From My House to Your House!

I would like to share this old New Year's Irish Blessing with you!

Out with misfortune, in with happiness,
From tonight to this night twelve months,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

Amen

Happy New Year's to Everyone!

Cathy 12/ 28/09

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my friends out there in Blog-land ~ Etsy-land ~ 1MK-land!

Have a Great Holiday Season!

My snowy tree capture was taken a few winters back crossing the northern plains. It was like spring that year as we passed though Denver and in Gillette too. It was so nice we even went up to the Devil's Tower. We arrived in Rapid City in a thick fog and heard that a storm was coming in. It hit the next morning. We were snowed in. After the storm was over we crossed to Sioux Falls on a bitter cold morning. But it was a photographers wonderland too.

Cathy 12/ 18/09

This Is The Hardest Thing To Write About!

My husband complained that one of the cats is using the litter pan too much. Our youngest cat was due for a visit to the vet. So we had the vet run the tests. The tests were costly, but we needed to find out if one of our cats was having a problem. Thankfully, his results came back negative for kidney problems or Diabetes. This week we took in the oldest cat, Osisin ( Osheen) for his round of tests.

The vet called tonight to give us the bad news. Osisin has diabetes! It wasn't a complete surprise, since I noticed he was drinking a lot of water. His illness will require him to get insulin shots two times a day and go on a special diet. All of which will be very costly and life changing for him and for us. I have never given a shot in my life.

Osisin has been a wonderful cat and I would never think of putting him down. The insulin will give him a longer life, if we do nothing he is sure to die. This is a no brainer. We will talk to the Vet again on Monday and hopefully start Osisin on his treatment at that time.

Cathy 12/ 09/ 09

Black Friday - Cyber Monday

Good Morning Everyone out there in Cyber-Land! Hope your Thanksgiving was great, and your sales on line were many. It will take me awhile to make changes to my Etsy shop, but I think that
it is always good to advertise and direct traffic to our shops. Also I think the Black Friday & Cyber Monday was worth taking the time.

I have one more show to do and a gallery opening. So for now I am still busy.

Have a great week!

Cathy 12/ 01/ 09

Are You Ready?????????

For the Running of The Consumers? Also Known as Black Friday!
And let's not forget Cyber Monday!

Shops offering Discounts and Shipping Specials

Celtic Cat Photos - Photographs & Cards

KOBrienPhotography - Photography

LivingGlassArt - Art Glass - See the Holiday Special Section

McGuinness Photography - Aceo, Cards & Photography

Photoamato - Photography, Calendars, & Photo Jewelry

PoSHGallery - Photography

SlothArt - Photography, Aceo, & Jewelry

Thistle And Shamrock - Cards

For Other Shops Go To Etsy -

Go to Etsy - click on Buy, click on Categories, Under Art click on Photography, do a search for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to see who is having a weekend sale.

New Cat - Fionn McCool #2 From LivingGlassArt

Soon after joining Etsy I discovered LivingGlassArt. I loved her cats. So for my birthday I had my eye on one of her lovely creations. I didn't want a spooky cat. Just a nice black cat like my over- sized Fionn McCool, a black Maine Coon. When I saw the yellow eyed cat I knew that was the one I wanted.

Fionn #2 came in the mail several weeks ago and he was just what I wanted. DH was delighted too.

Above is the real Fionn and below Fionn #2. Thank You Anna!

Notes From The Road

Adobe and Apple no longer support Tiger - so I can't upgrade to Elements #8- I don't feel my system is that old, but they do. I haven't had any major problems with Tiger OS 10.4.11. I am not planning to buy a new computer anytime soon, since I don't feel I need one. So I am working with Lightroom 1.0 and will upgrade to 2.1 soon.

Here are a few photos I did in Lightroom from a recent road trip!

T-West - Finally!

Finally Managed To Snag A Treasury West!

Detroit Born and Breed

Come take a walk down memory lane with me!

I live in the suburbs, but I grew up in Detroit, 25th Street, and later Martindale Street off of Grand River. If you know the inner city these streets mean something to you. The reason I was thinking about growing up in Detroit is because I decided I wanted to get some photographs of the Eastern Market area. I haven't been there in over thirty years. I was hoping to find the building that housed a Halloween party my father took me to years ago. If you can call it a building, since it has no sides.

Detroit has changed! The old train station is falling apart and most likely has a date with a wreaking ball. The last wall of Tiger Stadium was torn down this summer. Once beautiful Scott Fountain is a mess, rusting and falling apart. So I half expected the Eastern Market to
be gone too.

