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.
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
well I weighed Ella tonight and she weighed 2lbs..(for comparison, Jackson is 3.5) so it looks like the end of their stay is sooner rather than later. Elsa is doing so well that I only have a few minor reservations about her going up for adoption... and all of them having to do with not being able to control the public that enters to see her. But that is not for me to deal with. I will mention my observations of her to the shelter and let them deal with what they want to do with her. My hopes is she does so well on the adoption floor that she goes home shortly after showing up. She is quite beautiful and really is loving and fun and is so energetic that I can't imagine someone wanting her now (as long as they don't have little kids)
Oddly enough she does remind me a bit of Daisy. It is in some of the poses she makes.
But..
The painters have been dealing with some inflammation in their eyes. Mostly Jackson. It was in his left eye, and as that started to clear up it went to his right. Somewhere in between it jumped over to Evelyn's eye.. There has been some random sneezing but all in all it is pretty minor. One of those wait and see instances, and I think it will clear up in time. Probably not in time to get them all home by Black Friday, but hopefully by December 1st *paws crossed*
This morning DH and I went out and about to the Christmas Fairs. We walked into one fair and there was a pair of "Bear Chairs" each was marked at $1.00. I commented how cute would that be with the kittens cuddled up on one. My husband noticed they were only $1.00 each and lobbied to buy it. I laughed at him and said he needed to buy the stuffed cat sitting on it to show the kittens what to do with it. I wandered off to look at something else and when I turned around he had the bear and the cat in his hands. :) It was so adorable that every single person there who was older than us said something cute to him.
the kitten is about the size of a beanie baby..for size reference
When we got it home, the kitties knew right what to do with it.
In case you were wondering, yes Elsa is nursing the Painters
I ended up taking a hundred or so pictures. Ella thought the bear's eyes had to die. Both Ella and Jackson whispered something into the bear's ear.. lots of sniffing, lots of posturing.. they are freakin adorable, but it is a freakin lot of pictures too..
Miss Lady Frida Floofface... I don't quite know what I am going to do with that kitten. I adore her so, but she still has some major trust issues. I so wish I could get my hands on my Rescue Remedy. I've got a couple of bottles floating around the house at this point. Part of me says that if I can't find it than it must be that I shouldn't be using it. I keep looking for it hoping, because I do think it will do her some good.. *shrug* But tonight we did two things.. I got her running around after the toy and she touched my leg *YEA!!* and I took her on a "field trip" around the house and let her take a look at The Crew and how much they trust me. I took her into the bathroom and shut the door and put her down and let her walk around for a bit. I was able to pick her up with out much of an incident, but I could tell that while I was doing it she really really REALLY wished I was in Antarctica.. Jackson - he is pretty much a normal socialized kitten, only being hesitant when you go straight at him, but then so are a lot of other kittens. Evelyn is somewhere in between.
Then I went to the #BlogPawtyPALs on Twitter. This is the second BlogPaws Twitter party I've been to this week. The first one was on Tuesday and it was a rather long and drawn out event.. Even still I ended up winning two prizes at it :) This one was much shorter, and I won.. well I won two prizes out of this one too.. only thing is one of them was something I really couldn't use (OK I probably could have, I wouldn't mind a good walking jacket for Skippy, but it was more of a dog harness thing) so I "donated" it back to the party. Funny thing was the person who won it after me also donated it back.. lol. It finally ended up with someone who was very happy to have it, so that was a good thing. then there was this:
and the question..
Freaking exciting hun?? If you haven't seen the talking Guinea Pig video PAL has done, you so need to.
So, only thing more exciting than the prize was this..
Twitter reads backwards..
I really liked the idea of the shelter buying $500 worth of food for the foster kittens, but I knew someone who could use it more..
They did give away another $500 prize, but I failed to win that one (as is probably the right thing)
Afterwards I thought about Jeanne and the need that she has and felt a little bummed I didn't remember sooner, but I hope that by supporting the auction they are going to have to fund raise will do some good.
are you sure, it tastes like something for everyone..
Totally mine..
I hozied it!
Don't be a hog.. share!!
OUT OUT OUT!!
AND STAY OUT!
I am so staying out of this
Come on Ella, share!!
Momma!! Jackson's bugging me!
Hi Momma,
Look at my cool basket that Jackson is trying to steal from me.
am not..
There there little one, it's OK..
Muwhahaha
ELLA!!
Sigh... well at least Elsa learned the truth.
Come on Jackson, now it's our turn.
There is something at the bottom..
Seriously?
I said, this is MY basket..
and this one is too
Ella, DAHrling.. There is only one diva in this room
And that is me, Lady Frida Floofface.
Ella SERIOUSLY wanted that basket. At one point Jackson almost had it to himself and she came up, and very sneakily (for a kitten anyway) slunk into the basket right under Jackson's nose. It was so freakin adorable..
