I received these great photographs from two architecture students who celebrated the passing of their exams with some Hug Me Slug love. They have been taking tests for four years, and “SLUG” is the term they have used for the series of difficult exams they have had to take. They were both very happy to have some fun slugs as a reward for all their hard work. Congratulations to them both and thank you for these photos! I love them.
They had a celebratory get-together at a new restaurant, and the slugs went too! And, it would appear that the slugs like mac-n-cheese and salad! It looks like they all had a happy day. I think the slugs look very pleased with all the food. I’m told the waitress was quite taken with them as well.
Lots of other slugs have been shipping out all over the country, and the world. Here are some more that went on their way to their new homes recently. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.
I am still catching up, with more custom orders to finish, and some doll clothes to make. I made a fleece kitty pattern design I am waiting to sew too.
The weather has been beautiful here, and warm. I want to get outside and do some gardening.
The azaleas have started blooming, and the dogwood flowers are just opening.
I have an extra assistant now, one who steals all my pens. This is Josephine, formerly Frosty, planning an attack on a ballpoint pen. She has plenty of toys, but pens are of special interest to her. I think she may want to be a writer when she grows up.
Or a thief. That might be closer to her true aspirations.
I was happy to see the sun shining today, not just because it makes me feel more upbeat than I feel on rainy days, but because we’ve been waiting to photograph Max’s new cat art dolls. Max made some smaller cats in dresses, while I’ve been making toys. I still have some Pixie Kitten bodies in progress that I need to finish, but I keep getting orders for toys, which has left Max at the sewing machine. We will be posting our new creations in our Ruffing’s shop.
The ducks enjoy rainy days, and will come visiting no matter. We enjoyed a visit from them this afternoon. They are wandering more, now that the weather has become warmer, the grasses are growing, and there is more to forage.
I finished this light yellow fleece Hug Me Slug today, while Max was busy working on the doll stories to go with the new kitties. I was on a sunshine theme, I think, or it felt like a good day for yellow.
Below is a sneak peek at Max’s new dolls, Zelda the tuxedo cat, Melody the Siamese, and Amy the white cat. They are about 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 inches tall. Max made their clothes. I did have a hand in resizing Amy’s pinafore, in between my making slugs. I think they are all very sweet. Once I am finished editing their photos, we’ll put them up in our Ruffing’s shop.
We had an extra assistant today, in the form of Santana the Peeping Tom Cat. Santana is well-known to my Facebook friends. He comes over to our house almost every day, to look in all our windows and doors. I’d never seen anything like that before. He has climbed up on garbage cans to get a look in the kitchen window. He lives one house away, and is apparently very curious about his cat neighbors. Today he was curious about cat dolls. He was even trying to get in the house.
Some of our cats do not enjoy his visits, but he couldn’t care less, from the look of him. He loves to taunt. He will stare in, or punch at, the doors or windows for as long as he likes. Here are a couple of videos of him taunting one of our cats.
Below is one of my favorite photos of Santana staring in the house from the back door. I love the look of determination on his face. What a character. Surprisingly, since Santana has been watching us, at least two other cats have shown up to look in the doors or windows too. All our cats, and Santana, are fixed, and so it isn’t due to anything like that. I had no idea we were so interesting. One morning recently, the ducks were on the deck looking in the back door too, in the dark of the early morning. I opened the door, and was surprised to find them there. Someday I may open the door and have a rush of animals run inside.
Tomorrow, I am heading out on another cat-catching adventure. This time we are picking up little Gyspy for his big vet day. Should be fun. I hope I can get myself up and awake early, with the Daylight Savings Time change!
In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day coming up, I’ve been making green Hug Me Slugs in my toy shop. There are more on my desk, in progress. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop. This medium green fleece slug is admiring the first of our spring flowers,
as did his light mint green friend yesterday. The daffodils are in bloom here as well, but I haven’t weeded out the garden! Can’t have slugs posing next to dried leaves.
I was editing these earlier today, and thought this particular scene was amusing. My desktop aquarium screensaver took over when I got up to take a break, and the fish invaded my slug photos. The one slug looks very interested.
Right after I posted my light mint green slug yesterday, he (she?) was featured in an Etsy treasury of slug items! I think this is one of my favorite treasuries so far. Slug art, crafts, jewelry, even slug barrettes! And the baby hat…
I love this baby hat by xoLoveRosie on Etsy, and this photo. Even the name on the listing makes me laugh: “psycho slug alien baby from outer space hat.”
So much fun. My art toys and prints have been featured in a lot of treasuries lately, and our original one-of-a-kind art dolls are showing up in a bunch too. Be sure to check out our Ruffing’s shop if you haven’t already. We’re about to take some photos of new art dolls. I’ll get them posted as soon as I can.
