The Kittens' Christmas Sweater Party - part five (Post 4,000 and a giveaway) #TFK4K

In honor of my four thousandth post.. I am going to do a little giveaway.. Just comment on this post and in your comment write #TFK4K and I will choose a winner.  The winner can pick either a Michaela and her Minions calendar or the right to name the next set of kittens.

I didn't time this very well did I? Yesterday's post of "Part Four" would have been a far better 4,000th post, but alas, I didn't get another post up over the weekend..

Yes, I have been fostering and posting kittens and cat stuff since 2002 and this, according to my blog count is my four thousandth post.. and no, you still may not call me a crazy cat lady.. (but if you want to just call me crazy, I'll be okay with that)

Now, onto the star of this Christmas Party.. Ren as Santa!

I was trying to get their photos up against a clean background but Ren wasn't having anything to do with it. He took his outfit and ran off to the other side of the room and sat there so proud of himself. I'm fairly certain he would have been perfectly happy to keep it on for hours, but I wasn't ready to watch him for hours. As I got closer to him to take it off, he did this..



Which I couldn't help laugh at because had he been human this totally would have been wildly inappropriate to put on the interwebs.. but .. kitten, so here you go 😹

Also, only a third of the holiday cards I ordered have been spoken for. If you want one you have to sign up for one..

Can you guess what this is?

I will tell you that it is cat related. You are free to make a serious guess or a really insane guess (go ahead, tell me you think it is a cruise liner)

The reason I am doing this is not because it is sponsored or anything, but it is to unload on you two items that I don't want to pack up and bring to the new house (you know, I could have spun that so it didn't sound so pathetic, but I'm in "Please, tell me you want this so I don't have to pack it" mode) The first is a book I have a duplicate of

This is a 16-inch necklace - or an 8-inch double bracelet. The blue part is soft and pliable and a bit stretchy. You know you want it 😼

Here are a few more pictures of the item you are guessing on to give you a better idea of what you are looking at.

So, what do you think this is?  I will pick a random comment on this thread and send the book and the necklace off to you.

The multiple surprises of the Groom Ninja #giveaway sponsored

When I went to the Global Pet Expo I was introduced to the Groom Ninja. I was offered a free product while I was there, and I know they hoped I would talk about it but no promise was given and I was not compensated in any way for this post.

When I first looked at the product, I had to say I was horribly skeptical that this thing would work for my cats or anything. Seriously, look at it.

It looks a bit like a hacksaw blade in a piece of wood. I scoffed at the idea but I watched the demonstration and the presenter was quite dynamic and very convincing. The video of the Groom Ninja being used on a horse is really interesting. I thought I'd like to try it with my cats to prove this thing wouldn't work in the real world, so when they gave me a small one I was tickled.

So, how did it work?

Surprise! I was totally wrong about it not working. It worked so well that I immediately got to writing a blog post about it in my head. It tends to work a lot better on my short haired cats vs my long haired ones. This is what happens when I used it on Skippy. The first shot shows five passes on his side, the second ten.

However, what impressed me to no end was that it has been the only tool that has ever been able to get fur off Muffin (who is a dense medium haired kitty) without her trying to kill me. Nothing else has worked. The Furminator will take the loose fur off of her but she hates it and will start snapping at me after the first pass.

Fifteen years old, this is the first time I've been able to get anything to work and I've tried all kinds of grooming devices. Since she is the one who tends to hork up small mice sized trichobezoars during the spring and fall shedding seasons, I am thrilled to have something that helps. It doesn't work as well on Jack; I haven't met a single grooming product that works well on each one of my cats

I wrote to Groom Ninja and asked if they might be willing to do a giveaway with my review. David replied and offered me not one but surprise! three of the small ones to giveaway!! The small size is perfect for cats, but they also come in medium and large sizes for dogs and horses. They also come in a rainbow of different colors and will occasionally do specialty colors to do fundraising like last November they made a silver one for diabetes awareness.

