in 2007 when frustrated with the selection of cat products found in pet boutiques, Mei decided to design her own cat toys and accessories. The goal of Jake & Micah is to create products that are unique and fun but also safe from pesticides. All items are handcrafted with your pet's happiness in mind. We use only the freshest, sweetest certified organic catnip in all our toys. Your kitty will know the difference immediately. After much testing by Jake, Micah and their kitty family and friends, these products are now available for super lucky pets! We know you'll enjoy our products and know your pets will too!

Read more...

Custom Order

The bulk of my sales at Endless Whimsy are custom orders. Someone comes into the shop and decides they would like to have a sculpture in a different color than is currently available; someone wants a sculpture to look like their pet; someone wants a special set of something.....


I love do work on custom orders but I've just now realized that they are very taxing to the brain. Especially the ones where it's imperative that the sculpture look very much like their pet. I should try to limit the amount that I'm working on so I still have time to make stock for the store.

<------Bode at PitelSpot

Bode custom sculpture ------>

So the ears were really important to get the size and placement just right. Also, this adorable pooch has incredible eyebrow patches. I love his white tummy and his pointy tail. I used solid black polymer with a gold/brown mix and white accents. I love this puppy and I love this pose. I guess things like this make custom worth totally worth while!

Read more...

Art

I love having my own work on my walls but I'm sad to say not many of my paintings are completely from my own imagination. Most of them are painted from portions or subjects of my own personal photographs. But at least it is still art!

Here is a painting I did with watercolor and acrylics of Venice. It's hanging above my bed, and I love it. Of course I'm a novice, but it's not too shabby!

Read more...

Front Page 9/18/08

Mr. Macintosh was on the front page of Etsy today, I missed it but was able to find a screen shot on the flickr front page group.

Read more...

Whimsidoodle

The current Maine Team promo was the brain child of Backwoods Creations - the idea: to blog about someone else on the Maine Team with the opposite letter in the alphabet as yours.


My shop: WHIMSIDOODLE

Jen is a self-titled "work at home mom" with a supportive husband and two girls at home.

Jen has been making origami lights for years. Her sister taught her how to make origami boxes when she was in high school. One day Jen went into her art supply closet to get origami paper and discovered wooden shapes purchased years ago with the intention of making a mobile - why not do both projects!

Jen purchases her origami paper from a fellow Etsian - Jasminejewels - and all of her wooden shapes for the ornaments/embellishments are milled by a husband/wife company Lindahl Woodcrafts.

HER PROCESS
Jen hand-paints each component to the mobile, all of the ornaments, furniture embellishments and other wooden goodies and then put a varnish specific for acrylic paint to protect.

Jen then began thinking about all of the people she knew who made beautiful things, but for one reason or another are not able to sell the items themselves.

This is where the dream of Whimsidoodle began. To sell whimsical beautiful works by New England artisans.


What a great idea Jen!

Read more...

One of the best baby name sites

A friend of mine is pregnant and I had remembered this site - so I thought I'd share it with you..

Popularity of names starting with EMMA

Read more...

...break out the music for...

HAAAALELUJAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Yeah I've been so keen on getting ttv into my photos I've done it now and I want to make my shop all cohesive with the first photo being that......whatcha think?????

Read more...