It has been a long time since I put any new ready-made art toys up. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop. I finished this 9-inch light mint green fleece Hug Me Slug. He (or she, I’m not sure) is posing next to our peach tree, which is beginning to bloom.
These three little slugs went out to their new homes this week.
I had a challenge in getting them ready, as I had some booboo’s on my fingers. I usually put sports tape on my fingertips to protect them from needles, but my Band-Aids kept making the tape fall off, which made me poke myself some more. I persevered and got the slugs stitched up anyway. My fingers are all better now.
This morning, I drilled and glued and paperclayed some doll stands into existence. This is not my favorite thing to do, but I felt good about getting them ready. Max has some new, smaller sized art dolls we need to photograph, and we needed smaller stands for them. I like feeling productive.
Among my many other projects I am in the process juggling, I am going to be making clothes for my sock kittens. I want them to fit the standard 18 inch, commercially-available dolls too. I had one Daisy Kingdom Pansy doll, in that size, from twenty years ago, the little girl doll on the right below, and so I went on eBay to collect her three sisters to model doll clothes for me.
I like their vintage look.
I also went on my first feral cat trapping adventure! I tagged along with Marie and took lots of photos of the Trap-Neuter-Return process, or the trapping and returning part. I put up a mini-photo-documentary on Facebook, showing the trapping and the returning, step by step. The rescue incorporated it into a PDF, which further explains TNR, and talks about the spaying and vaccinating of the cats as well.
That’s Gypsy above. I kept him occupied with food and attention, while Marie set up the traps. Gypsy is a stray, living with a feral cat colony, in a very nice senior lady’s yard. She has possibly twenty feral cats living in her barn, and under her house that need to be spayed/neutered and vaccinated, which is more than she could afford to do herself, even if the cats were tame and she could catch them herself. Alley Cats and Angels is stepping in to get the situation humanely under control. As the cats receive vet care, they will be returned to their home, where they will no longer reproduce.
This is the safety trap, with food, and a feral cat inside. Marie put canned chicken inside, and once a cat steps on the trip plate, the door to the trap closes behind her. The first priority was to trap the female cats that were seen to have been in heat already.
They are tricky to catch. When a cat won’t go into the regular safety trap, a drop trap is used. This one is a wooden frame, covered with netting, with a door on one side. A stick props it up, and a rope is tied to the stick. A plate of canned chicken was placed inside.
This is one of the high-priority girls entering the drop trap. Marie was on the other end of the rope, waiting.
Once the kitty settled in for a snack, and was all the way under the box, Marie gave the rope a tug, and the trap came down, with our girl inside.
This is a short video of our returning the cats to their barn. They were happy to be home. Two of the girls waited for their friends to come out of the traps. They seem to look after each other.
We’ll be heading back for Gypsy. Since he is tame and friendly, he will have a separate vet day when he will be neutered and vaccinated and returned to his home as a pet.
I will try to keep getting more toys and art dolls up online. If you haven’t already, please “Like” Ruffing’s on Facebook to see updates. I’ve got a lot to do. I have some charity toys to make and I’ve been asked to contribute a Hug Me Slug or two for a counting book for children, by a professional photographer. I am looking forward to seeing them in some beautiful photos with kids. I’m not sure exactly when Cathie Fillian’s new kids’ craft show will come out, but they are supposed to make an appearance there, during the opening or the credits, as well. It’s going to be fun to see them here and there.
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We will be posting our creations in our Ruffing’s shop, here on this website, and are in the process of moving everything here. If you are looking for something and don’t see it yet, please feel free to ask!
I received these great photographs from two architecture students who celebrated the passing of their exams with some Hug Me Slug love. They have been taking tests for four years, and “SLUG” is the term they have used for the series of difficult exams they have had to take. They were both very happy to have some fun slugs as a reward for all their hard work. Congratulations to them both and thank you for these photos! I love them.
They had a celebratory get-together at a new restaurant, and the slugs went too! And, it would appear that the slugs like mac-n-cheese and salad! It looks like they all had a happy day. I think the slugs look very pleased with all the food. I’m told the waitress was quite taken with them as well.
Lots of other slugs have been shipping out all over the country, and the world. Here are some more that went on their way to their new homes recently. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.
I am still catching up, with more custom orders to finish, and some doll clothes to make. I made a fleece kitty pattern design I am waiting to sew too.
The weather has been beautiful here, and warm. I want to get outside and do some gardening.
The azaleas have started blooming, and the dogwood flowers are just opening.
I have an extra assistant now, one who steals all my pens. This is Josephine, formerly Frosty, planning an attack on a ballpoint pen. She has plenty of toys, but pens are of special interest to her. I think she may want to be a writer when she grows up.
Or a thief. That might be closer to her true aspirations.