The small one normally retails for $15.95 the medium for $17.95 and the large one for $19.95. If you would like a colored one they charge you $3 more. They also sell a combo pack for $47 with the colored ones being $6 more. Free shipping kicks in when you spend over $23.

So now that you want one too, I hope you will enter the giveaway. (US only)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Maxwell and Faraday, from A Tonk's Tail, at a Walmart near you! #giveaway

A few months ago I found out that the famous Maxwell and Faraday from A Tonk's Tail were in a hush hush top secret photo shoot. Even though I have an in with their human Lisa, I had no idea what this was all about - that is how hush hush it was.

The other week there was a rumor (started by their mom) that this project was at its fruition and if one went down to their local Walmart store they might just find our two fury friends there.

Excited I ran down to my local store and low and behold there they were! I actually couldn't find the third one initially because someone had stuck a different card in front of it, but I eventually found it.

So I bought them all.

and yet still I wanted more, so my husband went to three other Walmarts for me and I ended up getting a few more. I also heard of a few other Maxwell and Faraday fans ran to their local Walmarts and bought out their stock as well.


I love the fact that two kitties I've snuggled were on these cards, that I spent some time thinking about it and wondered how it came about and if my buying all of their cards would matter at all in their college fund, so I wrote to Lisa and asked.

ME: Hi Lisa, I have so many questions about the cards!! Did Hallmark pay them to model? Do they receive royalties? And most importantly, do they have an agent.. No no, wait, I meant do they have.. N/M, that is getting stalkerish.

Lisa: often other departments and other projects it is much much less than this but for this particular project, because it was Star Wars, they got a sitting fee of $50 per hour

Me: That is so cool.

Lisa: So...for the shoot, they spent 1.5 hours in wardrobe (yes, they had to go in for a costume fitting!) and then the shoot took about 1.5 hours (trip 2). They had loads of fans swing by to say hello. Maxie did his 'in the window' shoot months later, and that took about 2 hours.

Me: Was it invite or an open casting call

Lisa: They contacted me, since our two studios work so closely together and they know about my blog (for those of you who do not know, Lisa works at Hallmark). They have tried to use the boys before but the timing would always fall through or the concept changed.

Me: For what? Have they ever been on other Hallmark products?

Lisa: It never got to the point where they told me what it was for - they just asked if they were available. The kitties before - Ryker and Caleb - were featured, though. Ryker was in 2 TV ads, and Caleb was the August pinup cat in Hallmark's 1995 cat calendar.

Me: So no bonus tuna if I run all over the country and buy them all up?

Lisa: Rats! Well, Faraday might donate a wand toy to the cause...

And now I'm curious what Maxwell and Faraday think of being all famous, so I asked them how they felt about being famous.

Me: Hello Maxwell and Faraday, thank you for agreeing to this interview. So are you overly excited to be the new face of Star Wars Halloween?
Faraday: Does it come with WAND Toys????
Maxwell: uh, well, I was actually kinda disappointed. Do you know those lightsabers don't even WORK? I tried to take one apart, but they...
Faraday: yeah, yeah, yeah, back to me. I'm a STAR now, you know.

Me: Did you enjoy the photo shoot?
Faraday: Like I was saying...
Maxwell: He's been demanding his own trailer. With a star on it.
Faraday: Stocked with bonito flakes, Maxie. Don't forget that!

Me: What do you think your fans would want to know about you that they don't already know?
Allie: I'll field this one, boys. Did you know Faraday has a secret desire to move away from the Midwest? It's true.
Maxwell: uhhhh, he never said anything about that to me... but he did mention Star Wars was mancat stuff. More than once. Loudly. Where Allie could hear.

