Toothless

I know a lot of people think they have adorable black cats, but if I'm being honest, I have the cutest one. 

I'm not saying yours aren't cute - all cats are cute. But Maddie Bat is the cutest. 

If you saw the movie How To Train Your Dragon - and if you haven't, stop reading this, leave work, leave your children, whatever and go watch it right now - you are already in love with Toothless.

But that also means you are in love with Maddie, my black cat, who I am nearly certain was the inspiration for that character. If not Maddie (from them creeping on my blog), then definitely the adorable black cat (but not as adorable as Maddie) of whoever did the animation for that character.

It's SO incredibly cat-like in every way, but has that sort of strong-willed, soulful quality of especially a black cat that my fellow black cat owners can recognize immediately.

I read a book on cats once and read a study about how coat color is the strongest determinant of behavior in cats, and I have to say, my real life observation of a large number of various types of cats bears that out. Black cat magic, tortie-tude, tabbies, orange tabbies - they are all so unique.

All that to say, I finally found a dragon stamp that reminds me of Toothless/Maddie. It's this Magic Dragons set - how cute is this??

Magic Dragons 4x6 Clear Stamp Set [ INK ] Magic Dragons Coordinating Die Cuts [ INK ] Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ] Sunburst Bold Prints [ HA ] Sunshine & Rainbows Photopolymer... [ SUP ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Da Vinci Cosmotop Sable Mix F Brushes... [ BLIC | ELH ] Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. Cold Press... [ AMZUS ] Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock by... [ SUP ] Whisper White Cardstock - Thick [ SUP ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSW | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | SBC ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART | SBC ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Multipurpose Liquid Glue by Stampin' Up! [ SUP ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] White Stampin' Emboss Powder (109132) [ SUP ] Heat Tool (Us And Canada) by Stampin'... [ SUP ] Juicy Clear Embossing & Watermark Ink [ INK ]

And the sentiment exactly describes Maddie too. :)

First, I used Fadeout Ink to stamp these little guys and die cut them with the matching dies. Then I watercolored them with just three - okay, four - colors: Phthalo Blue Green Shade, Quinacridone Pink, and Quinacridone gold, shaded with Aussie Red Gold.

I cut clouds with the Sunshine & Rainbows Dies, and sponged a bit of Fadeout Ink on them to put each dragon on.

For the background, I used this Bold Prints stamp, and I was just going to use Fadeout Ink on it, but do you remember this card? Apparently some of the ink from that was still on the stamp  - I'm amazing like that - and so a little bit transferred, and I liked it, so I used it.

I embossed the sentiment in white, and this was the first time I tried the Inkon3 Embossing ink. It's a VERY firm pad, which I love - so your stamp doesn't mush down into it and get embossing ink everywhere. This is something I've never seen before in an embossing ink. I think it makes for cleaner embossed images.

The little blue one on the left is the most Toothless-y and so cute! But of course, not as cute as the real thing!

A few important updates before I go:

• Stamp-n-Storage is lightning fast, and already has a new ink pad holder to accommodate the new Stampin' Up! ink pad design coming in the new catalog. You can see the various configurations here. If you don't want to buy a new holder, they are offering spacers to position the ink pad for easy retrieval in the existing hold here. I will probably get both, because I do plan on keeping my existing ink pads, but I will get the new and returning colors and put them in the new holder.
• I have updated my favorite podcasts and favorite crafty things list on this page with some recent loves. 
• I recently found out something horrifying if you are a gluten-free or low carb person who also eats at IHOP - I am NOT gluten free and I don't eat at IHOP, but this shocked me when my friend Dana told me this. They put their PANCAKE BATTER into their eggs. So if you're all keto-strong and having an omelette or scrambled eggs, you are so getting sabotaged at IHOP and probably other places. They claim it makes them "fluffy". I find omelettes revolting, and one of the few egg dishes I can't stand, but as a person with food allergies, I find this pretty alarming. So please don't eat eggs at IHOP if you have allergies or are trying to have a low-carb diet. They do label the allergens on their website, but their actual menu says "allergen info available upon request." I don't think of an omelette or scrambled eggs as containing wheat or soy, so I'm not sure I'd even ask about that.  Now I will, I guess, because I bet other restaurants do it. Crazy. Actually - I'm not even sure why pancake batter would have soy in it anyway. It seems like everything has soy in it now - somebody must have a bunch of soy they need to get rid of.
• Speaking of food allergies - if you are lactose intolerant or dairy allergic - Haagen Dazs now has a dairy free line of ice cream using coconut milk, etc. I am a big HD fan because they use actual natural foods in their ice cream - many of their flavors are just cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, etc. so it's nice to find an allergy/intolerance line of their ice creams since summer is coming! 
• A rare TV recommendation from me, because I don't really like TV - if you are not watching Sneaky Pete - you need to binge it. Trust me.

Loveyameanitbye.