plushies Archives - Page 7 of 16 - Ruffing’s

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Reslugification and surgeries

I have finally added some Hug Me Slugs to my Etsy toy shop. The 12 inch slug has been adopted, but the 9 inch and 7 inch slugs are currently in my toy shop. I am trying to restock, which has been a struggle for a long time. I have days when I want to stop altogether, because I feel like I am not getting ahead, but I am trying to hang in there.

A customer sent me this wonderful photo of her three boys with their Hug Me Slugs. This is the kind of thing that keeps me going. I love how the guy in the middle is trying to eat his. Another customer told me that slugs make good teething toys.

One of our kitties, Zoomie, has been wanting to cuddle and sit in our laps whenever he gets the chance lately. He even got into my lap with Oliver Bunny, who wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Zoomie is 17 1/2 years old, which the vet says is the equivalent of being a 95 year old man. He didn’t seem to be feeling well, and my mom noticed swelling on his chin. So, we took took him in to the vet right away.

He had an abscess in his mouth, of undetermined cause, which has now been drained. He also had some growths removed from his forehead and side. The vet removed some of the tissue around the growths, to try to be safe. We discussed this with the vet, and we opted not to find out if they were cancerous. At the beginning of last year, Mr Bear had a tumor removed from his neck, and we found out shortly after that he had more tumors, which were inoperable, inside. The vet said if anything else is going on inside, there most likely wouldn’t be anything we could do. There was nothing that could be done for Mr Bear, as much as we tried. We are happy to have Zoomie with us, and were very much relieved that his condition improved with surgery and medication. The kitties and the bunny want to look at him, which bugs him a little.

We are home today, because we had to cancel my mom’s eye surgery. We had ice this morning, and didn’t want to try to get to the hospital, which is fairly far away, in the bad weather. She was very upset about this, as it is stressful gearing up for it at all. We haven’t found out yet how long the wait will be to reschedule.

This is one of my neighbors’ cats who comes to visit. I made catnip toys for Christmas for our cats and for our visitors. I also brought some over to the cats next door, who come to visit as well, but sometimes get chased off the porch by this orange fellow, Santana. I think they may be learning to play together. I hope they will.

I was working on a Christmas card of carolers, two of our kitty visitors, Santana and Trouble, and Oliver Bunny, singing. I didn’t get it done on time for Christmas. I opted to work on the catnip toys instead, and not rush through the picture, which got more ornate than initially planned. I think I may need to go back to painting, to feel better, but I tell myself I need to use the fabric that is taking up my workroom. It has been awfully dreary here. I think we would all feel better if the sun were to come out again too.

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Slugs, zip ties, and baby gates

Those have been my projects today. First the slugs. I have three at this moment, in my Etsy toy shop. The light blue one in this picture has already left the building, and is on his way to greet someone on Christmas morning.

I forgot to mention that my mom had her first cataract surgery done, and can already see better. Her vision is still blurry, but she’ll have the other eye done soon. My dad has to have both of his eyes done as well. He saw the photo of my Hug Me Slugs, above, and asked me who that was. He thought it looked like a married couple. Not a married slug couple, but a married human couple.

The slugs do look like they could be getting married, with the light blue one officiating the ceremony. That reminds me I was going to make bride and groom slugs. I even bought lace.

This dark purple little slug is one of my 7-inch tall Hug Me Slugs. He has an orchid heart.

This honeydew green slug is 9 inches tall. I have changed my pattern sizes so many times. The newest 9 inch slugs are a little bigger than the last generation. I’m going to price them accordingly, and so if I have different prices on the “same” sizes, that is why. It will eventually even out, and the difference is only a dollar on some.

Here are the same Hug Me Slugs at the computer desk. I color correct my photos before posting them. Note the cat comb and nail scissors in this picture. I need those at my desk for kitty assistants who show up. One in particular gets very insistent about being combed, and others always come running if I pick up the comb. The kitty nail scissors are self explanatory.