Me: I have heard that Faraday wants to come to Maine to see me.. but back to the interview; So Allie, how do you feel about all of this?
Allie: *sigh* well, if Hallmark and Lucasfilms can't see that I'm the natural and obvious choice to play Carrie Fisher in the feline remake.... Let's just say they may wish to hire a better casting director if they want it to be a blockbuster.

I really wanted to do a giveaway because of the excitement I've seen from other cat bloggers at this and Lisa kindly offered up three sets of cards, so we will have three different winners. We will even go international so everyone can enter. All you need to do is comment on the blog. If you would like additional entries, leave additional comments saying that you:

• Comment on this blog, mention you want to win
• Comment on one of Lisa's blog posts then come back here and leave a comment that you did that
• Visit me on Facebook and leave a comment saying you did.

So three comments for three entries for three cards: Beep Bloop Bleep MEEEOW!
It would be fun to close the entries on the third, but that seems too short, so I will pick the winners on the 5th and announce it on the 6th.

3000th post winner

Well a week after my 3000th post I finally picked a winner, and it is the indulged furries over at Indulged Furries!

I've already sent an email over and am waiting to hear back.. on the off chance I don't hear back I'll wait a few more days and try again.. but some how I don't think that will be an issue :)

The girls are doing very well. Lori is being a bit more sociable which isn't surprising, and they have also reached that play stage.. which means once they eat they want to play, so I am getting less cuddle time. I am going to have to hold off feeding them until the end of my visit with them each evening to get the cuddles I want..

Wordless Wednesday - The Crew minus one

Guess who is missing for a chance to win one of the necklaces I made last year.. (open to everyone)

Products to review from Rob at Petflow.com

I was recently contacted by Rob over at petflow.com  I have to say I love his personalized approach when he contacted me.  He has been very personable and very nice (If Rob's boss is reading this, serious Kudos to him!)

When I replied saying I could be interested, he then went on to ask me if they have any specific allergies.. This endeared me to him quite a bit.  I really don't like limiting myself due to Jack's limitations so I told him about Jack but my ability to test things on my foster kittens as well..

He then quickly wrote back offering me several products at once.. talk about a bounty!!  He sent over a Cat Dancer, and three bags of treats; Blue Buffalo, Wellness and Feline Greenies

They arrived very quickly which was fun.

Unfortunately for me the treats aren't anything I can feed The Crew.. (I can not WAIT till Jack is better..). Two of them are really close.  If not for Jack I would probably offer both the Wellness and the Blue Buffalo to them; and if not for Smed and IA having issues I'd probably bring them down to the kittens, but then again kittens often don't really 'get' treats..

As for the Cat Dancer, I've already got one.  The cats LOVE it.. something about the way the wire dangles really gets their instincts going.

So I thought I would have a little fun with this and offer it up for anyone here who would like them!!  YAY!! a contest..

I have been doing rafflecopter because it takes a ton of the burden off me, but I get so few entries, so I'm going to go back to the "comment to win"   Ways to earn entries:

• Leave a comment telling me if you have tried any of them (and if you or your cat liked it) or if you wish you could
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Google + (or any other way you can think to share this)

Leave separate comments telling me you have done the any of the last four.  Next Tuesday, the twelfth,  I will go get a random number from a random number generator and pick a winner... and just because I feel like making everyone happy, I'll accept entries from US and international.. 

Good Luck!!

Litter One - free product for honest review and a giveaway

So when I attended BlogPaws I met a representative of the all inclusive litter system called "Litter One" (they are also on Facebook) who offered me a free box - which I totally jumped on.

The box arrived and it was promptly claimed as a new cat bed by The Crew, and I didn't have the heart to take it away from them until they stopped sleeping on it.  That usually happens sooner rather than later, this time it took a while.

Finally I carted it down stairs (it is kind of heavy) and started setting it up..

Each kit contains everything you need in regards to setting up a litter box.  The box obviously, pine litter, a scoop and bags.. all of which are biodegradable!

