Not What It Seems

Things are not always what they seem to be, especially in a house run by a cat. Let's begin with the Feel-Good Fountain. I bought this years ago at a craft fair, because all that Zen stuff was 'in'. You know, little sand boxes with the rake, bamboo plants, and these water fountains run by what turned out to be fish-tank aerators. This is the water bowl part of my fountain:

This started out with a little motor that had the water flowing over all those river rocks, but the air thing died, and I replaced it, once, and when THAT one died, I gave it up.

So what is this THING doing on my blog? Oh, you thought that was a Zen feel-good fountain?! NOT! No sooner did I set it up and turn it on, the cat was all over it, and it became her water bowl. She started out in love with the fountain part, but now that it is gone, she does not seem to miss it at all. And I got rid of her ignored water bowl in the Kitchen, and my wood floor has never been happier. Zen Fountain? Not. Cat Water Bowl.

Next we have a fleece throw on the back of a chair:

I got this from work several years ago, and being fleece, I was afraid to use it because fleece makes me hot. I was also afraid to wash it, because I thought when I dried it, everything else in the dryer would turn blue. I finally broke down last week and washed it, dried it (not all that much blue fuzz, by the way), then put it on the back of the chair to remind myself to put it back in the car.

But look a little closer:

CAT HAIR! It was warm and fresh out of the dryer, so that translates (in a cat brain) to Cat Bed. She slept on it, a lot, and it soooo needs to be dealt with before a human can use it, I just left it there. Fleece throw? Nope. Cat Bed.

And now for the star of our show. This is a card I just made:

I am particularly proud of the sentiment piece. I re-discovered my So Many Scallops set, and I just used the outer ring of one of the stamps. I then paired it with a stamp from Riveting. I punched out the scallop part, then punched out the circle sentiment, colored the parts-is-parts with markers and it fit perfectly into the scallop.

You may ask, "What is her point?" Yeah, you think this is just a card, but the front of the card was actually done after the fact. "After what fact?!" Look at the inside - the real star of this project:

This, my dear readers, is a gift card holder. And no, I did not make it up, but I did CASE it. Okay, here's all the credits, then I'll get to more blah, blah, blah.

It all started when I saw this card project on SCS, which led me to this blog post with complete instructions, and where she credits this blog post (second project in the post) as one of the sources of someone who inspired her.

Okay, here's my twist on the project. I wanted a full-size A2 card, so I tried making the insert part with a piece of 4 1/4 x 12" patterned card stock instead of 4 1/4 x 11, and it worked just fine. Here is a close-up of the innards:

This is so stinkin' easy to do, it must be illegal. I think the most difficult part was getting it stuck to the inside of the card and still getting the card to close right. This was actually attempt #3, which is not too bad, for me, anyway. People who do not make cards have no idea how much of what we do gets trashed on the way to any decent card.

So, in keeping with the weird theme I have going here tonight, everyone repeat after me: "Just a plain old card? Nope. It's really a gift-card holder!" Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It is now past my bedtime, so I must retire so I can rest up for The Day Job in the morning. Hey, it pays the bills. Thanks for stopping by!