Pierre

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Orignially a blog for Silverstar Photography, My Cats Maggie and Pierre have now taken it over with their own photos.

There isn't a whole lot of personal info on Pierre because of this, it's mainly pictures. He seems to have a weird obsession with the shower curtain, and he seems to get along well his his ginger tabby sister, Maggie.

Pierre is a bit of talker. I've noticed that with black cats, many of them are chatterbugs, which makes me wonder if that's where the Siamese trait of talking came from. They got it, along with their black points. (All Meezers carry the gene for black in their makeup. See Hunter, House Panthers are superior to Meezers!)

He likes to roll around on the balcony when he's let out.

Much like Miss Diamond, he's also a tuxie-Panther with a bit of white on his tummy and on his neck. Much like Mickey, he's a Canadian Panther.

This layout was done with the Promises kit from Shabby Princess.

Hunter

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Hunter was a four-year-old when he was adopted as a companion of Mei Lin, a Meezer, two years ago. His full name is Cashmere Growlypants Hunter, which he says is a very fancy name for not a fancy breed of cat.

Personally, I think a domestic is just as good, if not better than any Meezer, but your milage may vary.

He now shares the house with Raowr, Bella and Napoleon. They all blog at My Pet's Pictures and Tails a.k.a. Pets are 4 Life.

I used Retrodiva's Bohemian Poetry kit on this although there are some added pieces from the rest of the Boho collection. I'm actually rather please with the way it turned out, considering I was searching for a design when I started.

Merlin the Magic Cat

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Merlin is a black domestic short hair male who was with the Fluffy Tribe when they started blogging in 2005. At the time he was living with Shadow, a grey Panther, and the "vermin" (his word), but the tribe has expanded with the addition of a meezer named Ko Ko.

The tribe now also includes a bunny and spider, all of which live in Hobbs, Mexico.

They blog at the Rats and Cats blog, which you might care to skip if photo of spiders and rats gross you out.

Merlin is very magical and loves to read and study. He supposedly knows some magical spells as well, although none of them have got him into the rat cages yet.

I used Retrodiva's Bohemian Love Affair and Another Bohemian Love Affair kits on this layout. This looks really good at a smaller size, but the big picture of Merlin sort of fractures when you pull it up to 8 x 10 resolution, so I'm not entirely happy with it.

San Fran Zoo Carousel

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The images used in this piece were taken off the internet from the The National Carousel Association. They were taken in 2004 by Aaron Shepard and I make use of them, mainly because I don't have any of these magnificent animals in my own collection, which is largely comprised of horses.

If you go through the carousels on their site, you will notice not a lot of carousels sport the Dentzel felines.

I did the layout using Khamisi's Equestian set, a freebie I downloaded off Digi-free and which is available at An Anonymous Life.

I'm only happy when it rains!

Rain Out


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I was trying to figure out all the rain related kits that came out this last month, but then I was reminded of the old "April Showers bring May Flowers" adage. The rainy season in southwest Florida - or Florida in general - does not start until June 1st, but I know that eventually, we're going to have a rain out at Hammond Stadium.

I had suggested, during a rain out, to Justin that they get someone to sponsor the rain outs, and he said "What if it doesn't rain?"

That would be a first, considering last year was a drought year and it still rained.

Anyway, this uses Retrodiva's Rainy Day collection, with the lettering from the Ema kit. It seemed more creative then just using a picture of the tarp, even though this uses a picture of the tarp.

Available from from Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, in the archive section.

And while we're at it....

Rain Rain, Go Away....


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A look at the 38th Street "Canal" and the parking late at Parkcrest, where I used to live in Fort Lauderdale, along with a picture of Tygre, a tabby kitten that lived with me for a little while.

I have several more shots of Lake Parkcrest that I think I'll scrap. These were taken with the way old digital camera that needed new batteries, so the pictures are really sort of "grainy".

Rainville


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I had been sitting out at the ballpark watching Jay Rainville pitch and I said to myself "You know, if I was half my age, I'd..." Then I had to pull up.

Because if I was half my age, I'd have married Anthony Swarzak the year before. But I'd still have loved to have an affair with Jay Rainville. Instead I had to content myself with trying to find out how many rain-out tickets I needed to bring my own Jay Rainville home with me. I'm sure they were giving one away.

I realize it's early in the season, but Rainy does not seem to be doing well in New Britain this year. He is 1-2 with a 9.53 (ouch!) era. Swarz on the other hand, is 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA. One hope Jay will turn it around shortly.

