2017 Cat Lovers Hop Blog Candy Giveaway Winners and Puzzle Answers

Well, the tuna can is opening and I see you’re all gathering around to see if you’re going to like what comes out! lol!

It was another fabulous hop and I am already counting the days until next year’s hop!!

Let’s start out with the answers to the puzzles (and hints):

*** Congrats to the one smart cat who got every answer correct!! ***

#1.  The instructions were to “find all the words that contain the letters C-A-T in order. Words can run up, down, across, backwards and vertically, but always in a straight line. Now, not including the words CAT or CATS, how many different words did you find that have ‘CAT’ in them? (With no exact duplicates.)”

Earlier in the week I mistakenly hinted there were 24 words with CAT in them (just like there were 24 hop sponsors). Sorry! Too many rough drafts and I lost one of the words. lol! Therefore, I accepted both 24 and 25 as correct answers to #1 (plus one word is archaic, anyway, as you’re about to find out, not to mention an old English word that only one person found (it wasn’t me!)).

Here is the correct list of 25 words that contain the letters C-A-T in order:

Oh, and one smarty pants found an Italian word – PACATA, which means calm, but we’re sticking to English words only. And another well read individual wondered about CATEL (an olde English word from Chaucer, meaning property)… I would have allowed it, if it would have gotten her the right answer for #1. I vaguely remember trudging through Chaucer, but a quick search found this good quote using CATEL:

“For loss of catel may recovered be, But loss of tyme shendeth us,” quod he. – Chaucer

Let us not shamefully lose any more time then… Onward!… to the hints!

Yes, CATSUP is another way to spell ketchup in English!

I’m sure you caught my hint that a bunch of cows (CATTLE) and a type of orchid CATTLEYA have several letters in common – and they ARE smack dab in the middle of the puzzle. : )   ( I really want to find a Cattleya that looks like a cow now!)

Another hint was not to forget to look for words within words and you might have caught that complicated gave you 3 words (COMPLICATE, COMPLICATED AND CATE- if you hadn’t used it elsewhere as I did below in vindiCATE).

Speaking of CATE, although you can only use it once… CATE, which means ‘a dainty or choice food, a delicacy’ is in there 6 times. If you’re like me, you’ve added a new word to your vocabulary of archaic words.

Perhaps you got the hint that words like DELICATE and CATER were backwards.

You couldn’t’ve missed the hint that 7 words crossed the T in the exact middle of the puzzle. (CATASTROPHE, SCAT, SCATHE, SCATHED, CATATONIC, CATTLE & CATTLEYA)

I  highlighted the words in the puzzle in case you’re interested in finding them all, although I know a few of you who would rather never see this puzzle again. lol!

Now I need to go and PACATA-ly eat a few chocolate CATES!

#2. Instructions: “Take the leftover/unused letters and unscramble them to fill in the blanks:   __  __  __  __  __    the    __  __  __       __  __  __  __  __  __       __  __  __ !”

The clue to #2 was:  “I bet you can guess the last three words quite easily… wink-wink” And I sneakily hid another clue in one of my last Instagram posts for the hop: the first word of #2 is the same as one of the words you found in #1

The leftover letters were CVE SH OO APHC TR LATC

and they spelled out…

CATCH the CAT LOVERS HOP!

Most of you got that right – even if you didn’t get # 1 right… amazing!

#3. And the bonus words with the letters C-A-T in reverse order in them were:

TACIT, TACO and TACT

Since I am one lazy cat who is quite ready for a nap, I’ll let you go back and find those on your own if you missed any.

Speaking of tacos….. here is Sam (interviewed for last year’s hop HERE), doing his impression of a TACO:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sam (@samhaseyebrows)

Of a total of 8 possible entries per person, the average from all who replied was 6, so you all did quite well! A big round of apPAWse to each of you!!

Now, I’m sure your tails are impatiently flipping back and forth and you’re going bananas waiting to pounce on the next announcement:

I grouped the entries into USA (39 total) and international (5 total), assigned numbers to each correct answer and bonus entry, in the order they were received, and then asked Random.org to draw a random number for each group.

For the USA prize     the winner is:

MICHELE H. of CRIMSON OWL CREATIONS

For the International prize    the winner is:

FIT KITTY!

And, a surprise third prize (yet to be determined) goes to the one person who got all the answers – and who just happens to have been our hardworking hostess who put in MANY long hours behind the scenes to bring us this fun event… Congrats to:

JANIS of HER PEACEFUL GARDEN

Congrats,   MICHELE, FIT KITTY and JANIS!! You each have 72 hours to claim your new CATEL by contacting me with your snail-mail info at d.annscraftingwhims (at) gmail (dot com) or I will draw a different winner. (That’s by 11am EASTERN time on Thursday, November 2, 2017.)

Thank you all for your kind comments and support! I wish I had gifts for you all!  Next year I may make a category for the funniest comment as several of you gave me some good chuckles, too… thanks! Let’s hope for better kitty themed results while I’m perusing the clearance bins this year for next years prize(s)!! That helps me stay in budget and still occasionally add in some extra fun for my loyal followers.

Upcoming events: In January I have some posts planned on craft storage… something I have to work on in my studio apartment! In March, there will likely be another Coffee Lovers Hop and my 3rd blog anniversary falls then. Since I wasn’t well enough to celebrate this year, I hope to do something special come March. I also feel that my whims are going to take me into some other cool crafts very soon. Plus, I have some cool travel and nature posts from the past year or so that I haven’t been able to post yet. So, do come back often and, if you don’t want to miss anything, feel free to subscribe to my blog, follow me on Instagram, or follow me on Pinterest. Thank you.

Until we meet again for a week of crafty fur therapy, y’all take care!

– D.Ann

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If you’re still here reading, I guess I must’ve trained you to look for one final treat, eh?!

There! Now, off you go to clean up the craftermath from the hop!