I’m Having A Sale!

July 3rd is The Crafty Kitten’s 2nd Etsy Anniversary. In honor of this, I’m having a sale until June 6 at midnight EST. 10% off all orders and Free Shipping on orders over $75.00. Please wait for an updated invoice after check out.

Click Here To Visit My Shop!

Slow Country Drive

My hubby and I went for a long country drive yesterday. We went through where he grew up and around some other back roads. Most of my weekend was very lax. I just thought I would share this photo with you.

Flickr Game

I found this on cosymakes.

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name -> I had to fudge this one because my flickr name didn’t turn up any results. I used my blog name instead.

I’m Gonna Buy Five Copies For My Mama

Title comes from a lyric of “On Cover of the Rolling Stone” written by Shel Silverstein (my favorite author ever!) and performed by Dr. Hook.*SQUEEEE*

I’m in the paper!! I’m on page 2 of the Richlands News-Press this week. There is a photo of me in the top left corner with a bit underneath that says “Cassie Ogle showed off her handiwork during the art display that was a new feature of the annual Richlands Festival.”  In the photo, it shows me knitting behind my table full of book and knit items.  The photo was taken last Friday when I was set up at First Community Bank you can read about that experience here. After all the flubs the paper and various other sources had before the event, the paper has redeemed itself this week.

 

Inadvertent Pumpkins

Last Halloween, after the me and my hubby carved the jack-o-lantern I dumped the seeds and insides in my flower bed. I discovered this today after my walk with Raisin.

As you can see, my rose bush has grown on top of it and it’s partially under some other type of bush.

Here’s a shot of one of the blooms.

Welcome To Summer

I’ve had a very busy week. Wednesday, I helped with a community sculpture project that was made by Bryant Holsenbeck. She is an awesome environmental artist and a fellow bookbinder. I also got to see some very lovely quilts by local quilters that was in the same space as the community sculpture. I also stopped by to see the RHS Art Club’s exhibit and spent some time with my former teachers from college as I checked out the newest mural. I’m planning to work on the mural some next week.

Thursday, I checked back at the sculpture project and snapped some photos.

Today, I was set up at my local bank as part of the festival. Since this is the first year and the paper got most of the information wrong it was very slow all day. Fifteen people total stopped at my table, 4 were the ladies who work at the bank, 1 was my mom, 1 was a guy from the news paper, and 1 was the festival coordinator. In fact only 2 people (who came in together) were there because they saw it in the paper. Thank goodness for those two ladies or I would have been very sad about the whole day. They came in as I was packing up to leave and both bought something. Hurray!! It made my day! I then took my stock back to the Appalachian Arts Center and hung out with some of my fellow artisans.

Tomorrow, I’m helping with the Appalachian Arts Center concession stand at the festival. I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired.

Weekend Trip

This past weekend was the end of the year trip for my Girl Scout troop. We took the girls to Wonder Works in Sevierville, TN. We had a blast! I personally love science museums and Wonder Works definitely served up a huge helping of fun. After we went through most of the museum, we went to a dinner show that was hilarious and the food was delicious. After that, some girls and their parents went to the hotel to swim, our group went though the museum again. I think we had even more fun the second time through. I was proud of my girls that faced their fears, walked through the optical illusion tunnel, and rode the virtual roller coaster.Yesterday we drove back and made a stop at A Likely Yarn in Abingdon. It was my treat to myself for surviving the trip….. Ok, I was just using that as an excuse to buy more yarn! It was my first real yarn shop experience. I also go to meet fellow Etsian Tara from Bonde Chicken Boutique. She’s the first Etsy seller I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in person. She’s super sweet and I’ll definitely be stopping by on another Sunday in the future.

I wasn’t for sure if we were going to have time to stop at the yarn shop on our way home so I didn’t prepare myself very well. I didn’t have any patterns ready or even an idea of a project. So I bought a few different things hoping the yarn will tell me what it wants to be. Here’s a photo of the goodies that I bought.

I picked up a amazing hand painted sock yarn, a beautiful skein of recycled silk, a gorgeous yellow wool, a very pretty multi-color acrylic/wool blend, and a super soft creamy baby merino which is named Cassie…. Seriously, I couldn’t resist something that had my name… and it’s spelled right and everything. I also picked up a set of size US 35 needles. The largest needles that I had were 15 maybe 17 so I decided to add those to my stock of knitting needles. The needles were handmade by someone who is semi-local (NC) so that is awesome. As you know (or maybe not), supporting local businesses, especially local artists/crafters is super important to me. In fact, the first thing I bought for my scooter was a sticker that says “BUY ART support your local artists” so maybe other people will be inspired to do the same.

I can’t wait to go back with patterns and projects in mind. I searched through Ravelry last night and will probably spend my evening tonight doing the same.

Meringue Cookies

I made meringue cookies for the first time tonight… in fact it was actually the first time I’ve made meringue. I have seen it made before so I knew what to expect.

3 egg whites
1 c. sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

I whipped the egg whites until they were foamy. I slowly added the sugar and my mixer whip it until it was shiny and stiff. Then I folded the vanilla in. Spooned large blobs on to a pan and baked for 30-35 minutes in a 257 degree oven. I made 1/2 of the batch then added 1 tsp of raspberry extract and 2 drops of red food coloring and baked the rest.

I’m quite proud of these and they are delicious! I can’t believe they came out so well on my first attempt because I know that meringue can be difficult.

My Big Break…. err… broken heart.

My very first big event as an artistan is scheduled for next Friday. I’m to be doing a demo/sale table at a local bank for our town’s annual festival.

57 media sources have been given the schedule of events.

Seriously, 57… That’s HUGE!

In every single one of them I’m listed as Kathy Ogle, Author.

ALL MY LIFE I’VE BEEN CORRECTING PEOPLE ON MY NAME.

My name is not Kathy, Cathy, Casey, Cassandra, Carrie, Cassidy, or Caffie (one of the weirdest mess-ups).

It’s CASSIE pronounced cass as in CASSette or in Mama Cass then E… like the letter E. It’s really not that hard.

This is my number 1 pet peeve. I hate to be called by the wrong name. Now when it’s something extremely important to me, of course it would be wrong.

My first birthday announcement in the paper was wrong. I think my high school graduation announcement was wrong too. I didn’t even bother with announcing my wedding because they would have most likely printed that wrong too.

I’m not an author. I’m a writter by no means, that’s my husband. It’s called BOOKBINDING and apparently no one has ever heard of it.

I was really looking forward to having my name in the paper. I was even considering having it framed or something.

I’ve been in tears all morning. I called one of the main organizers of the festival to let her know about the error. I’ve known this lady all my life and from what I could tell she couldn’t have cared less. She even told me that the information she was given was incorrect when she got it. This was given to her by someone who I know knows 100% that I’m a bookbinder and my name is not Kathy.

I’m just so dissappointed… and angry.

EDIT: I contacted the town website moderator and they edited their website. One down, 56 more to go.

EDIT2: My hubby keeps asking me “So Kathy, when are you going to write a book about me?”

EDIT3: The organizer lady brought last week’s Free Press to me today and it had the correct information in it. It made me happy to see it and that she brought me a copy. So it seems that some of the media sources got the correct information and some didn’t.

Cotton Candy Sunset

Today’s storm/sunset combo brought a beautiful cotton candy colored sky.

This big cloud had some excellent lightening action going on while I was photographing it but I didn’t luck up and catch any of it.