Cats and Dogs and Holiday, Oh My!

Highlighting our cats and dogs, Artist Alley in Southern Pines, NC will be hosting our holiday trunkshow for the afternoon of Saturday, December 12 | 12-4.

Please stop by to purchase a special piece from our collection of FatCats and limited run debossed & foiled holiday cards.

Saturday, December 12 | 12-4
Artist’s Alley, Southern Pines, NC

Fat Cat brings you a Cyber Monday Special:


Available to residents in the US Lower 48. Outside US, please contact us!

Thank you for bringing ECStewart Collections and CalligraphyPets into your life.

~Lisa, CREATIVEGoddess

PS. Are you a Mewsmember yet? You could get an add’l 15% your first order if you hurry!!!

Announcement!!

I have two (2) articles in FW Publications’ auspicious annual: 2010 Graphic Designer & Artist Market

The Changing Marketing Landscape: Leveraging Social Media as a Creative, and Leveraging Multiple Opportunities with One Image With this push, I will be launching a new blog dedicated to coaching and strategy for the creative entrepreneur. Stay tuned!

“Entangled” There are just times I enjoy being entangled with MANdrew. Sometimes, I even enjoy stealing a kiss in public…

One afternoon, Andrew and I found ourselves at the local B&N on a magazine hunt. We were on our way out and as we passed a tall kiosk filled with books, I grabbed him and proceeded to give him a big smooch. Bounding out from around the corner came a woman who began telling us her life story about recently becoming an empty nester and how her daughter would have given her the 5th degree about smooching in public. Then she outed herself and her dirty laundry with a long winded missive about how her college daughter found mom’s newly purchased g-string to rekindle her passion with her husband, aka ‘dad.’

Thanks for that unnecessary vision, she-hound.

Naturally, my jaw dropped as she proceeded to hold us hostage with further sordid details about her married sex life.

Andrew, as nice as he is, made his usual gentle condescending remarks that only fueled her desire to explain everything to us. I grabbed his hand and said, “We’ve got to go!” But he insisted on making comments that only lead to my abandoning the situation -and Andrew- by running desperately back to the magazine section and hiding. I found myself cracking up at the audacity of the woman’s demand that we remain her audience for her sordid life story. As I held myself up against the rack, giggling uncontrollably, Andrew finally departs her grasp to rendezvous with me.

Straight out of a sitcom, we shot the hell out of the bookstore if only to free ourselves from the she-hound. I’ll never stop smooching in public, but I will be more aware of the lurking she-hounds in dark public corners.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

For the first time in my life, I actually baked a pumpkin. The instructions were found in MAndrew’s Joy of Cooking book circa 1954! Of the hundreds of cookbooks that we possess, none of them had it! It’s not difficult by any means, but dammit! I needed include this on my bucket list! Sheesh!

Purchase Baking Pumpkin
(the small ones marked ‘baking’ -not the big ones marked ‘lobotomize your jack here’)
Cut it in half width wise
(that means set it up naturally and cut latitudinally [across], not longitudinally [vertical])
Turn your cut halfs upside down on foil that’s placed on a cookie sheet
Bake at 350* for 1 hour
Pull out of the oven and watch the foil crinkle around the pumpkins (too much fun!)
Let cool
Scrap the pumpkin pulp from the rind like a melon
Puree in your favorite blender until it looks like babyfood.
Choose recipe to use your new pulp.

My next thoughts turned to the options for using the pulp. I was going to make a pumpkin pie, but decided to use it for something a little more fun -muffins!

Pumpkin Muffins

I can only tell you how delicious they are since we’re still living in the dark ages without smell-o-vision. We found the recipe on Epicurious. Read the reviews, one might consider following them (extra pumpkin pulp, etc).

We’re taking a batch to our favorite inlaws to wow them.

Enjoy your day!

Announcing November Giveaway:
One $75 gift certificate* from ECStewart Designs!

UPDATE: The Winner is Jill @ Liv’nGood Jewelry
Additionally, Penny & Nielle will each receive a $20 Gift Certificate for simply being great participants.

Didn’t know I was giving away a runner-up award? Perhaps next time you’ll play along!

Thanks so much for spreading the good word, ladies! I’m thrilled you love my work. Your super secret shopping codes are coming shortly.

Smooches!
~Lisa, CREATIVEGoddess

****************
Simple rules for the contest..

1. Post this as a separate entry on your blog by Monday, Nov 30th at 3p(EST), Thursday, Dec 3rd at 3p (EST).
   (You may borrow the graphic above.)
2. Once you do, post a comment here with your link.
3. Contest ends Thursday evening, Dec 3rd at 6p(EST).
4. Winning name announced Thursday evening,
5. You can’t be related to me -even thru marriage. Besides, you get all kinds of cool stuff from me anyway, right?
6. You must be reachable so that we can contact you. If I cannot verify your ID or reach you via email, learn that you’ve come from a ‘Sweeps’ forum, I will disqualify your posts.
7. Not redeemable for cash

Send your friends and good luck!

How would you spend $75? Your wish list begins here.

Hurry! Thursday is right around the corner!!
~Lisa, Your CREATIVEGoddess

The giants are warming up to a new frontier of advertising: Twitter.

How? Getting regular people to send a sentence or two of text, on behalf of paying advertisers, to their friends and followers.

The NYTimes reports that there is a growing group of celebrities, bloggers and regular Internet users who are allowing advertisers to send commercial messages to their personal contacts on social networks. Charter Communications, the Make a Wish Foundation and other companies are among those harnessing informal chats between friends to promote their products and services.

This month, Amazon.com said it would start paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a program in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.) Would be nice if North Carolina could get it’s act together so I could at least get my Associates account re-established, but that’s another story.

John Chow, blogger and Internet entrepreneur in Vancouver, BC received ~$3,000 income from Twitter ads for ‘just pushing a button.’ On another occasion, he received $200 from Mars to tell his friends about personalized M&Ms.

My first question that I have is, “where do I sign up?” The next question I have is, “would my friends really enjoy getting duped if they realized my passion wasn’t really for PortoRico’s Danish Blend after all?” I think you all know the answer to that!

We buy based on trust.
We trust recommendations from our friends and resources that we know and respect. Would your respect continue to flourish once you learned that every few minutes, your private time was interrupted for a commercial break?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/business/22ping.html?bl

We’re so happy that many of you stopped by to say hello at our trunkshow at Seagrove Pottery and to see our new luxe goods. We always love to hear the ‘ahhhhs’ when fondling our soft leathers and the ‘ohhhs’ when you spy the earrings or the pendants.

So without further ado…
Announcing our Winner: Congratulations to Jane Albright!
We’ve sent you an email and look forward to sending you your choice gifts!

PS. Join our Fan Page and show off your new goods!

Trunkshow | Seagrove Pottery, Cameron Village
Thursday, November 19 | 5 – 8pm