Sparkle the Designer Cat's Blog, page 429

My 2000th Post – AND Commenthon!

I almost missed this milestone, but fortunately, a couple of days ago I noticed I was on post 1998. I never did mark my 1000th blog post, which was some three years ago! And what a cool coincidence, #2000 happens on a Friday, so I can flashback and see how far I’ve come.

And it really has been a long way since I came to my human’s house in Los Angeles, all the way from Temecula, California. I had not been there for long when this photo was taken.

At first it was just a diary that covered my adventures around the house with my roommates Binga and Boodie. Readers also got to see some of my human’s home improvement failures.

You also got to see some of my human’s weird kitty gift ideas! But eventually, seeing a need, I started writing a cat-to-cat advice column. And then I began reviewing books…

And then I wrote a couple of my own books!

And I won some awards too!

Now I get to hang out with celebkitties! Or at least plush versions of them. (And you can hang out with a plush Grumpy Cat too if you win my current giveaway!) It’s been quite a ride and I am so glad to have you all along with me!

Here is my “Thank You” commenthon: for every comment, my human will be giving 50 cents to a rescue that helps kitties in need, up to $50! Which rescue? I don’t know yet — because you are going to help me choose! When you comment below, tell me the name of your favorite 501(c)3 cat rescue, and I will randomly pick one!

All comments between now and Sunday night, April 6 count — one comment per feline family please! I’ll let you know the results on Monday!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Ten Little Known Facts About Me!

I’ve been on the internet since I was less than 6 months old, so you probably think you know everything about me — especially those of you who have been following me for years. Right? Wrong! I have a few random facts that may surprise you — here they are:

1. I once lapped up some balsamic vinegar, thinking that since it was brown, it would be tasty! It was not.

2. Once, when my human’s boyfriend was taking some photos in the front yard, he left the door ajar, so I pulled it open and let myself out. He didn’t realize I was outside, and when he went back in, he shut the door! I panicked and screamed to be let in (which he did)! My human did not even know this happened until he told her much, much later.

3. The best thing my human ever did: She caught a moth in her cupped hands, took me into an enclosed hallway and let it go. Chasing it was the best game ever — with a treat at the end!

4. Everyone knows I am a picky eater, but it did not truly begin in earnest until the pet food recall of 2007 — and my very favorite food got recalled! My human never did find a suitable replacement and had to go back to buying it when it returned to the shelves. Although I supposedly have some sort of intestinal ailment that has never completely been diagnosed, my human thinks that maybe the trauma of not getting my favorite food for months is the real cause of it.

5. I’m always talking about how much I love chicken, but I also love sardines, and sometimes my human will give me some as a treat. She likes sardines too.

6. I am a very gentle cat when it comes to humans and have never, ever bitten one. I can’t say the same for certain other kitties here!

7. I am not gentle when it comes to other cats and get very fierce and territorial if I think somekitty is intruding! I’ve gotten very agitated seeing certain strange cats wandering outside.

8. The most I have ever weighed is 6 lbs., 2 oz. I am truly a small cat!

9. I love rubbing up against Binga when she is asking for breakfast — because it gets on her nerves!

10. The one time we three cats had to be boarded (because my human’s old house was being fumigated), one of the people working there called me “the instigator.” Probably because of the above mealtime trick.

I’ve told you 10 of my secrets — now it’s your turn! In the comments below, I dare you to reveal one of your deepest secrets!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Photo Shoot, Interrupted

* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Party In the Wrong Box!

Have you entered the Grumpy Cat Birthday Party in a Box giveaway yet? Don’t worry — I haven’t pulled a fast one and switched the prize for a 40-lb. bag of dog food! ’Cause that is what is in this box. And for some reason, a certain April Fool named Binga thinks it is a party box!

It arrived while my human’s boyfriend was out of town, and it also contained some doggie vitamins. The dog had run out of the vitamins, so my human needed to open the box — and Binga invited herself in.

Then, once she was there she refused to leave!

She was like one of those awful party guests that stays forever. She was desperate to tear into that dog food. My human was still sick at the time so she wasn’t strong enough to lug the bag of food upstairs to the back. She had to get rid of that party crasher somehow.

The only way she could end this tortie party was to eject Binga and then tape the box shut. Maybe she needs to call the cops.
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

My First Infographic!

