What a romantic.....

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello to all the cute peegs out there! My name is Major Fury and I wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.  I like standing on my pigloo and throwing around toilet paper tubes, my favorite foods are strawberry tops, pineapple, and banana, and my hobbies include napping and eating comic books.  

If you think I'm cute why not throw me a wink sometime, I promise to share my treats with you !

Happy 2015!

Wishing a happy and healthy 2015 from our large family to yours, may the crafting be forever in your favor.

A rather huge addition to our family...at least in numbers.

Two weeks ago there was a call out from a work friend about some guinea pigs needing a new home.  As guinea pigs are often used as starter pets for kids many of them end up in shelters when kids don't want to care for them anymore.  No more starter pets people, the pet is not your childs responsibility, its yours.  A parent had bought one guinea pig thinking this was a good way to teach responsibility, the problem is when you buy a guinea pig from a store there is a decent chance you are going to get more than you bargained for. Yep, she was pregnant.  So you now have four guinea pigs and need to care for two cages.  The problem was with her three little ones all born of the male persuasion unless she is alone in a cage you end up with multiplication tables again.  Well she was kept with a male and got knocked up teen mom style.  Time to get rid of the pigs.  This is where I come in.  When I heard it was a "we have to get rid of these pigs one way or another" situation I assume the worst and agreed to take them.  I wanted the momma to give birth in a calm setting and not be jostled into a big shelter who might not know what to do in an emergency or have the time to offer the care they need.  

We got the guineas all set up in my craft room with the plan that after she gave birth we would contact Critter Corral to get them into foster homes.  The Critter Corral is a great guinea pig shelter in our area that we adopt from when room in a cage opened up after a loss of a little friend.  That was a Wednesday, when I had not contacted the shelter by that Saturday, I was in fact waiting to see what the sex ratio of the little ones was going to be in case we could keep a few girls, my wonderful husband told me that we should go ahead and buy the cages and items we needed to keep them all.  This was a great stoke of luck as I saw a post on the Critter Corral rescue Facebook page stating that they are at capacity.

Two pet stores and an Amazon shopping trip later we have a huge new cage and lots of pigloos for everyone to be happy in.  That next Tuesday momma gave birth, in less than two hours mind you, to three adorable little piggies, two boys and one girl...I think.  We have a few weeks of nursing before cage reshuffling begins again as we will not have another pregnancy.  We now have nine guinea pigs and one bunny giving me the business every time I'm in the room trying to craft...let me tell you the little one can really give you the business if they think treats are not coming fast enough!

Introducing the small mammal house residents......

Mr. Bun

Libby, one of the original two pigs

Oreo, the other original piggy

Special Agent Phil Coulson

Director Nick Fury

Bucky Barns

Poundcake, the momma

Fluttershy

Dashie

Daring Do

I have all these cute little lives depending on me for good food and love.  Our veggie bill has quadrupled but all the happy squeaking and purring make it all worth wile.  Always remember Adopt, don't shop!

Kelly

Getting ready for football season, the upcycling way!

I am an admitted, all be it I can be rather quiet about it depending on who is around, garbage picker.  I am not digging down to the bottom of cans but a cool item on top or sitting on the ground waiting for pickup is fair game to be brought home and re-imagined as something fun.  I am always on the look out for something that fits into the "one mans trash is another mans treasure" realm that I can pick up and make my own.  After this awful winter the spring brought a massive wave of yard cleaning and improvement.  This has proven a boon to my collecting, thus adding some fun football team support in my front yard for very little money.  I picked up three great items this spring and along with a few I already had have been painting them up in Chicago Bears blue and orange.  I have spray paint cans ready and tackle the items with gusto.  See, I live very near the Illinois/Wisconsin border and you have to put out your support for all to witness.  Packers green and yellow or Bears blue and orange, however you go you have to put it out there, there can be no question who you root for when folks drive by.

The milk jug I picked up and painted with my favorite spray paint and topped off with a web bought sticker.  The bird house was one we had made a year or two ago on a Craft Club adventure, gussied up to match the milk jug, and balanced on a landscape rock that used to hold a koi fish statue.  Last but cutest is the little bear I got from a neighbor that was leaving the area, hand painted to add just the right amount tacky to the grouping.  

The birdhouse sign was picked out of a can during the great freeze in January, I hauled that thing all the way around the dog walk in the wind and cold.  I added a little sign I bought and pounded in in the ground near my door.  The little chair was out by the curb with small weather worn bugs all over it.  We popped off the bugs and sanded down the sign before painting 'er up.  Some fresh blue and orange flowers and we have a brand new take on an old yard decoration.  These up-cycled yard items make me so happy to look at every time I come home from work.  I love to see items in a new way and I hope you do to!

I hope your summer is great!

Kelly

Just a little guinea pig nose to make you smile!  

Cross Stitch Peegs!

So this post is going to start out with a little love for my co-blogger Anita.  I have many crafts that need doing, so many in fact that I oft get overwhelmed by them.  I get to a point that I have no idea in what order to do them in, so much so that I actually do none instead.  I wish I could assign them an importance ranking like at a job so that I knew the pjs for the husband come before the string wrapped eggs for Easter. 