Another nice feature of this system is it has a 'false floor' so that once the pellets are urinated on and break apart, the debris falls through the holes (with a little help from you) so it is kept apart from the 'fresh' pellets.

The good:

*It is all inclusive.  Can't beat having everything you need in one package.
*It is biodegradable.  Now you have to realize that if you throw it in a landfill the chances of it actually biodegrading is next to zero, but it is made from easily renewable sources, growing trees for litter is good for the environment, even more so when compared to digging clay. There is always the possibility that you can use used litter as mulch.. but seeing as it is covered in cat urine, that would be up to you.
*It is shipped straight to your house.. no more lugging litter..
*Great for emergency situations or transporting cats.
*Litter pellets make awesome kitten toys.

The unknown:

*The false floor is made out of cardboard. Would it support a heavier cat??
*It says it is good for four to six weeks.  I set it up four weeks ago and it was used by five kittens but they had two conventional boxes that they strongly preferred.  How would it hold up with an adult cat?  or two? I just don't know.  The box is currently holding up pretty well with the kittens, and I will most likely toss it once this set of foster kittens goes back in a week or so.  Your mileage may vary IE: if you have a kitty that pees a lot or a little..

The not so good:

*Not all cats like using pine litter. The scent alone can turn some cats off.  Cats tend to like sandy substrate to eliminate on.. pine is bulkier and kind of pointy and hard on the paw pads as well as..
* Pine pellets are MURDER on your own feet if you step on them, and you will because they will get knocked out of the box.
*Soak through.  My two pound kittens would pee through the pellets and get the false floor wet.  What would a normal size cat do?  And then there is diarrhea.. there is just no cleaning that off cardboard.
*The bags they included were doggie doo doo bags.. They were on the small side, and HIGHLY scented.  I am sensitive to scents and they bothered me.  Not to mention they had dogs on them.  (yes, this is totally aesthetic, but it kinda bothered me)
*and something to keep in mind is the fact that pine oil is toxic to cats.  Most makers of pine litter will tell you that the oils have been removed and they are very safe.  But they do still smell like pine.. and there is concern that they can not remove them all.  If you have a kitty with liver or kidney issues or is generally sensitive and reactive to things, you might want to keep that in mind.  MANY cats have used pine litter for years and not had issue.. and I am not saying this product is toxic, I'm saying it is something to keep in mind.

Even though it seems like there is a lot of 'not so good' here I think they are fairly minor. I still love the idea of the product and in execution it was pretty cool.  You can't scoop up the poop with out taking a ton of pellets with it, so I generally used the bag to just pick up stool - which generally worked out OK as the kittens didn't really like pooping in this particular box..

The folks at Litter One sell the kits for $24.95 with $3.95 shipping or free shipping if you buy two.  If you buy using the referral code CS12351 (good until Jan 2014) you can get $5 off (and you still get free shipping if you buy two) and I earn credit for the referral. They also have an auto ship program if you want to use this product continuously.

Amanda from Litter One also offered me one kit to give away.   I know people aren't really a fan of rafflecopter, but it makes it so easy for me in that I can reply to comments and not have to worry about it throwing off my count.  I tried to make it really easy so I hope you don't mind too much.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now I was given one for free in exchange for a review.  If you purchase through the referral link I get credit for it.

Wordless Wednesday - Winner

Congrats Barbara!

Giveaway time!!

Oh this is a good one too!!

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know I like to go to the Yarmouth Clam Festival each year.  This past year I bought a beautiful calendar from a local artist.  I have bought several of her packs of cards in the past, and when I saw the cat calendar I couldn't resist.

Well I brought it home and put it aside for the first of the year.  When I finally put it up I realized there were a couple of typos and thought I would write to Elizabeth Halsey via her Transformationsart.com website to let her know.  I totally value and respect good customer service and have stopped doing business with several companies with whom I have had similar interactions with before because often the response is "yeah, so what?"  But Elizabeth replied very kindly and offered me a new calendar with out the typos.