The Metal Alpha is from Scrappin Dead Girls, the paper and ribbons are part of the Rainy Day collection from Retrodiva's Digital Scrapbooking Freebies.

Rainy Day Grr

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With Grr's Great Adventure over, I thought I'd give her a rest before I took did something else with her, so there she is knocking around on in the potted plants on a rainy day.

This uses Elements from Retrodiva's Fresh Start, Rain Day, Ema and Edie (mini-)kits (from Digital Scrapbooking Freebies).

Spooker in the Sun

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Not the Mama says that Auntie Spooker loves to lie in the sun, and calls her his heat seeking missile. So I gave her a bit of time of a sunny spring garden to enjoy.

You can of course find Spooker at Purrchance to Dream.

This uses Verena Karolyi's A Spring Garden kit and add-on from Digital Freebies.

Spooky Do

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Spooky Do is a soon to be (May 5th) six year old Domestic short hair male who lives with his littermate Daisy Dukes and Aniwa and Shadow, his two adopted sisters.

Both Spooky and Daisy are polydactyls, with extra toes on their front paws. He as named for Spooky Iland in the live action Scooby Do movie.

His human mom, Jewel Girl, blogs at Sandwiched Mom and you can find out more about Spooky Do and his feline family there.

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Fresh Start was Retrodiva's kit of the month, and they released a freebie add-on on their sister site, Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, called Rainy Days. The add-on included a "plopper" or Quick Page, something I'm not really fond of, but which I'd used in the past.

While I was sitting out at the ball park this afternoon, I considered using the plopper on this layout, but when I got home and looked at it, it wasn't all that thrilled with it as I wanted something more colorful.

So I went off and did my own thing, BUT...because this is supposed to be a scrapbooking journal I went back and did the same piece using the plopper:


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You can decide which one you like better.

The notes with the Rainy Day add on say "No new alpha this time, but I've left the Emma Alpha up, and it coordinates nicely!" I'm not sure about that. Color wise it does, but it seems a bit to weathered for the spring time feel of the Fresh Start/Rainy Days collection.

I should point out however, that I love all of Retrodiva's stuff, so I'm not complaining.

Cecil the Cougar

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My friend Ed is a "people" person, meaning he has kids where the rest of us "animal" people have pets. He will occasionally try to yank my chain, and one of his comments is "In the end, they're just animals."

I disagree. Animals, all of them, are in fact living, thinking, self aware beings whose intelligence and agenda is just different then ours. Humans are not superior to them, and given the way we tend to ruin our lives, we may be in fact, quite inferior to them.

Cecil the Cougar was the kitty on duty for FelineDirect.com, but sadly has become nothing more than a personae to be dropped just because his human has people in her life that doesn't understand her "hobby" in so much as Cat Blogging can be considered a hobby.

Sorry Cecil, you've just been downgraded from being a "furson" to being just an animal in the world of people persons. We enjoyed your blog and watching you grow up from being a kitten into a young mancat. We are sad to see you go.

Happily, I'm not one to bow down to peer pressure about my "hobbies", I don't care if people call me "fat" or "four-eyes" or any other childish foolishness, and I certainly disappoint Ed because he can never get a rise out of me, despite all the chain yanking he does.

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This piece was done using Raspberry Road Designs' Scouts Honor kit which can be purchased in several installments for a buck each in their dollar store. The Camo alpha is from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

(Ah, poor Cecil, you could have become a cat scout!)

I know that there are several nice pet related kits out there, I even have a couple of them, but I am loath to use them in the creation of these layouts because I think there is more to the fursons of the Cat Blogosphere than collars, food dishes and paw prints.

Grr's Great Adventure (Part IV)

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Grr's Great Adventure (Part IV)

Having jumped on a cruise ship to escape the attacking aliens, Grr arrives several days later at a small island somewhere in the Caribbean.

For any other cat, it might be a bad dream, but there is one place in the known universe that could never intimidate Grr...

And it appears she's found it!

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Where the hell is Grr? That's exactly right, she's made her way to Hell, Grand Cayman.

Once again, Grr's travels are made possible by Raspberry Road Designs Wild Kingdom kit.

Fun-raiser!

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Made with Karen Lewis Little Safari kit from Digital Freebies. For a great cause!

Layouts for the Miracle

The last few days I've gotten some new shots so there will be more forthcoming...

And just in case you though digital scrapbooking wasn't cool, the guys really love these so far, and they're making wonderful autograph pieces.


I really like Eddie Ovalle. I'm glad he had that RBI single yesterday. This shot was taken on Sunday vs. the Tigers.


