Good morning!
Here’s a preview of the 2021 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendar A. Please check for your pets and make sure that all your pets are there, that the names are right, that we have the right name with the right pet, etc.
If you asked for a heart or a rainbow for a pet who is no longer with us, please check for that, too. We may end up with all hearts. We are using hearts and not rainbows, so I hope that isn’t too much of a disappointment for anyone.
You can check the links in the sidebar to see the month your pets are in.
Click on each image and then use Ctrl+ to enlarge so you can read everything. Then hit the back arrow to go back to the post.
We plan to have Calendar B ready for review later today.
These are really low-resolution for posting on the blog, but the calendar itself is very high resolution.
Trigger warning: (beautiful) snake in October
Cover: (this gorgeous cover photo is by Stephanie L)
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
zhena gogolia
I would like to order elebenty million.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I think we will have the calendars will be set up to order on Cafe Press by the end of the day, as promised.
jackmac
Thumbs up! Looks great (and I love the cover image). Can’t wait to order.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
My boys look awesome! Thank you!
WaterGirl
So many cute, handsome and adorable pets!
Lower resolution photos had to be smaller so they wouldn’t be fuzzy. We are thinking of maybe having a photography post about resolution early-ish in 2021 so everybody knows how to take and save a photo that is high enough resolution to be showy in the calendar.
Lyrebird
Awwwwwww I so needed that.
Will buy at least one for the Leaping Over Tikka shot alone.
Are the little hearts for pets that have passed on?
WaterGirl
@Lyrebird: Yes, that is what the little hearts are for. :: sniff ::
rikyrah
The pictures are beautiful ❤️
HinTN
Got no dog in the Calendar A hunt, but Sophie in May is adorbs. Yes, I’ll be buying one of these. Thanks for wrangling this, WaterGirl.
Elizabelle
Those pets have some great names.
And November has Steeplejack’s late, great The Housecat on her heated throw??
They’re all beautiful pets.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Yep, that’s Steep’s Stella, but we know her as the housecat, so we decided that was her proper name for the calendar.
Luciamia
Wonderful!
And so many cats!
MazeDancer
Such good girls and boys!
danielx
Two thumbs way up for Toto in January!
Also for house rulers Natasha, Boris and Zoey in September. If you want their undivided attention, make a roast beef sandwich. Works every time….
ETA: never seen a picture of Tikka without a baleful expression.
zhena gogolia
Lil Bit is on my December calendar this morning.
K488
The whole thing is gorgeous, and my three sweeties are looking good in March! Thanks for all the hard work, and I can’t wait to order one.
geg6
Lovey in July and Koda in August and then Cleo in November look as lovely as they do in real life. Can’t wait to order. Love all the other pets, too!
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@WaterGirl:
I recently bought Gigapixel AI to enlarge my own lower resolution pictures and it works pretty well.
Topaz Labs offers a 30 day trial of it if you want to see if it’ll work well with the lower resolution pics.
Or you could post a pic in this thread and I can give it a whirl for you.
WaterGirl
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman): It’s too late for this year, because the calendars are essentially done.
You know more than I do, because it’s my understanding that it’s not possible go from lower to higher. But all I really know about photography is that I don’t take very good pictures. :-)
I’ll check with Beth and see if she has a good test photo. thanks
BC in Illinois
Looks great!
And, on a related topic, Alexandra Petri has an article up on the top cats under consideration for the position of White House pet.
“All would have to undergo vetting.”
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl:
Stella. At her workstation in the sky. Always with a heated throw.
pat
So many tuxedos!
And so many bellies waiting for a rub.
I couldn’t tell, is that a rainbow or a heart next to Susy Q (December)?
Thank you, can’t wait to order one.
Ruckus
It’s beautiful.
The pets are beautiful.
Yes please.
Kristine
Gaby looks great in June!
it really is lovely. The cover is something else. Congratulations and many thanks for all your hard work.
raven
@zhena gogolia: She was a good little doggie.