To my surprise it was still there. Bigger then I remembered it. I had to look for the original building, I found it. It is the first black & white photo above. DH took the different sign photos. During the week it is pretty quiet at Eastern Market, but during the weekend it is a bustling area selling in-season fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

Cathy 10/23/09

Step Back In Time

On a day trip between Art shows we drove out to Algonac. It is a trip we have been talking about doing for several years. Ever since we started doing the Algonac Art show. Our first stop was the old Vernier Hotel on Vernier road, once the hang out of the Purple Gang is now a wonderful restaurant. If you live in South Eastern Michigan, drive east along 23 mile, which turns into Mi-29, you will come to Fair Haven. The owner has kept the old time feel of the old hotel and added great service and food.

Decor is Michigan and boat related prints and old period photographs. The bullet holes are still in the bar from a shoot. Fortunately, the old Art Deco stained glass windows were not damaged and look as good as the day they were installed.

It was the quiet time between lunch and dinner, so owner Bill Gilmore was able to give us a tour of the restaurant. His business card reads: Bill Gilmore SaloonKeeper.

For good food and a glimpse into Michigan's past, come visit The Vernier Restaurant.

The Vernier, 8822 Vernier Road, Fair Haven, Michigan 48023


Cathy 9/29/09

Project Embrace Treasury!

Treasury

Woke up to find myself in this very wonderful Treasury, for Project Embrace! As soon as it is on Flickr I will post it here. I forgot that Flickr is only for FP Treasuries. So I did a screen shot! Check out Slinkymalinkicat's shop.

Cathy 9/21/09

Introducing Jim Finfera

Amalfi Coast



Jim is a member of POE, Photographers of Etsy Street Team. He is an accomplished photographer living in Florida, his Etsy shop Finfera has some amazing work in it. Rather than tell you about Jim, I am going to let him speak for himself.

"I am now 66 years old and am in the twilight of my life. I wore many hats in the span of over 40 years. Aside from being a husband, father, and grandfather, photography is my passion. They say that an artist cannot stop being an artist no matter what...even if she or he does not sell anything or hardly anything. Well then by that definition I must be an artist...I cannot and will never stop taking pictures."

"My desire is to do with my photographic art work what Norman Rockwell did with his paintings. These photographs here on Etsy and on my web site (http://www.PGJF.com) are a collection of my favorites, with my thoughts, from over 40 years of professional photography. My desire is to share with you the beauty of God, as shown through all aspects of His magnificent creation. Everything in this life and on this blessed planet reveals some mystery of our beloved Creator. Everyone is welcomed to share in my artwork: Jews, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, those of any beliefs, and those of no beliefs. Our good God is not as interested in what you believe, but what is in you heart."

Take A Ride On The Handmade Hightway!

You're asking what is the Handmade Highway? It is a wonderful directory of handmade sellers! Giving buyers access to handmade shops, gives them information on the seller, photographs ( Etsy Mini), location of seller and contact information.

As well as information about who wholesales, does custom orders, gives bulk discounts, consignment, who has giveaways, and much more.

You can also add your twitter page.

Check it out.

HandMadeHighway


HandmadeHighway Blog

Come Join Me At Algonac, Michigan Art Fair

Come join Celtic Cat Photos Labor Day Weekend

Algonac Art Fair September 5th & 6th, 2009

Algonac Riverfront Park, on St. Clair River Drive

Featured Shops: Photography, Ceramics, Prints, Glassware.

Enjoy contemporary music and folk music, plus food.

I Like To Play With Glass

August 15 will be the 40th anniversary of the opening of Woodstock. To celebrate here is a new creation from Livingglassart. Working with glass for about 6 years her work is stunning. She took classes to learn the basics, found she loved it, now this is her full time job. She might not think that she is an artist, one look at her shop and you know that she is.

With a love of Mother Nature, the simple things in life, her 7 kitties, a butterfly in her garden, young plants poking through the earth, she creates glass art.


Aqua Blue Beveled Hanging Stained Glass

Orange Koi Round stained Glass Suncatcher

Clear Iridescent & Violet Faceted Jewels

Blue Eyed Gray & White Tabby Cat Suncatcher

Give Away Winner Is........

Hello everyone! Today is the day to list the winner in the Who Am I giveaway. LivingGlassArt won the free card and to be featured in my next up-date. Thank You everyone who stopped by and those who commented.

This is an Asian Wildcat at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. They very seldom come close to the glass, but for some reason this little guy just walked right up to me as if to say, "Trust Me!"

No! I don't think so!

Thanks Everyone! Cathy 8/ 6/ 09

Who Am I?

Cathy at Celtic Cat thinks I am a Cheshire Cat.

She isn't even close. If you know who I am please let Cathy know. Join as a follower, leave a comment who you think I am. If you are already a follower, just leave a comment.

Everyone's name will be thrown into a cyber-hat and one will be picked to receive the card of their choice. And a feature on my blog!

