going up a crazy level.

Just in case you aren't following me on Instagram or Twitter - here is what I was doing Monday night:

What is this you may wonder? Why it was my birthday celebration for one of my favourite Instagram cats - Seamus! It was also a perfect excuse to get an ice cream cake and enter the Seamus and Angus birthday contest - which I ended up winning! Looks like my cat loving craziness has moved up to a whole new level. I'll keep you updated with what my mystery winnings is when it arrives. What's the most ridiculous thing you've ever done? 

one of these things is not like the other...

(source)

Polymer Clay Cat Brooch

As part of my polymer clay making rampage I took a little detour from bead and necklace making and tried my hand at cat face brooches.  I really do love kittens and even though I will probably never own one I can certainly own hypoallergenic pins of them! Take a peek:

Me-ow! I am super happy with how they turned out and liked making the different faces and patterns on the cats.  It also gave me another opportunity to try to master tiny little paint strokes which is super challenging.  I often see crafts and projects people make and wonder how the heck they create things so effortlessly.  Painting tiny details is actually really hard and these pins were far from effortless at my skill level - but practise does seem to me improving my abilities.

I really love the little orange cat the most with his smug expression perfect for the label of a jacket:

and in case you are concerned how you will be attaching said brooch - I glued on a nice sized bar pin with epoxy:

So what do you think? Are you big into brooches? or cats? or both!?!

Hell of a Caturday

When I came across this image I just had to share it! Behold the ultimate in cute geekiness:

(source)

If you weren't already aware, my husband Fraser is a big geek.  I thought it was a pretty standard assumption but when I had my friend Maureen over a few weeks back I was showing her Fraser's studio (where is nerd-dom flourishes) as part of the condo tour.  She saw all of his war hammer and war machine little painted dudes all over and reacted with, "I didn't know Fraser was THAT much of a geek!"  Yep. He sure is. It's wonderful. That being said - Hellboy was one of his favourite comic characters when I met him many moons ago and since kitties are my favourite animal this picture is a lovely fusion of our likes! Yay! I mean look at those little faces and paws!! Adorable! Happy Caturday everyone! What geek level are you at? 

pusheen!

I've been a fan of Pusheen the cat for quite some time.  He's everything I love - adorable, a cat, chubs, and full of personality! If you haven't browsed through his blog I definitely recommend it (link) when you're craving some cute gifs. 

Fraser also happens to be a Pusheen fan so this past xmas I decided to make him his own version of our favourite little grey and black pal in crochet form! Isn't he a cutie?

Oh Pusheen! He melts my heart every time I see him and I can just imagine all the cat-like hijinks he gets into when we aren't home (most of which probably involve binge eating). 

He was pretty quick to whip up and probably would have only taken one evening if I wasn't trying to make him behind Fraser's back and not spoil the surprise. I got the pattern here (link) and since I'm quite proficient in amigurumi, found it super simple to follow along. The only change I made was using slightly larger safety eyes than the ones recommended. I am super thrilled with how he turned out and he is now enjoying his new home on our radio in the living room! Hooray! Are you a loyal Pusheen follower too? 

Calling all Cat Lovers!

This may be old news to those of you who surf around the internet regularly - but have you heard about Cat Island? Its a tiny little island off of Japan that originally brought in cats to deal with a mouse problem. After some time the cats have taken over and outnumber its human residence 6 to 1! Just check out these darling feral felines:

(source)

Unfortunately there is no where to actually STAY on the island - but you can take a short ferry ride there for a visit! Oh that would be fun! So many fluffy kitties! I particularly like this picture:

(source)

Yay! Looks like I'm doing this trip alone since the majority of my friends aren't that into cats and the hubs is ridiculously allergic to them. I don't think an allergy pill would help when you're surrounded by 120 kitties...shucks...

Caturday in Space!

This image pretty much made my day so hopefully it will bring some space-tastic cheer to your day as well!

(source)

Happy Caturday! I'm hoping the silliness and cuteness of this picture will get me through a morning of (very dreaded but necessary) bathing suit shopping. Ack. What are your plans? 

bring on the jewels

I somehow managed to whip out a week of blog posts despite my insane schedule (and important project procrastination...oops)! Hurray! Someone bring on the celebratory jewels! No? Wishful thinking perhaps? Probably. Oh well. Since it's caturday anyways this bedazzled kitty will have to do:

(source)

Me-ow. Happy weekend and extra happy thanksgiving weekend to my fellow Canadian pals! 

