Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 337

Caturday Extras

Here are some photo extras… I thought you might like to see what I was doing between calendar sessions this week.

It was bedtime and my human was about to turn out the light when she saw my legs stretched out and my floofy toes and she had to get a photo. You also get a bonus Binga tail.

Here is a day shot of me sitting on the bed. As you can tell, I’m not sure why she is taking random photos of me.

I usually share my office chair with my human. Sometimes I’m not sure if I want to share.

What else do you do on a bathroom counter… but take a bath?

Unless you’re Binga — then you just sit there and ask for attention.

As I mentioned, my human and I spent some time outside before she took Binga out for a walk. She also took a couple of photos while we were out front.

I hope you liked my extras today!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Caturday Extras appeared first on SparkleCat.

Binga on the Prowl

You are probably wondering where Binga has been during all my photo shoots. My human has been doing them at night, to avoid conflicting light temperatures coming in through the window (it’s a photographer thing). Usually this means a couple of hours after dinner, and that is Binga’s napping time. So she hasn’t even been aware that she’s missing out on photo shoots, and treats. Don’t tell her, okay?

Anyhow, to make up for this, my human took her out on the back patio on the leash. I couldn’t come because my human’s boyfriend is out of town and two of us on leashes is too much to handle for one person. But that was okay — I’d gotten to go out front a little earlier.

For the past few weeks, it has mostly been too hot for either of us to go outside, but it’s temporarily cooled down a bit this week. The first thing Binga did (what a surprise) was to check out the catnip.

Mostly she was just happy to wander around and check things out.

I watched her for a while.

I even tried offering her a few tips.

Binga is still new to this walking on a leash thing, after all.

As you can see.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Binga on the Prowl appeared first on SparkleCat.

A Fine Feathered Photo Shoot

My human says she spends every August up to her elbows in Photoshop. That’s because she is usually editing photos for my yearly calendar. And this year is even worse because she is also editing photos for Volume 2 of Rescued. At least it looks like the photo shoots for my calendar are done, or nearly done. One of the last photo sessions for me was a series of New Year’s Eve shots, and what a mess! You may remember the outfit and feathers from my New Year’s Eve party earlier this year. Well, in the 8 months since then, moths got into the feathers and created a mess. My human wanted to use them anyway, so if she starts complaining about having to Photoshop all this feather dust, it’s only her own fault.

She even wrapped me up in those rotten feathers.

Like, I said, what a mess!

Once we were done with the photo shoot, my human bagged the feathers, but there were still a bunch of them all over the backdrop. So I got to have a play session!

I think this photo shoot was the most fun.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post A Fine Feathered Photo Shoot appeared first on SparkleCat.

Gotcha… or at Least I Will Gotcha

Did you notice I am ambidextrous?
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Gotcha… or at Least I Will Gotcha appeared first on SparkleCat.

My Stand-Ins

Since I’ve mentioned them a couple of times, I thought you might like to meet my stand-ins!

You usually don’t get to see them all at once because a) my human only needs one per photo shoot, and b) she normally can’t find all of them! That’s why there are three different ones. She just grabs whichever stand-in is handy and tosses it on the set so she can adjust her camera settings. Just this once, she was able to find all of them.

You are probably wondering if there is a story behind any of them. Really, there isn’t. My human’s boyfriend used to have a habit of giving stuffies to my human. He’s lightened up on doing this, probably because he realized they were really beginning to clutter up the house. That’s where the monkey came from, and the Starbucks Bearista dressed as a lamb (I remembered it earlier as being an actual lamb stuffie, but I was wrong). Grumpy Cat came here as part of a giveaway Sparkle had before I was around. Well, I was around, but I had just barely been born, and my human didn’t know she was going to meet me or anything.

They really are kind of a motley bunch, aren’t they?

I bet you are wondering if they are party animals!

Actually, I think they are kind of boring.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post My Stand-Ins appeared first on SparkleCat.

Open Heart Photo FAIL

You saw yesterday’s selfie post with the open heart decoration. It was from a photo shoot for my 2017 calendar. As I mentioned, I had already posed with it back in February, but my human had an, um, “idea.”

She thought it would be really cool if she could get a photo of me looking through the open part of the open heart. I had my doubts about this.

