Purple PC's, Pyromania and My Mother has Finally Lost It

Here are the two cards I started AND finished today! Both used my embellishing machine. ( I realized I had a bunch more needles still in my extra needle case) The top one I sort of wove some velvet strips against some hand dyed silk strips, then embellished them in with some fuzzy fibers, then I took it out and sort of FME'd all over it with invisible thread. The bottom one was hairier...in that I used a lot of teensy snips of fabrics and put them on the batting, then I had to keep adding and adding and adding to fill in the blank spots. It took me HOURS!! it was fun, though and I played around with the colors and added a few orange snips to break up the purple a teeny bit. I like that one...I'd sort of like to keep it :) I also sewed over that one, but with purple embroidery thread.
I also finished the grape card from the other day, then put some green embossing powder on the leaves and tried to heat it...it looked kinda sick. so I added a little more...not too much better. So, I got some clear UTEE and put it over it, hoping to get a shine...but every time I aimed the heat gun on it, it would scatter! Very frustrating. So, I got the idea...I'll heat from the BOTTOM of the card so that the powder will stick a tiny bit, then I'll continue on heating from the top. Um, let me tell you, batting does not stand up well to a heat gun. Just take my word on that one.
My adventures in embossing/heating have mostly been miserable failures. Either I don't heat it enough, or I heat it so much that something explodes in flames. Usually, it is something that is NOT related to my project, though. Like the styrofoam plate nearby, or the whole open container of embossing powder that is in the path of the heat gun. I was sort of intrigued to see the effect of the burned away batting, though. The top is heavily FME'd and when the batting burned (or really, it just melted) the stitching didn't melt. This would make some killer lace-y effects. I think I remember trying something like this with felt, but the felt would NOT melt at ALL, and it shorted out my stupid heat gun. Like I said, my adventures with ol heatgun are not the best.
Here is the cuteness of the day (don't tell MY cats, they'll be insane with jealousy!) My mom just scored the cutest little rescue kitten. Here is his first pic!

I have just been informed that his name is this. Get ready. TCKITEHOTU. oh yeah...What? Never heard of that? It is apparently pronounced "Chiquita-hotu" and what does THAT mean, you might ask? No, it is not some ancient Mayan ruin. It stands for (T)he (C)utest (K)itten (I)n (T)he (E)ntire (H)istory (O)f (T)he (U)niverse. I shite you not. I'm going to start filling out the guardianship papers tomorrow.