September 15th, 2008 by Missy

The cage is completed~! Doesn’t it look fantastic? I still need Dan to modify the bars with hardware cloth (since the boys will be small enough to slip through the bars for a few months), but other than that it is all ready for occupants! Isn’t it amazing how much better it looks than the previous picture, with just the addition of a few more hammocks and liners? The liners, I think, make the biggest difference. To me they make the cage look comfy and plush, whereas before it didn’t look like it would be particularly comfortable (as soon as you stepped foot out of a hammock, that is). I also have to say, Dan’s idea to add a tube hammock leading back to the corner hammock (back left) was fantastic.

Now to get another set of hammocks and liners ready! I’m currently working on a Halloween set (just have one hammock and a cube done) and then I’ll make a set out of a cute stars pattern that Anya picked out. I’d like to have at least four liners completed by the time the boys arrive, and three sets of hammocks (not counting the Halloween one, since it’s for… Halloween).

I swear, I’m going to slowly go insane waiting for the 10th of October to roll around. I want my rat babies so bad!

September 12th, 2008 by Missy

Whee! Dan took me shopping today (Petco) to buy some necessary items for the rat cage. Lets see.. we got a nice big wheel, a litter box, an igloo, a water bottle (glass), a little hangy toy thing, a bunch of jingly balls (cat toys), and a few teeny tiny stuffed pumpkins. Oh yes, we also bought a little ladder. The ladder isn’t going to be remaining where you see it in the picture, it’s just sitting there until Sunday. The girl I bought the cage from forgot to give me the ramp for it (and I am, obviously, picking it up on Sunday) so the ladder is there temporarily to look cute and such. Once I get the ramp I think that I will hang a little basket from the side of the cage and have the ladder lead up to that.

I also ordered a new bottom pan (one that doesn’t have the cut out part in the back right, under the litter box) and an outside ramp that will lead from the door down to the floor so that the rats can go in and out of the cage at will when the doors are open. You can also see from the photo that I started making some larger hammocks, and that they look MUCH better in the cage. I’d still like to make a nice big cube and maybe a double decker out of this fabric, but I think that the first set of bedding (I am discounting the actual first set since it is too small and useless) is almost complete. Ah yes, I also need to make liners, but I’m holding off on that until Dan gets a chance to take the pan and shelf outside to power wash them.

September 11th, 2008 by Missy

Well, I picked up the cage today! It’s a Ferret Nation model 142, although the top portion of it has been removed so it’s basically an FN141. Which is perfect.. a 142 would have been WAY too big for my living room and for two rats. Quite honestly, the 141 is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. I mean, I knew that it was a large cage but I didn’t realize exactly how large. I was kind of hoping it would tuck under the counter where it hangs into the living room, but it’s too tall for that. Ah well, the rats will hopefully enjoy having all of the space. Unfortunately, I now realize that all of the hammocks that I made are too small =/ I made them knowing that they were a little smaller than what most people have, but I figured that it would be better that way since the rats will be babies when I get them, but the hammocks just look comical in the cage!

I mean, I can always make more since I have tons of fabric still (I haven’t even touched three of the four fabrics) but it’s a bit disappointing since I spent a lot of time making the ones that I did and it feels like such a waste of fabric. Hopefully I’ll be able to find something to do with them. Maybe after I make a few bigger ones and get them into the cage, I’ll find somewhere to put these little puny ones..

September 10th, 2008 by Missy

My darling, adorable, wonderful husband took me to Joann’s yesterday to buy like $100 worth of fabric to make hammocks for my sweet rats! People on goosemoose make and sell hammocks (and for very reasonable prices) but I figured it would be fun and cheaper to make my own. Not to mention, then I can really pick any fabric at all that I want, and don’t need to be limited by what someone else has in stock. I decided to go for an elegant theme with my cage, rather than something cutesy / animal print / etc. Dan picked the red / yellowish one (second from the left) and I picked the rest. We also bought coordinating fleeces to line all of the hammocks (and to make floor liners so we can get right to work on litterbox training the rats) and metal eyelets so they won’t be tempted to chew the attachment points.

Here’s what I’ve completed so far. This is my least favourite of the fabrics (actually the one that Dan picked is, but he picked it so..) so I decided to make my first set of hammocks out of this one, so that I wouldn’t care so much about any mistakes (as, afterall, the ones done in my favourite fabric will hopefully look perfect). I don’t really like the basket thing very much — the handles didn’t work out the way I had been envisioning and the fabric pulled a bit while I was sewing it.. I must not have pinned it well enough. In any case, I’m happy with the standard hammock and the “double decker” hammock. Think I’ll try my hand at a triangular one now!

September 8th, 2008 by Missy

Obsession strikes again. With the rats not coming home until October 10th (we’ve set the date now) and no cage until Thursday, I really haven’t got anything to do that involves rats aside from reading the forums, and there is only so much forum reading that one can do when the community is so small.  Once I pick up the cage I’ll spend countless hours sewing fleece liners / hammocks / cubes / etc but for now.. I can embroider!  This is actually the first completely freehand piece that I’ve done, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I think it looks quite cute, at least.  I do see several things that I would do differently were I to embroider this same thing again (I’d use a different outline stitch, for one) but all in all, I’m happy ^-^  Now if only I’d embroidered it on something other than a huge pair of “I never wear these granny panties”.  If I had known how adorable it would end up being…

September 5th, 2008 by Missy

I promise a longer post tomorrow (complete with excellent picture of Alex as well as a funny story about him that I forgot to impart earlier), but for now I’m just going to bitch about my toe ;-; I stubbed it walking into the garage barefoot. I didn’t realize that the Warhammer board was parked so close to the door and I slammed my little toe right into it and it huuuuurts x.x It’s all red and owie and there’s blood under the nail and I like to whine. A lot.

On a happy note, I put down a deposit on the rats for the children (who am I kidding, they’re totally for me QQ) and they’ll be coming home sometime between October 10-12. We’ve also decided on an FN 141 cage (which is the best ratty cage around, my husband is so good to me) and I’ll be picking that up on the 11th of this month. Gives me a whole month to sew rat hammocks and other various pieces of rat furniture. Yes, I am going to sew rat hammocks.

Also, I don’t care what anyone thinks about rats / rodents. You simply can’t tell me that those rittens aren’t adorable.

August 31st, 2008 by Missy

So we’ve decided that if Anya is a good girl at school and doesn’t get any notes sent home, then on the 12th of September she’ll be allowed to get a little pet.  The preschool class next door to her kindergarten room has a guinea pig and she is quite jealous.  We don’t really want a guinea pig, they’re a little too large, but we managed to talk her into a hamster instead.

It appears, however, that we’ve actually decided on a rat. We’ve contacted some little ratty breeders and fallen in love with the blue one in this picture. You can’t really just have a single rat, however, so we’ll be getting a second ratty as well although we haven’t decided on one. The breeder is going to move this little girl in with a group of other young rats and see who becomes her best friend.

The problem with this is.. now if Anya isn’t good at school I’m going to die. I think I want the rat more than she does QQ I probably shouldn’t have started looking until closer to the “good until” date, but with pets that are uncommon (rats, degus, certain birds, etc) it can take a while to locate a reputable breeder with good little pets. I managed to find one quite quickly, however..

Oh man, she had better be good!

On a Warhammer note, I’ve started work on painting my ghouls. I’ve actually tested out a few paint schemes and hated them all like.. utterly. The one I’m working on right now will actually be using the same pinkish flesh as the wings on my Varghulf and I will (hopefully) tone it down to be a bit more greenish on the larger bits of skin. Anyway, we’ll see how it comes out.