Cathy 7/ 30/ 09

Royal Café and Birthday Cake Ice Cream

Another great find right in my own backyard!


No, not this lovely iceberg. This photograph was taken on a June trip to Newfoundland.


_________________________________________________________________

Royal Café & Ice Cream, 770 Auburn Road, Downtown Utica, Michigan

You can't beat Hershey's ice cream. It is delicious, creamy and my idea of comfort food. I love the Birthday Cake and Road Runner Raspberry. If you live in the Utica or East Michigan area stop and try some. I think you will make it a regular stop.

Cathy 7 / 22/ 09

_________________________________________________________________

Edelweiss, 34 East Ramona Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado

From the name you might have guessed that this is a German restaurant. The Triple Chocolate Tort will keep a chocoholic satisfied for a week. The food is good here too!

_________________________________________________________________

Piesano's Pacchia, 3618 Canyon Lake Drive, Rapid City, South Dakota


Why go to a chain pizzaria, when you can go to Piesano's. As their card say, 'Good Friends, Good Food, Good Drink'! Not only are their pizzas awesome, even better you can also have a choice of several Baltika beers from Russia. They also serve local beers, wine and soft drinks.

_____________________________________________

The 12 Days of Christmas

12 Day of Christmas at Art Fire: July 15th. to 26th.

Go to Artfire , at the top is the 12 Days of Christmas and an
arrow to access it. Or go directly to Celtic Cat Photos at Artfire.

or go to~ Christmas In July

Etsy and enter CIJ or Christmas In July and see all the wonderful things on sale.

Celtic Cat Has:

10% off all Cards

15% off all Photographs

Celtic Cat Photos Etsy starts 8th, and ArtFire starts the 12 Days of Christmas on 15th .

Christmas In July Sale Start On July 8th & 15th

The 2nd. Annual Christmas In July starts this week, take a look.

Just Go to Etsy and enter CIJ or Christmas In July and see all the wonderful things on sale.

Celtic Cat Has:

10% off all Cards

15% off all Photographs

Celtic Cat Photos Etsy starts 8th, and ArtFire starts the 12 Days of Christmas on 15th to 26th of July.

500 Hearts - Thank You Everyone!

I made 500 Hearts today! I am very pleased and happy! Hope everyone out there is having a good
Canada Day and looking forward to the 4th!


Cathy 7 / 1/ 09

Premio Meme Award

Julie of Julie Magers Soulen has awarded me the Premio Meme Award. I am blushing with this honor! Thanks so much!

The rules of this award is that I am to give 7 facts about myself and pass it to 7 people. Here we go!

1. I live with three cats, all black.
2. I am Irish and Spanish.
3. I have been married only 15 years to DH, this is a second marriage for both of us.
4. I love books, and usually come home from a trip with a load of book, both fiction and
reference books and photo books of the area I visited.
5. I could sit all day and photoshop images.
6. I am having trouble with the Google Base upload! Big Trouble! It never loads!
7. I love all animals, cats, dogs, chippies, squirrels and horses just to name a few.

Now to pass this award along to 7 deserving blog owners (in no particular order):

Allieart4chikdren

Elephant Dreams

Urban Junkies

RHRadcliffedesigns

Beholden To Nature

Julie Magers Soulen and GypsyMoonDesigns were already awarded a Premio, but they do deserve 2!


Cathy 6 / 28 / 09

Hamlet Thanks You!

Thank You for voting for Hamlet my Birthday Cat. He took 5th place out of so many lovely cards.

Thank You!

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men, Or Is It Mice & Cats?

Road coming out of Spearfish Canyon, near Deadwood Gulch

I have been sick and had a lot of time when I wasn't trying to keep ahead of the rain on I-90, to think about vacation mess-ups.

What is the worst thing that can mess a trip up, here are several.

#1 - Car accident! Fortunately, I have had car trouble, but never an accident.

#2 - Inclement weather! This trip was the strangest! It rained in Topeka, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and La Crosse. Not to mention the hail storm leaving Spearfish Canyon. It was so thick it looked like snow on the roadway. See photo above.

#3 - Kenny Rogers! Now you are wondering why he could mess up a trip. Well, he was going to be somewhere near Pleasant Prairie, WS. So we couldn't get a room, so we moved on to Michigan City, IN. Which took us through Chicago, and a terrible grid lock due to an accident at I-94 & I-57. A normal trip of an hour and a half turned into a long drawn out evening. We got into Michigan City after 8 PM, we had started out at 4:30.

#4 - Sickness! Sickness isn't a stranger to DH and I. But this is first time we were both sick at the same time. DH was so sick he couldn't drive, but wanted to get home and see his own doctor. So I drove some long days crossing South Dakota and Minnesota.

We are both still recuperating, so we had to cancel our first show of the summer.

