Simply Cats

Yesterday Moira and I started volunteering at Simply Cats, a no-kill shelter here in town. We cleaned out their rooms and gave them some lovin'. I was really impressed with Moira. I thought she would just want to pet the cats while I did the dirty work, but she wanted to get down and dirty too. She scooped out some litter boxes and washed out the food bowls. After we left she said it was the best day ever.

Before we left, Moira wanted to stop in the kitten room. There were only two kittens in there this time.

This is Berry. I prefer cats to kittens, but I really liked her. She was born without a tail, one of her ears was bent and there was something wrong with one of her eyes. She purred the whole time I was petting her.

This is Jonas and he was Moira's favourite. He was very playful and talkative.

Moira and I will go in every Sunday and clean the rooms. It feels good to be able to do something nice for our furry friends. (Note to self: next time, don't wear a black shirt.)

Redoing my booth was a major part of trying to draw more people to my jewelry, but I also wanted to attract more people to the tent when I'm at the Eagle Market. With rows and rows of white tents, it was getting monotonous. I've been really busy the last couple of weeks trying to spiff up the tent. This is what I did:

I decided to make some fabric lanterns. These don't have lights inside them, but I could get a single bulb with plug in for them. This lantern is a crinkly sheer material that has little sparkles in it. I made the tassels too.

For this lantern I used a linen-look fabric, but because the fabric was so plain, I embroidered starbursts and borders on to it.

I also made this bunting to hang along the front of the tent.

This is what the whole thing looks like. (The table on the left belongs to an IIW colleague.)

I'd like to add a couple more lanterns to it to make it even more exciting. There is always so much that can be done and I'm never satisfied with the way it is. I'm always looking to improve and build on what I've got. Because it's never good enough keeps me motivated and working harder.

School Carnival

Last night was the school carnival at Moira's school. The kids all had a really good time playing the games, but especially getting the prizes. Some of the "games" required no skills which were perfect for Kyla.

Moira trying to knock ping pong balls off of pop bottles with a squirt gun.

Kyla tossing toilet paper into a toilet. She actually got one in.

Moira and Kyla doing the Beanie Baby Walk. This was the most popular game at the carnival (besides the dunk tank, of course!).

Liam was so good and watched everything from the stroller. He got to enjoy a little reward.

And so did Kyla.

Moira waited in line for half an hour to get her face painted. You can't see it, but there was sparkle dust all over her face. It was really pretty.

The carnival was packed with people. It was nice to see parents and kids spending time together having fun, but there is a line that sometimes gets crossed that makes parents (and grandparents) utterly pathetic. We were standing in line to play a game when a grandmother came and took her grandson's place so that he could go play another game without having to stand in line. When he was done with that one, it was his turn at the one we were waiting for. I also saw other parents doing that at the face painting line. They would be standing there while their kids were off running around. Maybe I'm just a bad parent, but I told Moira that if she wanted to have her face painted, she had to wait in line while Kyla and I went to play some more games then got ice cream. And Moira was perfectly happy with that. What does it teach our children when we do things for them all the time, even the stupid things that they are perfectly capable of doing on their own? It doesn't teach them anything about patience or delayed gratification or even a little bit of independence. It does teach them how to walk all over mom and dad and not be responsible for anything. Who knew that waiting in line could have such an important life lesson?

Up

This afternoon the girls and I went to see Up at the movie theatre. (Kyla calls it the "meeder feeder.) This was the first time I got to take them to a movie. Usually Will takes them. It was a pretty good movie, but they played all the funniest parts on the commercials on TV so there was nothing new to laugh at. I thought that there was a sad undertone to the whole thing. What the commercials don't show is the love a man has for his wife, even after she has died. It's the motivation for the whole adventure. I had fun spending time with the girls and relaxing after a busy week.

Polka Dot Dreams Revised

The last few weeks have been busy for me with Polka Dot Dreams. I decided to set up my booth at the Eagle Market with some of my Idaho Indie Works colleagues and have done two Saturdays so far. Both times I did terrible while my partners have done really well. As awful as that seems, it was actually a good thing. It made me realize that my product isn't going to sell itself because people really do judge a book by its cover. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise since I do the same thing. So I spent an entire week revamping my booth. It was really difficult, but this is what happened - It went from this:

to this:

I wanted to add some fun to my table so I made it bigger and added a few accessories.

I found this train case in a garbage can one morning when I took the kids for a walk. (No, I didn't go digging in the garbage for it. It was sitting on top of a pile of stuff.) It was really dirty and filled with old curlers. I scrubbed the outside twice - once with a pot scrubber and once with Soft Scrub. Then I ripped out the lining and sprinkled coffee grounds in the bottom to get rid of the yucky smell. Then I relined it. I also got some polka dot material (pictured under the case) and made a small table cloth.

Next I got a couple of dish gloves and stuffed them to use as displays for some jewelry. I thought they would bring some uniqueness to my table.

I'm not sure if my changes have been successful or not. I just did First Thursday again this past week, but because of the thunder and lightening and light rain, business was SLOW so I didn't get a true sense of the difference. Today I did a craft fair/fundraiser at Simply Cats, a no kill cat shelter here in town. The traffic wasn't very heavy, but again, we were working against Mother Nature. It's hard to compete with rain. However, I still think that I did well. Just making one sale makes me feel good and helping out cats in need is always a good thing.

To help out with First Thursday I made a sandwich board to go out on the sidewalk to advertise our presence. Will helped me out, but I got to use the staple gun. It was really fun.