I used this on today's post, but the picture dates from April 30, 2006.


This picture is from last year. I have some new ones of him from this last homestand.


Once again, I was reminded that just because I'm not a big fan of Rocky's doesn't mean he's not going to be the hero of the game some nights. This was from when he was playing in the GCL in 2006. I got some of him in Miracle Uni Sunday that look nice, so I'll redo this one soon.


I told Cole I'd taken better shots of him in instructs and I wasn't lying. This was from October of 2007.


Mr. Santiesteban, I have not seen you in a dog's age. And I really can't say I've missed you.


I forgot Manny's pictures on Sunday, but that was okay, as he was pitching. Then I forgot Manny's pictures last night, but that was okay because he was in the dugout. I've got Manny's pictures today and this one is getting signed...


Tyler signed this Sunday and it turned out really nice. I need to scan the autographed one.


This one will be getting redone. I just did it for a game report and I'm not happy with it.

These were all done using the soon to be discontinued American Charm kit from Digital Freebies. It's worked really well, and I haven't found an Americana kit I like better yet. As our colors are Red, White and Blue, I can't complain. Now, if I ever feel compelled to scrap the Threshers I might be in trouble.

Please don't eat the Daisies...

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...or the butterfly either. However, if you bring me the head of that songbird that's been singing in the tree outside my bedroom window at 2:30 AM when I'm trying to sleep, I'll give you a WHOLE POUCH full of treats.

A Spring Garden is a shared kit between Angela Sharrow and Verena Karolyi. While most of the pieces in Sunday Morning Garden Party were from Sharrow's kit, everything in this piece is from Karolyi's version of the kit. The kit was the Digital Freebies Club kit for April, and as such is likely of limited edition.

Flying Tiger Layouts

Tyler says "Oh, you're doing their guys too?" Well, yeah, some of them. I like the Tigers. They're my second favorite team.

These use the Baseball Grunge Paper Mini from Scrap Girls. The Tiger's logo is a hand made gif from their masthead, and the little gold brads on the Below piece are from Raspberry Road Designs' Freedom Rings kit.

The Metal Alpha are from Scrappin' Dead Girls, and while it includes upper and lower, I only used the upper on these pieces.

These are all created to 8 x 10 so I can get them printed out and signed. As with any of the pieces on this blog, if you click on them, you can see a bigger version.

Earth Day 2008

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Earth Day is April 22nd, and Miss Diamond is a very environmentally friendly sort of kitten. As a result, she is doing Earth Week on her blog. These are the graphics for the first three articles, that will takes us through to Thursday.

All of the layouts were composed with pieces from Scrappin Dead Girl's Earth Day Mega Kit and My Guitar Hero, except for the chip board lettering in the second piece, which is from Free Digital Scrapbooking. Oops, sorry. The lettering on the first piece is from Retrodiva's Bohemian Love Affair kit.

Sunday Morning Garden Party

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This is a whimsical piece using A Spring Garden, which is the April kit from Digital Freebies. More specifically, it uses the two add ons to the main kit, plus the alpha, which is available seperately. Once you get done you've spent just under $17 for the whole thing but you've one heck of a mega-kit.

In cropping the picture, I inadvertantly giffed some of Pooka out and had to draw him back in, so I'm not totally happy with it, but it wasn't meant to be a serious piece. There's a secondary layout that I did while I was procrastinating going to do laundry, that I've not put on line yet.

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I went in this morning (Tuesday, April 22nd) and changed this, taking the zebra from Karen Lewis' Little Safari kit (also from Diginal Freebies) and replacing Pooka with it. It's sort of Pooka's cartoon stand in anyway. I also added some items from the full A Spring Garden kit, like the Gazebo. So I'm happier now. I was going to put Part II on line, until I realized I had "spring" spelled wrong. (Oops!)

A Mother's Love

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Diamond with her "kitten".

"Oh," she says. "Why can't we use this for mothers day?"

Maybe we will.

This was done with Retrodiva's Bohemian Poetry kit.

Miss A-Miracle

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There was not reason for this beyond the fact that I thought Ed's kids might get a kick out of it.

"Missy"'s fourth birthday was Sunday, April 13th and it was Mascot Mania at the ball park.

Composed using Karen Lewis' Little Safari kit from Digital Freebies.

Horsin' Around with Fagin

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How one cute little tabby can create such a controversy, I'll never know. Fagin - originally called "LK" or Little Kitty - was part of an abandoned litter that the Purrageous Pirates people came upon. While the rest of the litter didn't make it, LK was a fighter and pulled through.