Cathy 6 25, 2009

Posted by Celtic Cat at 6:14 PM 0 comments

Sorry This is So Late

Julie Magers Soulen
















Gypsy Msoon Design

















I want to thank Gypsy Moon Designs and Julie Magers Soulen Photography for nominating me for the "One Lovely Blog" award. Unfortunately, at the time I was sick. More on this on my next blog post. I couldn't let their kindness go by without thanking them.

It is really a lovely award! Thank You friends!

Cathy 6/21/09

Please Vote For Hamlet aka Birthday Cat

Just lick below or on photo!


Birthday Cat Card









Thank You!

Ice Tea or Coffee

Come on in, this is our 2nd meeting of the Artists Coffee Club. This week we are featuring Linda from California, LDPhotography.

Linda is not only an accomplished photographer, she also makes wonderful jewelry and art pendants. Check out her shops on Etsy and 1MK.

It Rained Today!

Actually, it poured today. For over 3 hours. I hate driving in the rain, but DH and I are on the road and it was my turn to drive. It was a real gully washer. If I could have found a place to pull off the road, I would have. So I toughed it out, slowed when needed, only panicked a little when I saw an emergency vehicle with lights flashing coming up behind me. I managed to get over. I hope he made it to the hospital in time.

Earlier the weather was fine, we stopped to photograph an old farm house covered in ivy. We even made a stop at a winery. Hopefully it will rain itself out tonight and tomorrow it will be bright and sunny.

Come Tweet With Me!

Modern Hand Carved Carousel Horse


Join me at my Twitter Page

Celtic Cat Twitter Page

Tuesday Morning Artist's Coffee Club

Welcome to the first Tuesday Morning Artist's Coffee Club. This is a spotlight for outstanding and very talented Etsy and 1 MK members. We will be spotlighting team members, friends, artists who understand their craft, in body the spirit of friendship, and help we share with each other here online.

San Diego Skiline














Come on in and take a seat, if you don't drink coffee we have tea too. Oh, just push the cat off the chair!

My first spotlight is on Rhonda in San Diego - Rareimage and Julie in Loveland - Julie Mager Soulen Photography, two very talented Photographers.

Please after seeing this sample of their work, check out each artist's shop.

Rareimage: Starfish In Color
























Julie Magers Soulen Photography

Rawah Columbine























Evening Fog

Arts and Crafts Show in Michigan

I will be doing three shows with Keepsake Collections this year. Anyone in this area check
out their shows

I decided to try two new shows, even though the economy isn't the best in Michigan

June 19 to 21 2009 - Frankenmuth: June 19 - 21
Frankenmuth, Michigan

October 17 & 18 2009 - Clarkston High Scool,
Clarkston, Michigan

November 21 & 22 2009 - Waterford-Mott H.S.
Waterford, Michigan


Keep Sake Collection Shows

Friend's Award

Friend's Award

I was surprised to find that Julie Magers Soulen Photography honored me with this lovely award. Thanks Julie!

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbon of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."



Thank you so much! Here are my eight awardees:

Joannas Photography
Judi Fitz Patrick
Living Glass Art
Amy Longsberry Photography
Rareimage Photography/
RHRadcliffeDesigns
Buttons And Pears
Ian Parry Photography

To Brand Or Not To Brand

At one time if you wanted to set up a website to sell your photography, jewelry or pottery online you would go to a webmaster and tell them what you wanted it to look like. Hopefully, he or she would listen to you and soon they would upload a website to sell your artwork on. But it can be a nightmare too, as I found out. Besides being very expensive.

Venues like Etsy, 1000 Markets and other selling sites were a blip on the horizon at that time. Wonderful places that would make our lives so much easier. In some cases you still had to have someone do the banner and avatar. But after working with Photoshop or other editing software for a while most artists caught on how to do them.

It is so much fun making an avatar. In fact many artists change their avatar every few months. I know I fell into that practice. I had a leopard, jaguar, pronghorn and baby, black cat and a black kitten. Every one of my sites, from my website to my Flickr page had a different animal on it. Everyone of them a wonderful creation. Not one of them had brand recognition.

I never gave brand recognition a minute of thought until on day while watching the Martha Stewart show. Everything changed. I can't remember the woman's name, but I won't forget what she said about brand recognition. You want your brand logo, avatar, stationary, and banner to be uniform.

Out went all the animals and I settled on one avatar. One of my most popular card photographs, my Birthday Cat Hamlet. My banner was standardized as well. Now no matter which of my online sites someone comes to they know they are in a Celtic Cat Photos shop.

We Come Here To Remember

Oklahoma City Memorial 4/19/95





















We Come Here To Remember

Those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence.
May this Memorial offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope and Serenity.

Cathy 4/ 19/ 09