As those of you on Facebook know, it is getting harder and harder to see posts from your favorite pages there. In fact, I have been having such a difficult time reaching my Facebook fans that I got mad and made an infographic! I used a pretty awesome platform called Pictochart.com — you can use the free version if you don’t mind their watermark at the bottom, and if you have ever made a presentation, it is about equal in ease/ difficulty (depending on which side of techie you sit) as PowerPoint or Keynote. Admittedly, it is more of a WORDographic since I basically wrote a blog post and slapped on some graphics, but it’s still pretty cool!

Even if you are not on Facebook, it is worth checking out because it has a little bit about my other social media presences, and something about ways to read my blog other than actually coming here. (If it doesn’t appear at first, refresh the page.)

Note: After she went to bed (with her iPhone), my human realized that people with mobile devices may have a problem seeing the infographic on my blog. This link to it on the Pictochart site may work better: https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1609510-why-facebook-is-hiding-me-from-y

Disclosure: The Pictochart link is an affiliate link, in case you ever want to pay for the program.
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Sunday CHATinee

Bonjour et bienvenue à mon Chatinée Dimanche! Don’t worry, you won’t need to know any French to enjoy this sweet, funny tale of a confused, language-challenged human who finds a French cat at his front door — another brilliant film short from CATastrophes! CATastrophes always shines a spotlight on a great rescue, and this time around it’s Tree House Humane in Chicago. You get to see a few of Tree House Humane’s adoptables in this film.

The charming star of this film is already taken — in fact you might recognize him! It’s Rocky and he is part of the Cat in the Fridge family. Although Crepes is the star blogger, Rocky has been the movie star of several film shorts made by his humans. As you can see, he is a natural!

If you can’t see the above video, click here to watch it on the CATastrophe website!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Caturday Art: The Earthquake Edition

My human had something else completely different planned for this week’s Caturday Art, but a couple of things got in the way: the fact that she was sick with a stomach bug all week and fell behind on everything; and Friday night’s 5.1 earthquake not terribly far from us. We kitties weren’t fazed much by the rolling feel of the quake, but she was pretty rattled, maybe because she isn’t quite back up to speed yet, health-wise. So instead of the complicated, multi-step idea she had for today, she decided to do something a lot simpler — revisit last week’s Caturday Art project, only this time use a good photo. She picked the photo used for the cover of my 2010 wall calendar:

That year, my calendar won a Cat Writers Association Muse Medallion for Best Color Photograph (series), and my human has always liked the cover photo, even though there’s a bit of a hot spot on my chin. So she took the original photograph and cropped it to more of a square format.

Then she quickly ran it through the oil painting filter of the AKVIS ArtWork software that she used last week.

Except she wasn’t quite satisfied. While it wasn’t all that bothersome in the photo, she really didn’t like the light colored rug pattern behind my head. She thought it was distracting. So, just for a fast experiment, she decided to take it out to see how it looked. She didn’t even use the original sized photograph — she just used Photoshop’s Quick Selection Tool on the smaller, blog-sized version. You can see the tool on the left hand side. It’s the fourth tool down. You can also see the “marching ants” around the pattern.

This time she knew that the Content-Aware Fill from last week was not going to work, so she used the Clone Stamp to cover the light pattern with black rug. Then she tidied it up with the Spot Healing Brush tool. It looks pretty decent. Not quite perfect, but good enough for a digital oil painting, where small details would be lost.

Then she ran it through the AKVIS ArtWork software again. She had to change the settings a lot because the image was so much smaller, but I think it still looks better with the pattern gone, don’t you? It just shows that no matter what you are doing, if you pay attention to details, you can make it even better!

For more Caturday Art, visit Athena!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

It’s a Party Time Giveaway With Grumpy Cat and Friskies!

I had you all wondering what was in this big box, right? Well, you won’t be disappointed because it’s lots of fun!

In fact, it’s a party! A special kitty is having a birthday in April, and she is turning two!

It’s Grumpy Cat’s birthday, and Friskies Party Mix sent us this party in a box to help her celebrate! They will also be throwing her a big party in New York City on April 29!

But more on the New York party later — let’s roll out the Grumpy Cat poster and get our party started!

Fortunately the party hats are for humans! We found out right away they were not kitty-sized.

There were kitty-sized frowns-on-a-stick. Plus some human-sized ones.