My bunny assistant has been so naughty, chewing through his baby gates, that my other project for today was to zip tie pieces of cardboard shipping boxes over the holes he made in the baby gates. He was shocked when he saw what I had done. In time, he will find a way around my latest move.

If he doesn’t find a way through, one of the cats is sure to find a way to push the gate so he can escape. He had a blast yesterday, after tearing a hole in one of the gates, running around my bedroom, scooting under my bed when I came in to get him. I had to unplug everything for his safety.

He has chewed though three gates, and so I attached cardboard pieces to all of them. He hasn’t tried to bite a hole today. He’ll get to it.

This is his dandelion salad. I spend a lot of time catering to my bunny. I gather these out on the lawn. Today, we had freezing rain while I was doing this. I was laughing because he won’t eat the ribs on the leaves and spits them out. He won’t eat ribs on lettuce either. If he were a kid, he would want me to trim the crusts off his sandwich bread. And I would, because that is the way I am.

I had a crazy idea today. I thought I should ask everyone I know, or people I kind of know, or people I don’t know who know me, if they would like a Christmas or holiday card, make the cards, and send them out. I have been feeling sad lately, and I know a lot of people feel sad around the holidays. I don’t have any Christmas cards, and it is possible I don’t have stamps or enough envelopes either, but this sounded like a good idea to me. I thought I could ask for addresses through Facebook or my blog. My mom pointed out that the mail probably wouldn’t reach most people by Christmas at this point. I did this in high school a couple of times, made Christmas cards for everyone I could. I’d run out of time and not get to everyone, but I tried.

By the way, I set up a new friend page on Facebook with my toys on it. I’m not sure how useful that is. I tried to wish someone I knew, who had a shared birthday with me, a happy birthday, and my message got shuffled to her “other” folder, where she will probably never see it, since I am not connected to too many people on that page. I think it is probably easier to send me messages on the Hug Me Slugs and Friends Facebook page, if anyone goes through Facebook. I will remember to check my own “other” folder now. If you need to, you can also contact me on my website or on Etsy.

Thanks to all the visitors who came over from Facebook to read my birthday blog post, and thanks for the nice comments. I was surprised. I guess people like to see me doing what I do. I’ll try to get some more photos another time of me doing things, but I need help with that!

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 2 Comments

Happy birthday to me

It’s my birthday, and I made a Hug Me Slug, or worked on one. I also received some nice presents, like new sneakers in pretty colors, chocolates, and cookies.

My mom made me eggplant Parmesan and a cheesecake. I got some nice cards and lots of happy birthday wishes. Thanks to everyone.

These photos are from the past week and a half. I’m sewing slug eyes, which can try my patience. Luckily, I have a kitty helper.

She really wants to steal my chair, and does, whenever she can.

She hops over the baby gate I use to keep Oliver Bunny in the hallway, while he tries to chew through the gate from the other side. He wants to help me too. They are in cahoots. She knocks the gates over and he hops through. He escaped three times yesterday. I have to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t chew any electrical wires. As you can see, he is very good at chewing. He made a hole in one, big enough for him to fit very neatly through.

Here I am attaching the eyes to my toys. This all takes so much longer than you would expect. The eyes seem to take me the most time.

Then we go outside to photograph the toys before I put them in the toy shop.

I post them over on my Hug Me Slugs and Friends Facebook page too.

I think there is just one yellow slug left in the shop right now. I keep getting down to one.

Here I am packing slugs getting them ready to go to the Post Office. I’m wearing my “casual wear” here, my pajamas. I change out of them before I go to the Post Office. Someday, I may skip this step.

I’ve been taking some custom orders. This little blue slug was a special order. He was a birthday present for someone who ordered a Hug Me Slug for her boyfriend’s birthday before. He was returning the favor, and wanted one she could carry around in her backpack.

I made him a “Slug Sack” so the sluggie would stay safe on backpack journeys.

This is the Hug Me Slug he received for his birthday, dressed and ready for Christmas.

I haven’t done much for Christmas so far. I put some lights up. I did get an evergreen forest of my own to plant. That seems Christmas-y. I planted some in the front yard, and these are for the back yard. There was a big sale on arborvitae, and I got ambitious about the number I would plant!