As I tend to write all over my calendars I was OK with the version I had, but because she did offer to make it right I thought I would ask her if she would like to send me something as a give-away.  A small promotion of her products as my small way of thanking her for caring. And she agreed!  She sent me a 10 pack of assorted cat cards.  You can see the designs here which include Catnip (above) Cattail, Pussy Willow, Knitting, Fishbowl, Birdhouse, Pansie, Yarn, Snowflake and Cupcake

I do hope you check out her website.  She does so much more than cats.  Sewing, music, barn animals, teachers, and an amazing pink breast cancer ribbon to a butterfly..

Her product line varies from calendars to note cards to sticky notes, napkins, magnets and even gift enclosures.

I am accepting entries for a week until 1/29/13.  Due to shipping costs, this is going to be a US only giveaway - sorry about that.  I am more than happy to accept outside the US entries if you want them shipped to someone with in the US.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fancy Feast 2012 ornament

A while back (November 9th) I entered to win a Fancy Feast ornament from FloppyCats.com. I didn't originally win, but one of the original winners didn't claim so I won it by default (I feel bad and am happy at the same time).  I did want one of these, and had been entering every giveaway I saw for it.  I just thought it was really elegant.

I have a few of the series of Fancy Feast ornaments.  I'm far from a collector, but I do think they put out a quality promotional product.  All too often things like this are meant to be thrown away.  These are meant to be collected and I know a lot of people do.

Pretty packaging

the inside, including the velvet pouch.

I gave my details to Jenny on Monday, it showed up Thursday via FedEx.  It gave me pause for a moment wondering what on earth could be sent to me in a FedEx document envelope.. (kinda like when you see police lights - your first thought is 'what the??') but it made my night :)

Thank you Jenny, and thank you Fancy Feast for doing the promotion.

While I was asked to give a review, I was not asked to say anything in particular and all opinions are mine.  Generally when I give a review I give the good and the bad -  no matter how small.  In this instance there isn't a bad thing to say about it. :)

Printcopia

Back in October, I was contacted by Printcopia..  Wondering if I might be interested in a free canvas print in exchange for my writing a post on my blog.

I have several canvas prints from various companies and I have loved them all.  My hope is to one day have canvases of all of The Crew, so I jumped on the chance - after going over the terms and conditions and making sure they would be OK with the fact that I give bluntly honest reviews - the good and the bad.  So full disclosure, I got a free 8x10 print in exchange for a review and linkage to Printcopia, the opinions are 100% mine

I feel a little bad that this post is a month on the making, but I decided to do a canvas of Kit, which is my husband's kitty, and I wanted to make sure he got to pick out which print he wanted.

So finally on the Oct 28th I ordered it.
On Monday the Nov 5th I got notification it was shipped.
It arrived on Friday Nov 9th.. Texas to Maine in five days..

It came in a very nice box, and was wrapped up in brown paper which the kitties enjoyed sitting on.

The Print

Kit Sniffed and Kit Approved

There is a lot I am very pleased with.  There are a few "disappointments".

First, they seem to be a bit more expensive than some of the other photos on canvas websites out there.  To my untrained eyes,  do not see a major difference between this one and two of the others I have gotten, but it is better then two others I have gotten - which had far less color saturation.  I am not sure though that the color issue isn't because I didn't use a raw data file to order the print.  I did this time, and I am very pleased. Update: I just got an email ad from Printcopia telling me their prints are currently Buy One Get One Free for the pre Black Friday Sale..

I am also disappointed at the placement of the photo on the canvas.  If you look at the original photo you will see there is quite a bit of space between the top of Kit's ears and the top of the photo.  No matter how hard I tried I could not get that part of the photo in the print.  I actually had to use "mirrored on the edges" to keep her ears from being cut off and wrapped around the top of the frame.  This means if you look at the print from the top down you see her ears again, and not the top of the photo if you look carefully you can see it in that first photo.  Part of this was due to the fact that the photo is larger than the dimensions of print area - aka some of it had to be cropped - but my preference would have been to crop more of the bottom and not had the mirrored ears.. Since this"issue"  is both a product of the image and the service, I would say make sure you choose a photo that is action is dead center.  If I had, I wouldn't have even noticed.