Then came the big question of whether they keep him or not. As if that was ever a question. The Black Furrball needs a cabin boy, right?

And then the name. After much discussion, they settled on Fagin from Oliver Twist. Which led to some totally dreadful woman posting about how the name was antisemitic. Made it out to sound as if the folks over at Purrageous Pirates were the second coming of Hitler. Please.

It's the name of Charles Dickens character! People really need to get a grip on themselves these days and stop being so thin skinned. They take offense to everything.

In any case, Fagin just wants to have fun, so let's have some fun with him!

The layout was created using Karen Lewis' Cute Animals #4 - Horsin' Around from Digital Freebies. Just perfect for the latest Purrageous Pirate to hit the Cat Blogosphere scene!

Lovely Luna

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Luna is a three year old domestic short hair that lives and works with the Cat Synth people in Santa Cruz creating beautiful music for kitty cats.

Luna's dad found her at their local animal shelter and it turned out to be mutually perfect match. She loves catnip, toy mousies and cuddling with her dad.

You can find out more about lovely Luna at Cat Synth, a very interesting blog on music, art, synthesizers and well...cats, of course.

I used the Another Bohemian Love Affair kit on this with a few additional elements and the alpha, of course, from the first Boho Love Affair kit. All by Retrodiva and available at their store.

Brainball and Chairman Mao

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Brainball reminds me a lion. A big floofy lion, but a lion none the less.

A 9-year old Domestic long hair, his real name is Calamity Jake, but this big 16 pound mancat is also known as "Itty Bitty Widdy Kitty", "King Leonidas" and "Ol' Boy". He was abandoned when the family that he lived with moved away, and the Ballicus Cats took him in. He's the Alpha cat, and takes his position seriously. He loves to play with coffee stirrers, nap on the bed or in a pile of clean laundry or on his mom's feet or dad's lap.

He's an outstanding role model to the other cats at Ballicus - kind, benevolet, and strong. Sort of like a lion, right?

You can find him, along with Chairman Mao, DoryDoo and sometimes Marilyn at The Ballicus Blog.


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Chairman Mao is a Seal Point Siamese/Snowshoe mix. At just one year old, he's the baby of the bunch. He enjoys playing, running round, talking and generally going spaztic around the place. He considers the whole house one great big kitty toy and tries to play with everything.

He showed up as a stray and lived in the garage for while before he was brought into the Ballicus Household proper. He's a good Diplocat and gets along with everyone, even Dory Doo, who can be a bit moody. He loves Brainball and tries to emulate his older brother.

The Chairman does most of the talking over at Ballicus, not surprising for one of Siamese Ancestry.

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I used Scrap Girl's African Beat mega-kit for Brainball's layout, because well...I needed something Safari-ish. Mao's was done using Retrodiva's Fresh Start kit, perhaps appropriate for a young, active mancat.

Dory Doo

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Dora the Explorer - or DoryDoo - is a 3-year-old Domestic short hair. She was brought to the Ballicus Cats when she was an 8-week-old kitten and has lived with them all her life.

She's a very smart kitty, and can open just about anything. If she just had opposable thumbs, there'd be no holding her back. She's a super jumper and practices the art of Air Dancing, a very athletic undertaking for any cat.

She loves chasing Mao and cuddling with Brainball, opening things, and figuring out things.

While she can be very affectionate, she needs more space than the other cats and more time to herself. She often seems to be deep in thought, as though she's contemplating the meaning of the universe, and perhaps she is.

Online, you can find Dora at The Ballicus Blog, along with Chairman Mao, Brainball, and sometimes Marilyn MonREOW, who has her own blog.

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I used Retrodiva's Bohemian Collage kit on this layout, mainly because red and black just sort of go together.

Dog Daze I

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Part of the annual festivities at the ball park is the Dog Daze of Summer, usually in 2 parts, but last year we did three after one of days devolved into a thunderstromy affair that forced dogs and owners alike into the dubious shelter of the concourse. While the dogs were mostly behaved, it got dubbed Mike Vick appreciation night, as people attempted to stop their pooches from pounding on each other.

This layout was done with Raspberry Road Designs' Java Joe Freebie...and a lot of flea spray.

It's a wild, wild life

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Also coming up is Earth Day and while I seem to recall downloading more than one Earth Day Freebie, I can only find one on my system? This is not it - this was done with Raspberry Road Designs Wild Kingdom with some added elements from An Anonymous Life's Etosha kit.

Diamond helped me out with pictures in the back yard on Saturday.