WaterGirl
@pat: The calendar pages up top are at a really low resolution for this post. The heart shows as kind of a blob because it’s so low res. This is what the heart really looks like in the high resolution calendar.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: I do the herding and the collecting and the organizing and the communicating. Beth gets to do the design, so she gets full credit for the beauty of the calendar.
The cover really is something else. Same two cats for the Calendar B cover, just a different picture.
TaMara (HFG)
I just stopped by to say, all of the Pets of Balloon-Juice are adorable and I could squish each and every one of them (okay, maybe just nose boop the snake).
pat
@WaterGirl:
I wasn’t able to enlarge it that much. Thanks, altho I thought it would be a rainbow.
Gravenstone
Quite the tuxedo line up in January. A very high class way to ring in the year.
WaterGirl
@pat: Did you see the note up top about the hearts and rainbows?
Beth is having trouble finding a good high resolution rainbow that does look like a half donut. :-) If she finds one, rainbow pets will still get rainbows, otherwise, they may all be hearts.
WaterGirl
@Gravenstone: So many cats this year! We are wondering if the dogs went on strike!
Scamp Dog
Biscuit looks good. Thanks for putting her in!
cain
Everything looks lovely!! One thing Watergirl – I don’t see my dog Trixie – I think that was uploaded. There is a Trixie – sweet cat, but not mine :-)
UncleEbeneezer
Wonderful! So many adorable faces and clever names. And we got quite a morning kick out of just saying “Juniper” again! Thanks for putting this together. :)
BigJimSlade
Holy cow, that cover pic is beautiful! And great job all around :-)
Chas M
There’s a photo of Byron and Sanders snuggling in Feb that was from a phone and you said was too small resolution… I sent 2 replacement pix, one of each of them (the Sanders pix is in July and looks great), but the replacement of Byron poking his head thru some blinds didn’t make it in. Is it too late to swap out the 2 of them hugging for the one of Byron? If not, no problem, but I just wanted to point out the mixup. Thanks
Chas M
Also.. I just happened to look thru the B list, and “Christine A.” with ‘Byron and Who?’ listed, is my wife, and that ‘Byron and Who’ is the above photo in Feb. So, obviously you don’t have to include that again in the B calendar.
jnfr
This makes me cry because I miss my two kitties so much, but all the pets are lovely to see. Excellent cover pic too.
Wolvesvalley
Daphne in October and Chloe in December are fine.
Who knew there were so many black and black-and-white tuxedo cats among the jackals?
Just Some Fuckhead
Little disappointed May doesn’t feature any bulls, bulldogs, bull terriers or bull mastiffs.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: So in this case, Dem organizing was LITERALLY “herding cats!”
UncleEbeneezer
@jnfr: Yup. We had that same combination of joy/sadness seeing our late doggy too. My condolences to you. It’s only been 90 days for us and it’s still hard.
Miss Bianca
So lovely, and yes, I will be ordering one of each! Particularly since proceeds go to my favorite animal welfare league! : )
I was in the local radio station the other day and saw one of the board members for Wet Mountain Animal Welfare. (She was getting her punk/goth show, my favorite, ready for airing.) She sang the praises of Balloon Juice. I just smiled and said, “right on”.
pat
@WaterGirl:
Either is fine. I missed the bit about the rainbows.
Thanks for the reply.
MissWimsey
@WaterGirl:
Lily the guinea pig’s named is misspelled in August. Can that be fixed? It should be “Lily.” Otherwise the trio of pets I submitted as good to go! The whole calendar is beautiful!
Facebones
Everything looks great for Danerys in August! Thank you for all your hard work.
Van Buren
Perfect from the Van Buren pack.
I want to pet them all.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
So nice and so great for you doing this.
WaterGirl
@cain: Thanks for bringing that to our attention.
That “cat” actually was your Trixie, but the pic was so small it that Trixie looked like a cat.