I think to myself Anita seems to have all her crafts in line like baby duckies behind their momma maybe I should ask her.  I admit she does have a lot of crafts up there in that nugget of hers, but she can whip one out and get it done in any situation, boy scout style! Sinking ship, no problem, Anita has a craft for that.  So I asked her how she gets this all planned out with no stress. No kidding she had the most simple answer ever: is it family/dog/tv time, then your craft is one you can work on with just your hands, alone/day off/or can't take another minute of daytime tv time, you pick a more long term craft and settle down for the fun.  Why? Why has this taken me so long to figure out? I know a smart thing when I hear it, so as I set off down the path of tv and husband time, which included NASCAR and a very shirtless Bond movie, I pulled out a cross stitch craft I had started in, I kid you not, 2001.



I recently cleaned out my craft binders, also known as the keepers of all my "some day" craft ideas, and found a partially finished guinea pig cross stitch bookmark I had started forever ago.  With Anita's words ringing in my ears I set to work.  I may have underestimated the time required to complete each piggie on the canvas, "oh yeah I bet I can do one piggy in 20 minutes", um no, but I have completed it with pride and on time for blogging.  This bookmark is going to be donated to the Critter Corral guinea pig rescue to help raise some funds for them and the awesome work they do.  It is time to send out our donation and I think this little something extra will fit quite nicely in the envelope. We have adopted several guineas from them and love their rescue dearly. 



A big thank you to my friend Anita who shined light on a very smart bit of crafting wisdom and showed me the way.........to the sewing machine.

Keeping it moving,
Kelly, the origami ninja



P.S. Wednesday night my man gets to play Red Dead Redemption on the PS3 so sewing craft it is!

Snuggle update and guinea pig love

The cutting of the fabric has commenced for the snuggles.  The Snuggles website has the beds divided into three sizes: 14 x14 for kitties, 24 x 24 for small/medium doggles, and 36 x 36 for the big guys.  I try each piece of fabric to fit the 36 x 36 sized bed and then go from there.  So I cut and cut and cut.  This is all the fabric I have to go through and get sized for beds.  I can't wait to see how many of each size I can get out of all of this.  Just keep cutting, just keep cutting.........

 

I hope the kitties like Hawaiian fabric and the doggies don't mind the John Deere! The small/medium guys are in luck, all their beds are solid colors.  I am working on the soft filling next, lots of fleece and quilt batting to make a soft warm bed for them at night. 



During all this cutting I have had nothing but lip from our peanut gallery: the guinea pigs, AKA, Oreo and Libby.  The bunny, he doesn't say much, he just glares at you interrupting his me time.

Several weeks ago we lost our piggy, Nutter Butter.  She was a good pig and friend of Oreo.  We didn't want Oreo to be lonley so we adopted Libby from PAWS Humane Society to keep her company and give her a pal to sass with.  She was the first guinea pig ever adopted out from PAWS and we are very happy to have her.  She is very chatty and social, always giving her opinion of my cutting.  I had no idea guineas had so much to say about siccors and fabric.  They make me so happy!

 

I hope everyone is having a great January! Remember those less fortunate and think of some fun crafty ways to help where you can.  Crafters unite!!!

 

Kelly, the piggy momma

 









GPS with a twist

This is the wonderful gift my husband gave me when I got back from a work trip a few weeks ago.....a new GPS.......Guinea Pig Support System.

 

He took some basic closet parts and made this fantastic shelving unit for them.  We had this installed a while ago, but the little black dog you see in this picture got a little too into pig watching and brought the shelf down much to the irritation of the bunny below.  So he re-built it with better support location and lighter cage action.  I love having the pigs at eye level so I can talk to them and give them treats.....see below......

 

Piggies and bunnies want me to tell you that they want more banana!

 

Keeping the kisses coming for husband,

Kelly, the guinea pig whisperer







Bookshelf makeover: Part 1

Well, here is a picture of my next "to do list" craft: my bookshelf.   I have a nice new craft room this year and this plain old bookshelf needed some funning up to be able to be allowed to reside in said  sparkly new craft room.  I pondered the nakedness of the shelves for a bit and realized that they were a blank canvas for all of those extra mailing label stickers I have accumulating in the office.  Enter the sticker in all its colorful glory.

Note the pile of papers in the upper right hand corner, that my friends, are the stickers calling out to be affixed to the bookshelf.  You can also enjoy all of my husbands re-loading equipment in the picture as well.  The bunny cage is on the floor in front of the bookshelf because all of the books are in boxes in the spot where his cage goes.  It's a vicious cycle that all leads back to covering that bookshelf with stickers and giving it a good shellacking.

I started covering and cutting and will update you next week on how far I got this week, wish me luck.

This is Oreo and Nutter Butter letting you know that they approve of this craft message and that they hope that you are crafting your way through winter! They also wanted carrots, guinea pigs are by no means complicated in their wants.

Keeping it sticky,

Kelly, the origami ninja