Headed to the John Campbell Folk School!

My mom and I are heading to the John Campbell Folk School tomorrow!!! This will be our fifth mother/daughter trip there, and I am super excited to get away and learn some new creative skills. We are both taking a class on how to make animal pull toys with the amazingly talented Kathryn Walmsley. I took one of her classes on sculpting hands at the Folk School a few years ago. I know this one will be equally informative and inspiring! Check out this stunning pull toy made by her...fantastic!



I just can't decide what animal I am going to make!!! If you have any suggestions, please let me know. A cat seems fitting for me, of course, but I am thinking that I should keep my week cat free for a change :). We'll see....

I will catch you guys later! Have a wonderful week!

The SnipPets in Art Doll Quarterly!

I haven't actually seen the hard copy of the current Art Doll Quarterly issue, but here is a peek at my spread! The SnipPets and I are so proud and honored to be featured in such an amazingly beautiful magazine!

Secret Weapon: Chicken McNuggets?

Last night, I headed to the stockyards to trap the elusive mama cat who had those poor sick kittens that we rescued last week. We had tried to get her several times before, so I knew i had to come up with a new plan of attack: Operation Chicken McNuggets. I am a vegetarian, but i can tell you that even I can barely resist the smell of those darn chicken nuggets. Well, it took about 10 minutes and that mama cat was in our trap!! Yahooooooooo!! I did a lot of cheering and jumping up and down...the happy cat dance!

I got this beautiful bobtail torti girl home and when i put the trap down, she started meowing and came to the front of the trap....ferals never do that. And then she ate the extra food that I slipped inside the trap while I sat there...ferals don't do that either. So then i decided to carefully put my finger through the side of the trap and touch her side. When I did that, she lifted up and started to purr and then began head butting the trap....ferals DEFINITELY don't do that!!! I reached inside and scratched her chin and she rolled right over. Oh boy, this poor sweetie had clearly been someone's pet and got abandoned at the stockyards.

Her spay appointment isn't until tomorrow, so i decided to bring her inside and put her in my guest bedroom. I let her out of the trap and put her up on the bed. She was purring like crazy and making biscuits on the bed. She is so affectionate!!! I am so torn now. I absolutely hate the thought of putting her back out there, but we have 6 kittens to find homes for and finding good homes for adult cats is extremely difficult. We'll just have to see what we can do.

I tried to take photos of her, but the camera scared her, so i can't share this lovely girl with you yet. BUT here are a few photos of Gilly and Basil...they are always more than happy to mug for the camera :)!!

HUGE Halloween Blowout SnipPet Sale!!! 40% OFF!

First, a BIG huge THANK YOU to all of the wonderful customers who made October the best month for The SnipPets yet!!!!!! I am incredibly grateful for your support!!! You allow me to keep on creating and live an artists' dream :)...oh yeah, and help a whole lot of kitties in need (that's the best part!).

And now I am ready to clear the cobwebs out of my shop, so to speak. All of my Halloween SnipPet Spooks are 40% off as of today! Check out the SALE section in my Etsy shop. It's time to make room for whimsical new creations. I am headed to the John Campbell Folk School next week and will be learning some new dollmaking skills from one of the best dollmakers around, Kathryn Walmsley. I am SOOOO excited to have a week of uninterrupted creative time with no distractions!! Yahoo! It's going to be F-U-N!

It may not be the Ritz, but.....

....it's a vast improvement! I am talking about the garage makeover I did yesterday. I have been helping a man TNR the cats that constantly show up in his yard for several months, and I decided that I HAD to redo his garage for many reasons. I have written about this situation before, but things have gotten a bit crazier lately. The dear man, Don, who feeds the cats is blind and his wife, Jean, is confined to a wheelchair. They can barely pay for their own food and personal needs and yet still worry about the neverending stream of kitties that end up at their house and do their best to feed and care for them. About 6 weeks ago, Don had to have gall bladder surgery and called on me to feed the cats while he recovered. During this time, I discovered that his neighbor was starting to trap the cats again to have them euthanized. This happened a few months ago and I desperately tried to change their minds to no avail. They hate the cats...period. And sadly, the cats love to hang out under their shed and in their backyard. So, this time, the best I could do was sneak into their driveway and release any cats that were in his trap. Trespassing is certainly not my normal behavior, but there was no way I could see that happening and not do something about it. Unfortunately, since I couldn't be there 24/7, he was able to get 2 young kitties. It still makes me so sad to know that they are gone. They weren't doing anything wrong and we had TNRed them. To make matters worse, the aggravating, irresponsible neighbor on the OTHER side will not let us get his female cat spayed for him, so he has kittens on his front porch that I KNOW will end up in Don's yard eventually. The whole situation is ridiculous, one neighbor producing homeless cats, one man trying to feed them and get them TNRed and one neighbor carting them away to be euthanized. It makes me want to pull my hair out to say the least. It is SO frustrating when you try to educate people on the humane course of action AND offer to do all the work and pay for it, and they STILL won't do the right thing. Sigh....