Trixie is now in September, and the Sept & Oct images have been replaced.
WaterGirl
@Chas M: @Chas M:
I had emailed Christine and emailed but no response. Yes, we finally figured out last night that it must be the same Sanders, and the other “who” must be Byron – because there was a Sanders & Who, and there was also a Sanders and a Byron.
Can you send me an email with the pic of Byron with the blinds? No promises, but I will check to see if we can do something.
WaterGirl
@Chas M: Yeah, I haven’t updated the B calendar list yet – I will do that after Calendar B is complete and Beth and I have done the final check.
So yeah we took Christine off of the B calendar when we finally figured out that you guys were the same. :-)
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: That sailed right over my head. What did I miss?
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: That would be correct. :-)
WaterGirl
@MissWimsey: Oops. Lily was right in the spreadsheet, and when we did our final check, we would say “lilly with two Ls” or Trixie with an “ie”, but we missed that one!
Totally fixable. That’s why we put this up, so we can catch everything. :-)
Quiltingfool
Thank you for this! The photo of Baby looks great. I can hardly wait to order both calendars!
MissWimsey
@WaterGirl: no worries! Seeing all of these pets is wonderful! Thanks!
jnfr
@UncleEbeneezer:
Thanks.
Jess
What an awesome job you all did! I’m so impressed! I can’t wait to see calendar B with my Remy in it…
BruceFromOhio
Patiently waiting for Cal B and ordering information ….
(watches clock)
Sandia Blanca
Hallie in May and Teddy in November look great! Thank you.
WaterGirl
All changes made:
Lilly -> LIly
Peter & Nebula -> Nebula & Peter
We were able to sneak in a tiny photo of Byron looking through the blinds.
Dan B
It’s interesting to see which photos of our kitties you selected. I sent in quite a few in response to your repeated requests for photos. I thought you might be short but, voila, two packed calenders!
cain
@WaterGirl:
LOL – thank you! :) Poor Trixie – I was kind of amazed there was another Trixie hah :)
daize
@WaterGirl:
Stella The Housecat looks just as I pictured her. You can see how much she was loved. Sweet kitty.
The calendar is beautiful. Thank you so much.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: I hope we picked the best ones. :-)
It’s like a combination of art and science. resolution, portrait vs. landscape, which photos might fit with the various themes in the calendar, what other people sent in, etc.
WaterGirl
@daize: Seeing the housecat is bittersweet. More sweet, of course, but I get a little teary about her when I see that pictures.
tinare
Beautiful. Love the cover photo.
Rochelle
Awesome!
Waldo
@WaterGirl: Looks like there’s a space in Batman’s name (bottom right in Feb.) Should be solid. Not a big deal to me, but I don’t want to give him anything else to brood about. Thanks!
DavidG
Thanks for using my Morty in August and my gf’s Sophie in may. Next year I may go higher pixels. Great calendar!
WaterGirl
@Waldo: Space is gone, February image updated up top.
Funny, when Beth and I were double-checking Calendar B right before I put up this post, we were talking about how adorable Batman is and how much he really looks like Batman.
Neither one of us noticed the extra space in the name.
The Fat White Duchess
WaterGirl and Beth, thank you for the hard work on this. Best calendars ever!
Villago Delenda Est
Darby Dog is a dapper dog!
And Mocha is just fine, thank you! Great work WaterGirl and Beth!
WaterGirl
We plan to upload the calendar to Cafe Press around 11am, so if you haven’t done so already, please check your pets in the calendars and let us know if there are any changes needed.
There is a Calendar section in the sidebar. The spreadsheets tell you whether your guys are in Calendar A or Calendar B, and what month they are in. The bottom two link take you to the threads with the calendar images so you can check those.
Thank you!
Villago Delenda Est
I’ve placed my order, but interestingly enough, I can’t refresh the main page to see today’s posts. It’s stuck on Friday for some obscure reason…probably the cache is jammed. I blame Bill Gates.