Ninja Fetus Stickers!

That's right! They're finally here! UPS just brought me my awesome Fort Cloudy/Ninja Fetus stickers and I couldn't be more stoked! If you want one let me know! Ninja@fortcloudy.com

Perfect for: cars, street poles, bar bathrooms, walls, note books, sewing kits, mirrors, and so much more!

Dynasty! Yum!

So the Ninja Fetus was feeling a bit peckish. He's quite the hungry little fetus, you know? Still growing and all. So, in little ninja language, he voiced a desire for Asian cuisine. Happy to fulfill his request, it was off we went to Dynasty for some veggie dumplings and won ton soup. However, it was the pineapple fantasy drink that really captured his attention. Half of it was gone before the soup arrived. A little tipsy , fetus excused himself. As he passed the fish tank, sighs of admiration could be heard by the school of fish. When he returned, he signed autographs and posed for photos. They were grateful. He's a good little fetus.


By: Mari-Claire from beeczarcardsandgifts

Wine Country

Well, I have to say, I really enjoy to city life that I've been leading, but it is so nice to get out into the country every once in a while! Fort, Mama, and Littlest Cloudy's all took me along to a family owned and operated winery, Linganore Plantations, out near New Market, Maryland. Mama and Fort have been really getting into Maryland wines at our weekly Pasta Sunday Dinner.
Linganore Planations produces about 125,000 gallons of wine per year and offer a variety of dry, semi-sweet, and dessert wines, as well as an awesome selection of fruit wines (I think we all decided that the Strawberry was out favorite). The wine tasting was really neat, we were able to sample almost every wine that they offered, plus we picked up some really great tips! Cooking tips like replacing the water in your brownie mix with the raspberry wine, mixing tips like combining their Skipjack wine with the blueberry one, serving tips like pouring some wine over your ice cream when eating, eating certain wines with chocolate to enhance favor, and my favorite, placing frozen grapes in the bottom of your wine glass instead of ice cubes to prevent diluting the wine while keeping it cold.
The tour was really great too! We saw (a picture of) the machine they use to gather the grapes (which they've only had since 2000 before that they did everything by hand?!?), the slicer which pierces the skin, the squisher (which is so effective at getting the juice out of the grape that by the time its done you would be unable to get a single drop of juice out of the skin), the large holding tanks where the wine ferments, and the bottling and corking room.

After the tour we finished the wine tasting and headed for the racks. About 12 bottles later and meeting Mrs. Linganore Plantions, herself, we were ready to head home and pop open a bottle of wine that best suited our Italian themed dinner.

In a few weeks we'll be checking out the Solomon's Island Winery! I think we're all excited for that one!

Adventures with Mari-Claire

Ninja Fetus, got the late night munchies so a road trip was in order. We passed a Taco Bell but that was not gonna do for him. What he was really craving were some french fries. So, it was off to Wendy's for a large order of salt and greasy goodness. He did remark along the way that he missed Fort Cloudy terribly and even shed a tear when he saw the highway sign for NEW YORK CITY!! I heard him utter(in Ninja Fetus language).................... Sarah *sniff*. He's still adjusting.

Written by Mari-Claire of Beeczarcardsandgifts

Cupcake?

Cupcake, anyone? Yesterday I headed back up to Etsylabs for the Cupcakes takes the Cake Cupcake party. It was put on by the NY Cupcake Club (they meet up about once a month). This month they had their get together at Etsylabs for a craft and munch party. Crumbs Bakeshop was wonderful enough to sponsor the event and send along some of their super deliciousness. And when I say super deliciousness, I firmly believe that's an understatement! I could not stop eatting the cupcakes! They had cookies and cream, carmel chew, cookie dough, red velvet, caramel apple, I could go on and on.
The event even received press in Time Out which introduced a lot of cool new people not only to the cupcake club, but to Etsy as well! I got there about an hour after the party got under way and when I walked in there were people everywhere excitedly making their cupcake themed crafts.
I ended up helping a lot of people with their projects rather than making my own, but I did get a little bit of time to make a cupcake birthday card for CubistLiterature (whose bday is today, yay Happy Birthday Craig!). I also got to catch up with Mellowbeing and Haasome, who were busily making embroidered crafts.


Like all my trips to New York so far, it was an amazing time! This party was such a great idea and I'm really happy that I decided to go up and be a part of it! But Baltimore will hold a Sunday adventure so I left New York and headed off into the Sunset.

Makin' Friends

Have you had the privilege of meeting THE UglyKitty?! Her name is Quasi. She's fantasticly sweet and is the spokesperson for kitties in need. She helps raise and donates it to some wonderful cat causes.
She invited me over for lunch, so we got to hang out and play. It was awesome! But it did get a little rough.. Have you seen the bandaids? Ouch....

All photos courtesy of the UglyKitty flickr photo stream.

More Etsy Labs Adventures

Wowie! What a weekend. Sorry its taken me a while to blog again, still recovering from all the adventures. This past weekend Fort Cloudy, Ugly Kitty, Supa Fly Monkey, and I headed up to New Jersey and New York for an exciting encounter with the great folks up at Etsylabs for the CREST (Capital Region Etsy Street Team) Trunk Show.
Our first stop was New Jersey on Thursday night. UglyKitty has family there and they offered to let us stay the night and bake treats in the morning for the show. Little did I know, however, how dangerous these treats would be! I thought I was going to eat them and wound up being attacked by them! Crab cakes.... you gotta watch out for crab cakes...

To be honest, the Kitty and the Cloud did most of the work.. Supa Fly flew me around the house on his back for the majority of the time we were there. He's a really great guy! I hope we have a lot more adventures together! Plus, who doesn't want a friend that can fly?!?

The Trunk Show was really great! I heard there we about 80 people that came out to party with us. The food was incredibly, the items for sale were awesome, and the company couldn't have been better. They even set up the workshop on Etsy so people could join the party online! Cloudy and I really like going to the Labs. I strongly encourage you to visit if you haven't! The people that work there are amazingly nice and they have just about every crafting tool you could ever dream to use. I got to hang out with Sarah the Etsy attorney for a bit, she told me about her article in Bead and Button magazine, and was kind enough to take a picture with me!

I think we all had a great, great time! Saturday we headed up to the Brooklyn Indie Market (which seems really awesome!) and then rode around of the subway all day. I love going to New York and will hopefully have a lot more adventures there over the next couple months! If you have any suggestions on what I should do while I'm up there definitely let me know! I just got an email so if you ever feel inclined, drop me a line! ninja@fortcloudy.com Till next time!