So all and all a very pleasant experience and Glenn was very happy with the canvas.  Personally I prefer the slightly larger sizes as I think they make a bit more of a statement, but that one is all me.

They also do car magnets, and custom banners at their 'sister' websites.

While talking with Allison I asked if I could do a giveaway of one of their prints.  So US residents only can enter to enter to win a 8' x 10' canvas print.  This is my first Rafflecopter giveaway.. feel free to give feedback.   a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tail of Disinterest

I just realized I never shared with you the end result of my first giveaway.  As little as it was, it was so much fun for me to do and it was fun for Austin as well :)

I'm sure most of you already regularly stop by CATachresis, but if not, check out Austin enjoying the nip I sent along.

And the winner is

The winner of my first giveaway is Carolyn at CATachresis!!  congratulations Carolyn.   

Give me a shout out with your mailing address and I'll get it right out to you.

Blogging fun

Seeing as this is my blog I have the right to change my mind :) I am going to postpone the photos of the carnival until tomorrow (it was cute but not OVERLY exciting) because on my way home I stopped at the local flea market and found some goodies.

Before I get to that, lets take care of business.. If you could vote for Fleurp, I'd really appreciate it (no need to register, simply click there then on the vote button.  If you are so inclined you can vote every 12 hours.  Only one vote per IP address)

OK, now for the goodies.

The flea market isn't huge, but it is good sized for the town.  They run as much of the year as they can.  Sometimes I stop in and find things, sometimes not.  Since I am coming up on my ten year blogoversary I thought it might be fun to hold some giveaways.  I didn't really know what to give away.  Heaven knows we all probably have enough stuff with cats on them, so I didn't really want to do cat figurines or purses with cats on them, etc.  But since this is a cat blog, I can't image what else would be a big draw.

But I've been keeping my eye out where ever I have been lately.  One stand had some cute jewelry. Some tiger eye earrings and necklaces.. I saw a really interesting broach that was also a locket too.  As I wandered on I came across a table with a "If I were a Cat" children's book.  It was cute, but not overly cute.  The really nice man who was running it with his wife shared with me another book which I did really like.  Then he gave me a second which I also liked and a third.  (good thing his wife was starting to pack up or I might have gone home with a library of books!!)

And these were the books

I intend to read them and post reviews then give them away too, but that is for another date.

Then I looked up and saw the following picture.

I was just at my co-worker's house and they have a very beautiful painting of a house in a winter scene.  They enjoyed telling the story of the painting, how it was created by a quadriplegic who painted it in about four hours using a paintbrush in his mouth (it was very realistic.  not exactly photo quality realistic but awful close)  My co-worker's husband said the guy never painted before the accident that caused his paralysis, and the artist was enjoying that he could make over a thousand dollars and hour (because now he is charging quite a bit for his paintings)  Anyway, with this story fresh in my mind I asked if there was a story behind the drawing, and they said, it was drawn by the artist (it is signed by Helen Coffman)  Opening up the wooden frame I found that the picture is a trimmed blank card with "Fats" Graphic Pencil by Helen Coffman on the back of it)  It looks like a hand drawing but it could be a print.

Want to win "Fats"  Just post a comment.  If you could tell me what you'd love to see on a giveaway that would be cool... as I do want to do something really fun in October on my blogoversary..  Feel free to be a little crazy but somewhat realistic.  I mean I don't have a million dollars to give away..   Costume jewelery, books? or cat related paraphernalia like cat toys or cat beds?

Comments will be open for a week when I'll choose a winner by random next Sunday.