What actually happened was probably not exactly what my human had pictured in her mind.

Also, I kept putting my paw through the hole, and that wasn’t what she wanted either.

But you know me, I’m pretty much game for anything, so I kept trying. Plus I was getting treats.

You’ll have to excuse the blurriness of this photo… you might even call it an action shot.

As you can see, this idea of my human’s did not work. For the record, there’s a very good chance there is going to be an Outtake version of my calendar again for next year. I hope it’s not the only version!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Open Heart Photo FAIL appeared first on SparkleCat.

Open Heart Selfies

Here is what I’ve been doing this weekend — sitting for more versions of photoshoots I’ve already done! Seriously, I thought I had enough pictures of me in this setting back when my human took them in Februrary. I even took some selfies. But my human had something planned for this open heart stand. I will tell you right now that it didn’t work out, but you will find out more about that in another blog post. Anyway, I figured that while we were doing these photos, I’d try my paw at selfies again, with this heart stand thing.

Let’s see how the framing looks now that I’ve adjusted the camera.

Nope, too much space over my head!

Now I’ve cut off half of my left ear. Sometimes these selfies are a real PITA.

Now, that’s more like it! Let me see if I can do one that’s even better.

Yay! Another good one! I’m glad that all that work paid off.

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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Open Heart Selfies appeared first on SparkleCat.

Caturday With a View

I bet you are wondering what grabbed my interest!

It could have been lots of things. This is the view out our office window. The leaded glass window below is where the kitchen is. Above it is the part of the house where Smokey, my human’s dad’s cat, is still staying. Since the weather is cooling down a bit, my human is finally opening the office window now and then. I see birds and squirrels out there, and sometimes the neighborhood cats. Yesterday, I saw the gardener. On the day these photos were taken, I saw a big, fat beetle! That was cool.

That bug stuck around forever right by the screen! I hope we get more of them.

I even share my cool view — isn’t that generous of me?

I wish my weekend would be all about relaxing and looking out the window, but I’m going to be working a lot! I’ve got photo sessions, plus I’m making a therapy cat visit on Sunday. Those beetles will have to wait.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Caturday With a View appeared first on SparkleCat.

Bonus Photos

When my human puts together my calendar, she pours through the photos over the past year to see what we have. Sometimes she finds surprises. So you might call these bonus photos.

I don’t remember why, but in April my human took some photos of me on the counter of the master bathroom. Only she did them as mirror shots. Can you see her camera lens in the upper left hand corner? That’s what I’m looking at.

She meant to use them, but never did. The focus wasn’t the best on them, but they are still fun!

There cold be a whole series of photos of me checking out my stand-ins. The routine is always the same: my human sets up the lights, and then sets out my stand-in so she can adjust the camera settings. Usually, I check out the stand-in at some point to make sure it’s doing a good job. I have three stand-ins: this monkey, Grumpy Cat and a lamb stuffie.

As you can see, I didn’t think Grumpy Cat was doing a very good job here.

Here’s another type of photo my human gets of me all the time — me flopped on the floor of the hotel room. It’s another routine of mine. This is from my most recent trip to Tucson, and you may have seen it on Instagram yesterday, if you follow me there.

My human caught me off guard here! I don’t remember what was going on.

I hope you liked my bonus photos!
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post Bonus Photos appeared first on SparkleCat.

The Shelf of Last Resort

Here I am, sitting on a table in the room my human’s boyfriend uses as a combination music room and office. Those of you who know something about guitar stuff might know what some of these things are. Anyhow, I don’t care about all of that. I’m looking at something. Can you guess what it is? I bet you can’t!

Can you see what I was looking at now? Maybe I need to give you a hint.

I’ve pointed it out with a little Photoshop magic — it’s our frozen food, defrosting for dinner, on the Shelf of Last Resort. It wound up there after my human tried out different places, most of which didn’t work because I was able to sneak up and get into it! She tried the enclosed patio once, with the door closed, but the ants got into our food that time. Finally our food bowls wound up here.

Don’t worry. I will figure out how to get up there eventually.
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See Summer’s 2016 calendars and other awesome merch at her Zazzle Shop!

The post The Shelf of Last Resort appeared first on SparkleCat.