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 1 Comment

I made some slug plushies, a toad softie, and I feel like talking, maybe

I’ve been missing from my blog for a long time, or disappearing in increments. November seemed like a good time to get going again, as a lot of people blog each day of this month for NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month.

Up until about five years ago, I was writing here about my daily life and my creative projects, where I went and how I felt. Then I became self-conscious. There were people I felt looking over my shoulder, specific people with whom I didn’t want to share the details of my life. So, I began just posting toys as I finished them, and some stories about my pets, and I faded into the background. I didn’t even want to paint anymore.

As the years passed, I realized those people got bored with me and left, which was a relief.

My toys were doing really well, and then I ran out of them before Christmas 2013. I kept taking on custom orders, which got in the way of my restocking my shop, and because I hate to disappoint anyone, I kept accepting more custom orders. My toy shop started to fade into the background too.

At the beginning of 2014, I found out my beloved kitty assistant, Mr Bear, had cancer, and I stopped most everything to try to keep him going for as long as he seemed he wanted to go. He wasn’t able to eat enough on his own, and there was constant cleanup to do because he had poor mobility from being weak. Some days, he would rally, and take himself for a journey outdoors. I wanted to be with him while I could. He deserves his own post, and so I will save a tribute to him for when I feel I can do it.

Not long after he was gone, I found a little white bunny in the backyard, shortly after Easter. I felt Mr Bear had sent me a bunny, a pet he would surely have wanted more than any other, although not for the right reasons. He had a sense of humor. I named the bunny Oliver, and he has been a great comfort to me. I set him up in my workroom, where Mr Bear used to help me, and that helped make it okay for me to be in there again.

I had great plans to redo my workroom, had lumber cut for shelves and a table, but those have been harder to make than I thought. I’m trying. My workroom is still in shambles. Once it was done, I was going to work on learning to paint digitally, write, and possibly try another children’s book. My other book projects are unpublished. I was thinking of printing up a simple one myself. I have updated my shop as I could, and the toys pictured above are my most recent additions. They are over in my Etsy toy shop, hugmeslug.com. I will add more as soon as I can.

Most recently, I have had three nights in a row where I have slept most of the night, after a week and a half of sporadic sleep, not enough, and sometimes none, each night.

Five years ago, I felt so shaken over the way I was treated by someone I dated, that I didn’t want to try that again, and have been saying since then that I didn’t know if I would ever like anyone. Then I did, which surprised me. Unfortunately, in a matter of days, he went from wanting me around as much as he could, to saying he couldn’t commit to anything further, than friendship I think, or talking to me again. I’m not sure what he meant. And I don’t really know why. I’ve been trying to process that in the middle of my sleep deprivation. I will be much better with some rest.

Yesterday was Halloween. We had two kids, one baby too young to eat candy, and a cat show up at the door. The cat didn’t want candy either. That is the cat above. He, and others, come to the door for snacks. I have been eating the candy myself. I have to be careful about that because, during those past few years, my weight went up and now, at long last, has settled back to where it was before.

I tried to do something festive for the holiday, but none of my pets wanted to dress up. Henrietta tried to be cooperative and let my place this crown on her head. She is the queen cat of the house, and I thought that would be fitting. I didn’t have a cape for her.

I tried to get Oliver to wear the crown first, but he would have none of it. He lets me balance empty toilet paper rolls on his head (he likes to play with those), but a crown made no sense to him. He prefers to have his head petted. He will sit for a long time, with his chin resting on my chest or on the floor, while I stroke his forehead. If I stop, he nudges my hand to get me to do it some more, which is what he is doing in this photo.

I can’t decide if I should backdate my blog posts, to cover things that have happened, that I never talked about on my blog. I have been on Facebook, sharing things, and was considering taking posts from there and putting them here, or at least the photos with descriptions. I kind of like the idea, for now, that no one is reading what I write, because they left when I stopped saying much of anything. But I am also sad I don’t have a record here.