Hello on Sunday Morning

First off, a very Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! I just sent mine the e-card above (yes, I'm terrible at mailing cards these days) and will be calling him later today too.

Secondly, thank you to all those who've entered my blog giveaway either by leaving a comment or joining my Happy Customers Flickr Group. I love hearing about people's favourite ice cream. My personal fave at the moment is Breyers double churned Cookies 'n Cream. It is absolutely the creamiest ice cream I've ever had, but without being overly gross. And I think it's supposed to have half the fat as the regular Breyers. Don't quote me on that though.


Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I was awarded the "One Lovely Blog Award" by Julie, a very sweet fellow blogger. As the recipient of this award, I must now pass it on to 15 other blogs that I've newly discovered. Not all the blogs that I've chosen are ones that I've just discovered, but they are lovely blogs and in my opinion, deserve the award.

In alphabetical order, they are:

blacklilypie
fantastical world of holidays
green island studios
hawaii kawaii
jake and micah
modern cat
moxiecupcake
peng peng's place
pretty good
structured chaos
susie's letter-box
the life pursuit: san smith
three red trees
tinys
yellow goat design & all things beautiful

I will be contacting these bloggers either later today or tomorrow to let them know about this honour.

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend!

Peekaboo! It's My First Blog Giveaway!

Who doesn't love a giveaway? This is my first of what will now be a monthly event. So if you want to be in the know, just add me to your blog list or start "following" me.

Here's how things are going to work:

Every month on the 15th, I will announce the new giveaway. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on my blog, answering whatever question that I ask. From then on until the end of the month, you'll be able to enter for a chance to win one or several lovely prizes.


All the members of my Happy Customers Flickr Group will automatically be entered every month. So if you've ever bought something from either of my shops (cathypeng.etsy.com or pengcath.etsy.com), and you're on flickr, all you have to do is join my group. Then every month you'll have a chance to win a great prize! I'd love it too if you added a photo of your purchase.

Additionally, for every item purchased from my shop from the 15th to the end of the month, you'll receive one entry.

So without further ado, the prize for the first giveaway is not one, not two but three things with a total value of $100 US!

You will get:

1. a one-of-a kind spoiled kitty messenger tote ($60 value)


2. a limited edition bad kitty wallet ($20 value)

and

3. a gift certificate to spend in my shop (worth $20)



This month's question is a fun one, since Summer is just around the corner:
What's your favourite ice cream flavour/brand?

Last day to enter this month is June 30th, 11:59 pm EST. One winner will be drawn at random and I'll announce who that is on July 1st. Please be sure to leave either a link to your website or your email address so I can contact you.

5 Things I'm Digging These Days

Starting my day with cinnamon raisin toast. Mmm!

Some bubbly in the afternoon.

So You Think You Can Dance twice a week.

Our new shower curtain from The Bay. (Trust me, our bathroom looks better in black and white)


And comfy skirts. (Mine is black, but I thought this photo was cuter)


I'm short on words today...
Have a great weekend! I'll be back on Monday with my first blog giveaway!

Hello, I'm Still Here.

I'm still not feeling the greatest these days.
Yawn.
What's new?
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but lately that's just been the case.

I'll be back later in the week to share some of the things I'm loving right now though. And on the 15th, I'll be announcing the details of my first blog giveaway, which will be a monthly feature from then on.

A lot of Rest for the Weary

I wholeheartedly admit to being a little unmotivated to do anything but nap for the past week. My cold got the better of me for a few days and then I was dealing with some personal issues other health concerns for another few, so really, I didn't get much done. I've had a few new items ready for some time to list in the shop but they have yet to make an appearance. Hopefully they will be up by the end of the day.

On the plus side of things, I added another photo to my Happy Customers Flickr Group. It's currently sitting at 8 members and 5 photos, but I hope to increase those numbers in the next few months by having some giveaways. Stay tuned to the blog for more info.

And I sold my first item on dawanda last week! I joined several months ago, just to see what it was like and hadn't gotten around to updating it for a while, so the sale was a nice surprise.

image taken from Making it Lovely

In other news, one of my favourite blogs and bloggers is in need of some help. If you haven't come across Making it Lovely before, I highly recommend having a peek. Nicole and her hubby participated in a little home reno challenge and need your votes every day before June 12. I'm rooting for them to win, I guess because I have a soft spot for pink and also because they just had a baby girl. Yay for hardworking creative mamas (and papas)!

Under the Weather

I'm feeling under the weather today. Yesterday was worse. Matt was sick last week and so were some people who I work with here, so I think it finally caught up with me. Bah!

A new tee is in the shop though. More to come soon.

Thanks to Alexis and Julie for your sweet comments on my last post. I tried to reply but blogger sometimes acts up and doesn't let me leave comments.

Recapping the Past Few Weeks

It's been a little while since I've taken or posted any photos of our kitties. Leave it to my mom to be the snap-happy photographer while she was here a few weeks ago.

Here, she caught Dex in the midst of his bag antics. He adores cloth bags and will literally jump in one if you hold it open for him. Then he'll proceed to attack it. We discovered this one day after coming back from the grocery store. He now has his own bag(s) since they quickly became fur-lined.

Suki is a little more serene and ladylike when it comes to bags. Here she is on the same bag.

And some more photos from my mom's visit:

outside of our loft building

the view from our rooftop

Mother's Day cake

on a walk

Matt says I look like a love-spy (whatever that is) in my heart-shaped glasses and trench coat. I'm loving my new trench, that's for sure, which my mom treated me to when she was here. It was such a steal from Jacob, reduced by more than 50%.

This past week, we also had a sort of surprise visit from my dad, who had some research he was doing in Ontario. Unfortunately I didn't take any decent photos since he was only here overnight and we were all a bit exhausted from work.

But here's a photo that my dad took of his research:

I have no idea what that is or what it does, but luckily my dad does. He is a professor of Chemical Engineering, and from time to time also does consulting for different companies, which brought him to Lakefield (about a two hour drive from Toronto) this week. We enjoyed a yummy dinner in Chinatown and even scored a free parking pass from a kind man who happened to be leaving when we arrived at the parking lot. He said someone else had given it to him, so he was just passing it on. Reminded me of that movie Pay it Forward.

The rest of the week kind of flew by without me getting much done. I made a new screen and have printed some shirts which still need to be photographed... the screen itself was kind of a nightmare but I like the new design and hope it's a hit.

I'll leave you with some lovely treasuries that I was made aware of recently. Thank you to the sweet folks who took the time to curate them and also for including my goodies. And thanks to everyone for your kind words about my new stationery set.