The Sassy Pack Rat

Thursday, June 10, 2010

New Plush Debut etc.

Those of you who have been with me a while know that I started my journey into seriously making plush with Penguins. Remember Herman? Well someone once commented that they thought I should make my penguins rounder and fatter, and after much thought I agreed and worked up a new design. I know I just can't stop making birds!

The left one is the prototype of the new design. Hated the face but liked the feet. The one on the right is the final design. I choose to leave out the feet because they were too time consuming to do.

New design next to original penguins. Interesting progression, huh?

I went nuts and made them in tons of colors. Please let me know what you think about them. Worth my time and energy? Cute or not?

On a completely different note I wanted to quick show you the Graduation Announcement my daughter and I worked on together. We incorporated Kindergarten, 8th Grade and High School graduation photos to send to family and friends.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Kudos to Kudos Kookies!

I was looking for a special and fun personalized item for my daughter's graduation and saw that my twitter friend Renee was offering "Cookie Cards", greetings on cookies for all occasions. Since I'm in the personalized business myself I was very attracted to the idea of this. Renee has some great photos of her custom cookies on her website so it's easy to see the quality and uniqueness of her work.

Kudos Kookies are all hand painted individually. (little works of art). She bakes the cookies herself in her commercial kitchen space. She does not use projectors so each one is slightly different and wonderfully special. Her attention to detail is amazing as is her customer service.

I contacted Renee and we emailed back and forth my ideas for the cookie and I decided to get another one in the same style for my daughter's best friend. I took the chance of not seeing them ahead of time because I was confident in the quality of her work and I wanted to be surprised when the package came. I was so happily surprised at how she was able to take all my scattered thoughts and pull together a lovely design. (was interesting being on the client side for once and I resolve to have even greater patience with my own clients in the future!)

For my daughter's best friend.

For my daughter.

Daughter holding cookie card.

Close up of cookie card.

My daughter and her friend and her friend's mom and I all just loved these! Unique and tasty! I can attest to the fact that the cookie not only looked good best tasted wonderful too! I was so pleased that I'm ordering again for my daughter's upcoming 18th birthday.

Kudos Kookies also does corporate logos on cookies, baby shower favor cookies, wedding favor cookies, you name it she can do it. Please go to her Website or Facebook and see all the wonderful ideas she has and think about what special occasion you need cookies for.

I purchased these cookies and am blogging about them because I liked them and the company that made them. I've received no compensation for my positive comments about Kudos Kookies.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Queen of Snarkdom Graduates

The 2010 Graduating Class of

Homewood-Flossmoor High School

From the largest incoming Freshman class ever of 700 students 95% of those kids graduated and my daughter was proudly one of them. The red & white was supposed to spell out HF but really just looked like a blob and made the kids not in alphabetical order which was annoying cause you didn't know when your kid would be called so it was hard to plan for a picture.

This was a day to remember and not just for the achievement of the students but also for the torrents of rain that dropped out of the sky on us! A wise decision was made to forgo the speeches and start calling the kids to receive their diplomas as the clouds started to roll in. They got half way thru the names when...

...I had to cover the camera so don't have any shots of 600 plus graduates running across the football field to get indoors before they were completely drenched. Didn't work they were all drenched. The jam up trying to get off the bleaches and under cover was a bit scary.

The sun came out again about a half an hour later so the parents who didn't hear their child's name (like me) hiked back from the cars to the bleachers for the rest of the ceremony.

Pretty sure this hat is my kid getting her diploma. LOL!

They were taking pictures of each kid before they walked up on the stage and of course my daughter's picture came after the rain, she thought her hair was a mess and she argued with the photographer that she didn't want her picture taken! She is not called the Queen of Snarkdom for nothing!

After they got thru the rest of the names the kids had to go to the field house to pick up their actual diplomas and the skies opened up again and poured. Everyone just scattered at this point and left.

I was kind of glad that there were other things going on to take my mind off the fact that I was her only parent there. (My mom was there with me). I raised her from 9 months old to now on my own but I was really sad that her father wasn't there, weird. Didn't think I'd feel that way and I was unexpectedly emotional about the whole thing. I guess seeing your baby and last child grow up will do that to you!

My mom and I took her to dinner and she had lots of funny stories to tell about this crazy day. (My son had the flu so missed the whole thing)

My daughter the High School Graduate.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

MIA and A Winner

Sorry it took so long to get the winner announced. First I moved my entire studio around, shored up my shelves and cleaned and threw away a ton of stuff. Then there was some family drama and then I got sick. This is the first day I've been back upright and on the computer.

Because some people put all there entries in one comment I had to type out everyone's entries separately, print them out cut them apart, put them in a hat toss them about and had the Girl pick one. There were 88 entries.

And the winner is Saskia!

She is an international winner.

Saskia, please email me your address at sassypackrat@hotmail.com

If for some reason I do not hear from Saskia I'll draw another winner.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered my giveaway! I wish you all could have won. Stay tuned for another giveaway towards the end of this month. Also please come back and vote for the plush I'll make next. I'll have drawings soon for you to vote on.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Sassy's Friday Lovers Finds

I woke up this morning with my sweet Chihuahua Lita snuggled under the covers with me. I love her so much so I chose a love theme for my finds today. I started with Red Hot Lovers then moved on the different kinds of love. The titles below the photos are links to each seller's shops. Just click if you want more info about an item.