Well, my next thought was to TRY to entice the cats to stay in Don's garage instead of under the neighbor's shed. So, yesterday, I took the plunge and cleaned out all of the junk in there and filled it with straw. That garage was a smelly, dirty, moldy, nasty, spider filled MESS! It felt SO good to remove years of ICK out of there! I created a nice, clean feeding station and put mounds straw on tables and shelves and all over the ground....so many nice, warm places for the kitties to make nests and stay dry and cozy this winter. I hope, hope, hope they will set up camp there now! Keep your paws crossed that they do!

OH, and as I was cleaning, a calico cat (that won't get in out traps) sat in the back of the garage nursing her 4 precious kittens!!! I had a feeling that there were some in there, but hadn't seen them until yesterday. I wish I could rescue them, but Carrie's Catnap Inn is at full capacity, so they will have to stay there for now.

7 cats eating on the front porch...

Don's garage...


All the junk! The "before" photo...and this was after i had taken a lot of stuff out!

The new feeding station...

The "after" shots of the garage turned cat barn!



3 of the kittens exploring their new bedding...

A SnipPet makes it into Romantic Homes magazine!

My little holiday Rosalie Rabbit munchkin is featured in the current Christmas issue of Romantic Homes magazine!! SO very exciting!!! Someone needs to pinch me...can't believe I am actually published in such a lovely publication :). Many thanks to Sandy Wood, the Pfatt Marketplace leader, for submitting my SnipPet doll!

I will be creating a limited edition of this rabbit (sculpted and painted to order), so if you'd like to purchase her, you will find her at this link.

Meow, Purr, Hiss...Cats and Kittens galore!

OH, where to begin...the past few weeks have been filled with cat adventures. I will just get to it and see if i can remember everything :)!

A few weeks ago, we successfully trapped 5 cats for the October TNR clinic. One of them was a torti mama cat at the stockyards who had eluded us for MONTHS!!! It was thrilling and a HUGE relief to get her taken care of. She had 2 remaining kittens from a litter of 5, so we brought them in as well. They were sick and needed some major TLC. I am happy to report that they are doing wonderfully now! We were also able to trap and spay another torti at the other end of the stockyards. We found out that she had been there for TEN YEARS having kittens over and over!!! Good grief, that almost made me have a heart attack. I cannot tell you how ecstatic I am that she can spend the rest of her life relaxing and that her kittens will no longer be subjected to the dangers there. In addition, we trapped a young orange bobtail boy in that area. Last but not least, we TNRed 2 male cats from other locations.

Excellent news!! Sammy and Skippy were adopted together 2 weeks ago. We ADORED those two buff boys and were incredibly happy that they went to an awesome home and got to stay together!

Here are the 2 rescued kittens, Basil and Elmo, who are fat, happy, wild and craaaaaazy! They keep me on my toes that is for sure. Elmo (gray bobtail) is extremely chatty and wants constant attention. Basil (black with white star on his chest) is a total love bug and full of fun. We also have Gilly (black and white) who i mentioned in a previous post. She has now recovered from coccidia and is having a BLAST with her kitten roommates. All 3 little goons will be spayed and neutered early next week and will then be ready for adoption!








There are 3 adult females that we still need to TNR at the stockyards, and we discovered during our last trapping session that one of them had a litter of kittens. Sadly, one had been stomped and killed by the cows...awful, i know. I can hardly think about it. The other 3 got very sick this week. So, my husband and I headed out there on Wednesday night to try to get them the heck outta there!! They were having an auction, so it was quite a wild goose chase! One kitten got in our trap right away, but the other two were so congested that they couldn't smell the tuna and didn't have an appetite. THEN, they had to let the cows run through the stalls, so we were dodging them, stepping in manure and trying to keep the kittens out of the way. Finally, we managed to get one more in a trap and I snuck up on the other and grabbed her. It was such a relief to get all 3...i wouldn't have been able to sleep if we had to leave any of them.

These poor sweet souls were absolutely covered in fleas, flea dirt and manure. It was ridiculous. I don't know how they were surviving at all...such strong yet fragile spirits. I bathed them gently and tucked them into a warm bed. They just passed out with exhaustion. I took them to the vet yesterday, so now they are on 2 eye meds and antibiotics. Their eyes look terrible and painful, but they should be ok. I was syringe feeding them at first, but they all ate on their own today. Yippee for any improvement!

Meet my precious orange bobtail girls...Sylvie, Bonnie and Elsie! I am showing you these "before" photos so that i will be able to show you some transformed "after" photos before long. These 3 are angels....such tiny troopers. Now, wish me luck in getting their mom trapped and spayed next week!!!