Crafting with Connie - fixing a broken Santa

Why buy it for $7 when you can make it yourself with $92 of craft supplies?

At one point in the past - I don't remember when - I had a conversation with Debbie (of Glogirly/Katie/Waffles fame) and I mentioned a Santa I owned that was damaged.  I'm sure I mentioned how much I loved him because he had three kittens in his hat that he was holding and that at some point his forehead was bashed in and created a hole.

But I had forgotten all about that conversation and one day Debbie sent me a Santa head. No note, no real explanation. I was quite flummoxed as to why, but of course, I immediately thought of my kitty Santa. It took me a while to work up the courage to ask Debbie why she sent me a Santa head - I mean just how do you go about phrasing such a question, but when I finally did I was rolling around laughing when she said I had told her about it.

I will admit, I was afraid to pop Santa's head off, which is why this is a post-holiday post. I figured one last Christmas with 'my Santa' if it went horribly wrong.. and so over the weekend I found myself a screwdriver and went to work.

The manufacturer of my Santa did not want his head to come off.. not one little bit. I was hesitant to rip the head off or smash it with a hammer in case I did not like the way the new head looked. I must admit, I felt quite creepy taking a screwdriver to the back of Santa's head.. (oh for the love of Pete, I hope Google spiders don't index my website with that last sentence) They used some serious glue to attach it..

Once I finally popped off the head, I put the new one on and I was actually surprised at how well it looked.

From the front, he almost looks like he was designed to look like that.  In profile, you can see that the head is just a bit too big for his body and it hangs off a bit, but nothing a 'scarf' wouldn't fix.

I ended up throwing the old Santa head away.  It was hard because I am a saver, but I knew I would never use the head for anything and I would just look at it and lament that we had damaged the original; I would never come to terms with Santa's new do.  Husband was a little freaked when he went to throw something out a little later to find Santa was looking up at him from the trash.

Thank you, Debbie!  You have given Santa a new lease on life.

A long winter's nap

Now that the days are getting longer, Muffin thinks that taking a serious power nap is a good thing and she hopes you all take some time out of your busy lives to take a nap of your own because they are a good thing. (apparently, it is also Festival of Sleep day)

The Crew also wanted you to know that while the enjoyed the tree a great deal, and that many of the 'ornaments' ended up around the house, the tree itself remained intact. They are not a fan of the many memes that float around saying cats destroy Christmas trees. Yes, there are cats who do, but not all cats do.

Even when they are covered in cat toys

Litter Genie review #chewyinfluencer #meow

This month's offering from the Chewy.com influencer program, where I am offered products for free for an honest review, included a Litter Genie. I heard about these when they first came out and thought they sounded interesting, but with multiple cats, I figured this product would be useless for us.  And then Muffin got her very own bathroom..

This seemed like a perfect opportunity. I scoop her box every other day. I know I should scoop it daily, but I want to encourage her to walk down the stairs because it is good exercise. I often forget and remember to scoop it when it is late and I don't want to walk out to the garage to throw it away, so it sits in the bathroom trash until one of us takes care of it. Sometimes the smell overwhelms the room because we don't take it out in time.

The product comes with everything you need, a package of the liner, a scoop and a scoop holder, which I really appreciated as my current location for the scoop for this litter box was the side of the tub and I had a small little pile of litter forming there.

You put the liner container in the top, pull out the start of it, tie a knot in it and then feed it through the spring held panel that seals the liner to prevent odors from escaping.

The top comes down to protect the liner container, and channel the waste into the bag. It creates a small opening to scoop into, then you pull the panel out and the waste drops into the rest of the bag. The springs pop the panel back into place containing the smell.  The only downside I found, besides needing to continually buy the refills of the liner, is that the opening is a bit small. Muffin is a 13 lb cat and her urine balls are not dainty. A few times they were fresh and as a result, the top piece became a bit dirty

When you believe the bag is full, you pull a bit more of the liner out, cut it with the cutting device that is part of the Litter Genie, and tie it off. You then tie a knot in the bottom of the liner to become the bottom of the next collection bag.

I will admit I was quite ignorant as to how it worked. I assumed that the device sealed the bag after each time you used it and I'd end up with a whole row of sealed deposits in a long line. As a result of not really understanding (I should have, I mean the concept is pretty simple - I was trying to make it far more complicated than it was) I didn't pull enough of the liner down into the collection bin the first time. The refills are not cheap, but they do work well and the smell was well contained.

The product is designed to hold about two weeks of used litter from one cat, depending on the size of the cat. The liners, which are five layers with built-in odor barrier technology to protect against odors and germs, are suggested to last two months for one cat. This product does work well for one cat, and possibly two if you don't mind emptying it twice as often. I saw videos that 'hack' the diaper genie (which works very similarly) that used regular trash bags, and I'm sure you could use something similar if you wanted to, but you will miss out on the technology build into the refills and it might not contain the odor as well.

I intend to keep using this while Muffin continues to have her own private bathroom. If we ever dismantle it I doubt that this will continue to be used because as a multi-cat household it would fill up too quickly.

I would also like to send out a huge congratulation to Sydney from the Chewy Influencer Program. She was promoted out of the influencer program and I'm sure she will do wonders in her new job as Marketing Promotions Manager. Natalie will be taking over the program and I look forward to working with her.

Jack wants the boxes back

This bed is comfy and all, but can you bring that boxing day box back?

Happy Boxing Day

I hope you and yours had/are having a lovely holiday. We had a quiet one; visiting family and then home to open presents.

It was a little hard, being the first Christmas without Kit. I had purchased a calendar and a mug for the catman that was covered in images of Kit which brought up painful memories. That is now past, we move forward to a new year without her and with our six kitties.

And hopefully some kittens in the new year. When I started this blog in 2002 I could not fathom a time when I was not needed to foster. It appears that time might be at hand and isn't that a fabulous thing?

If you didn't receive a Christmas Card from me, this is the one I sent out this year. I will admit that I ended up photoshopping the kittens to all be in a row. They would not cooperate. Since I wasn't sure I was going to have another set of kittens, I took photos with Elsie and Emma.. Prism, Pirate and Paris were never really in a good spot to do a photo shoot with.

We watched movies on Christmas and didn't get to the Doctor Who Christmas Episode.. no one spoil it for me 😉