Plus a plush Grumpy Cat with removable collar (how risqué!) and two big bags of Friskies Party Mix featuring Grumpy Cat! And what’s even better, Friskies said they would send the same Grumpy Cat Birthday Party Pack to one lucky reader! It’ll have all the same things I got — the poster, 5 party hats, two kitty-sized and four human-sized frowns-on-a-stick, the plush Grumpy Cat and removable collar and two bags of Friskies Party Mix! All you need to do to enter is comment on this blog post and say you did on the Rafflecopter widget below (you also have more entry options)! The winner has to be a U.S. resident (sorry to my international readers — although you are probably used to it by now), and the giveaway ends Tuesday, April 8 at midnight! Plus there’s an awesome sweepstakes going on for Grumpy Cat’s birthday for you to enter too — details below the widget!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friskies is giving you and a guest a chance to win a trip to New York to attend Grumpy Cat’s birthday party with the 1 Million Frowns Challenge! To enter this sweepstakes, all you need to do is either 1) upload the grumpiest photo of your cat to the Friskies Party Mix website, or 2) upload your grumpiest cat picture to your own Instagram account with the hashtag #1MMGrumpyFrowns. The grand prize winner gets the New York Grumpy party trip, 10 First Prize Winners will get a plush Grumpy Cat toy and 50 Third Place Winners will get a free 6 ounce sample of Friskies Party Mix and a coupon for a free package of Friskies Party Mix. You only have until April 7 to enter!

I looked at the Friskies site, and they already have lots of really grumpy looking cats! I think I can look just as grumpy, though! Here’s my very first grumpy photo as a kitten — do you think I rate?

Disclosure: I was comped the Grumpy Cat Birthday Party Pack by Purina/ Friskies, and all silly comments are my own opinion!
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Dear Sparkle: Why Are My New Humans Calling Me “Bad”?

Dear Sparkle,

I was born at a rescue and just recently got adopted. This is supposed to be a really big deal, but so far it has been a huge disappointment! When I lived at the rescue, humans came by and played with me all the time, but now I am just expected to entertain myself with a boring toy mousie. So I look for my own fun, but every time I find something I enjoy, it is apparently “bad!” Here is a list of what the humans here do not approve of: unrolling all the paper in the human litter box room, climbing the curtains, attacking human ankles, biting human hair, knocking things off the counters and dining room table, clawing the rug and sofa, sneaking into the fireplace, playing in my own litter box and dumping my food on the floor so it is easier to eat. In other words, everything! I am only three months old and it is kind of depressing to think I have a whole lifetime to face being told everything I do is wrong! Do you think I can go back to the rescue, where everything I did was just fine?

Signed,

Sad Kitten

Dear Sad Kitten,

You are breaking my heart! Nothing you are doing is “bad” (okay, maybe sneaking into the fireplace isn’t such a great idea), you are just bored and these humans who adopted you totally do not understand how to keep an active kitten like you occupied. When you lived at the rescue, the people there did everything they could to make your life fun — you had lots of playtime and other kittens as pals. So no wonder you go to a new home and you start going a little bit crazy. I assume that when you were adopted, the rescue told your humans about what a kitten needs — but apparently they did not pay much attention. I will tell you right here and now that there is no such thing as a “bad kitten.” All kittens are good, if occasionally they get into situations that aren’t quite ideal for them. It is just plain wrong to be told you are bad. Kittens come in three different speeds: playful, really playful and crazy playful — I don’t think you are even in the crazy playful category (that would be my roommate Binga who, as a kitten, attacked the human’s faces in the morning and thought it was a fun game). You are a very normal kitten who needs a lot of games and interaction to grow into the best cat you can be. Along with keeping you busy with play, your new humans should be bonding with you, not spending their time calling you “bad.”

The great thing about coming from a rescue is that when a human adopts a kitten or a cat and it isn’t working out, they can almost always return her. With any luck, these humans are just misguided, and when they explain the “problem” to the rescue, the rescue humans will give them a lecture about life with kittens, and they will take the advice and use it. Maybe they will even convince them to take home a friend for you. If they realize they aren’t up to living with a kitten, they will return you to the rescue, where you will be happy again — and maybe next time you will get adopted by smarter humans.
* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!

Can You Guess What’s in the Box?

* * *
Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” I have answers to many annoying problems in my two award-winning books! Visit my author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of my awesome Dear Sparkle books!