Miss Diamond

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Mother's Day is coming up and while I know I have to put out something, I never know exactly what to say. I mean, what do you say to a woman who spent most of the time she was supposed to be raising you, drunk. "Happy Mother's Day. This Bud's for you?"

Obviously, whatever I'll be doing, I'll be doing it with Amy Bleser's Flowers for Mom kit, which I got from Digital Freebies.

Miss Diamond will be part of the wishes I send home, since my mom seems fascinated by the "dress up cat". Here she is helping me with a pre-mother's day doodle.

Grr's Great Adventure (Part III)

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Purrhaps, Grr thinks, it is all a bad dream. Purrhaps, she thinks, I should not have gone on that bar crawl but it was SUCH a nice T-shirt they were selling with the tickets. Purrhaps...

ALIENS!!!!

Suddenly she wakes up and discovers that ALIENS ARE ATTACKING!!!!

What is she to do?

Should she be a fierce house panther and attack the thing, purrhaps saving the world? Should she hop on the next bus out of here? Should she retire to the bar for another niptini? Should she click her heels together three times and say "There's no place like home"?

But wait, she didn't pack her ruby slippers....

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Today we head down to Key West for Fantasy Fest (in case you can't place the picture). I can't recall if the pub crawl is done during Fantasy Fest or Bike Week, but what the heck...T-Shirt or no, the Duval Crawl is still a popular activity on the island.

And no, I have no idea what cats do in the case of niptini hang overs since they can't drink tomato juice, which is a wonderful human hangover remedy.

The majority of the piece is from Raspberry Road Designs' Wild Kingdom kit, the Ruby Slippers are from Kyra's Ladies in Red freebie and the Embossed Gold Foil alpha is by Marie Stones at Free Digital Strapbooking.

Tuxie Dinner Party

Well, new release Tuesday has been pretty lame so far, expect for RetroDiva's Fresh Start kit. Lots of quick pages and while I know some people really like the Brag Book/Quick Page thing, I'm not a big fan of them.

That being said, I'd taken some pictures of Diamond in an attempt to finish off a role of film after a ball game and she came out looking very Tuxedo-ish with the white collar on and the while spot on her belly. So I did up this page using Shabby Princess' Dinner Party Kit for her as her Tuxie Tuesday blog entry:


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But then I had the pitcures of Theo from the Cat's Eye blog, sitting on the my hard drive, so I made a matching piece for Theo:


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So this gave me an idea. I haven't really done anything with Black Cat Pub, how about a Tuxie Dinner Party, all using basically the same kit with the same 2-1 layout, only changing up the elements a bit.

The next piece I did was for Samantha Black. She blogs at Life from a Cat's Persepective and I think the New Tuxedo Gang Hideout is her gig as well.


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And yes, I noticed I have Samantha spelled wrong, I'll have to fix that.

So then I started going down the list at the Tuxi Gang hide out and decided this might be harder than I originally thought. Sophie's photos are protected, so I can't do a piece on her, and some the other cats are hard to find suitable picks for the larger cut out on the bottom.

The next two I worked on were Abby and Miss Boo from Mnax Mnews:


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I still like the idea - and I really only need three pictures per cat, but my goodness...what a PIA, trying to find workable pics.

It's just going to take longer than I thought to put it together.

The Dinner Party kit is a freebie and you can grab one for yourself HERE.

Gretchen in the Spring

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I've worked with Gretchen a couple of times, doing the original Gretchen = Love which was not to 8 x 10 specs and while I was happy with the piece, I felt I could do better. I also sent her and Mike out the beach in the Surf's Up piece.

For some reason I bought like three different Easter kits this year, and while this piece was done with an Easter kit, it was trying to make it not look Eastery.

This was done with the My Funny Bunny kit by Danielle Engebretson which is available from Digital Freebies.

Danielle is one of the designers with pet related kits, one for dogs called "My Playful Puppy" and one for the feline crowd called "My Silly Kitty". I find I really rather dislike pet themed kits, largely because it doesn't match my idea of the pets as intelligent, thinking beings, with dignity.

The Pink-A-Dot alpha by Marie Stones and is available from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

In any case, I do hope it looks more springy than eastery.

Diamond in the House of Blues

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This is a really nice freebie kit I got from BabyCakes Scraps called House of Blues. Its as big as some of the paid kits I've purchased, although a couple of pieces (that frame) needed some editing.

These were sort of knock around shots with Diamond's white collar on - we're working up to Mother's day shots, most likely this weekend - but I love the look on her face in this pictures.

Now, is she licking her lips because she's planning on eating the flowers, or the butterflies?