Rawr

Happy Caturday! I will hopefully be spending my weekend doing something similarly awesome as this kitty who is death battling godzilla:

(source)

Who am I kidding - nothing could be that awesome. Let's aim for relaxing and enjoyable instead. What are your weekend plans?

still swamped

Well blog pals, it seems I still appear to be super bogged down with life these days. I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised since complete home renovations, a wedding, and moving (while struggling with illness and work) are hard enough on their own - let alone all at the same time! Whew! I keep flipping between feeling like I'm finally making some headway and then a moment later I'm borderline disaster. Oh dear. I'm thinking of locking myself in my house until I manage to get it all organized but I have a feeling I may become as cranky and isolated as this dear friend:

(source)

Ahaha! Oh that glare. Yup - the outside world is probably best for my sanity and I will just keep plugging away at the renos so I can stop living out of a suitcase one of these days and maybe even get to writing wedding thank you cards! Oh what a thought! How is your fall lining up? 

oh dear

This picture makes my heart happy:

(source)

Don't you wish you were all cuddled up with a giant cute bear too? Maybe that's just me. I have been spending entirely too much time resting lately - but it's on doctors orders! My costochondritis (a.k.a. this awful chest inflammation that feels like I have an elephant constantly pressing down on my chest making it much too difficult to breathe) hasn't left me alone. It's been going on since May and with no signs of improvement I've had to take leave from work and focus all my attention on healing up so I can hopefully survive the summer (and my wedding - which is in less than a month now)! Eeps! I will try my best to keep the blog updated when I'm feeling spry, but this flare up is really throwing a kink in things. Rats. Alas - I'm sure I will now be very experienced with what a heart attack feels like and will only grow from the situation! So if it's quiet around here it's probably because I am napping...What have you been up to lately?

Ninja Attack!

Apparently I'm all about the entertaining images this week - and today's post is no exception. Behold - one cat with ninja skills and a photographer with awesome timing:

(source)

I sort of have a feeling you'd see that flying orange fur ball in your peripheral vision...but perhaps not. Cats sure are sneaky little stinkers aren't they?  

Math Meme

I must say there is nothing quite like a lolcat math joke:

(source)

Ahaha! How enjoyable! Now if only it was was showing an acute angle and not something closer to a right one... How is your week going? See anything cute lately? 

Supreme Cat

This picture certainly made my day - and hopefully you will find it similarly entertaining:

(source)

Supreme cat indeed! What are your big plans for the week? Anything involving chinese food boxes on your head?

peek!

(source)

It seems that I'm fighting off some sort of awful illness so while I'm resting up you can enjoy this lovely image of a cat in a paper bag. I think the eyes make it. Wishing you a happy end of the week and weekend! 

It's Wednesday

Life has been so ultra busy these days that despite it being the middle of the week I feel like I still need a rest to get over all the energy I exerted last weekend! Oh my! I think this sums up how I'm feeling quite nicely:

(source)

Yup, I'm just a big white fluff ball pooled into a pile today! I had a nice impromptu visit with Fraser this past weekend and now that he's back to the grind in Kamloops I will hopefully be able to pull myself back together into less of a mess. Or at the very least I'm hoping to make it through the rest of the week so I can get some quality rest this weekend! How wild! How is your week going? 

meowy wednesday!

It's official - I have a new favourite internet cat. Her name is Meme, she looks amazingly similar to Pudge (link), and I just love following her Instagram feed (link)! I'm not sure what it is about those calico exotic short haired kitties but I'm a sucker for them! Just look how darling that little cat yawn is:

(source)

Oh Meme - you're so cute! In other fun life news - Lindsay has decided to pop by the island for a last minute (very much overdue) visit for a few days and we will be having some relaxingly good times! Hooray! Meme and Lindsay! What a Wednesday! 

I need a suitcase like this one...

Here's 10 seconds of cuteness for you:

I love the little fuzzy paw poking out! Fraser sent me the link to this video and I am loving how Fraser has converted into a cat person! Sure he's super allergic - but I think he has a thing for the exotic shorthairs! Hooray! We're still no where near ever getting a cat anytime soon - but it's so nice that he is enjoying them with me now! How about you? Have you ever slowly converted the likes of a loved one? 

Friday Naps please

After a long work week the life of a cat looks pretty appealing right about now. In fact - this little image sums the spoiled life up pretty nicely:

(source)

Ahaha! Why yes, I could go for a snack and a sleep right about now. Then onto a productive weekend of cleaning and organizing (assuming my rheumatic flare up cooperates)! Hooray! Happy Weekend! 

The cat shoes saga - part 2

Ever since I saw the cute kitten shoe project I wrote about yesterday (link), I can't get it out of my mind!  Perhaps it's the longer hours of daylight and slightly warmer temperatures out there but I am ready for spring and think some cat toed shoes will start it off with a bang! I thought I may have an old pair of flats kicking around that would do well for the project but since I just went through my closets and donated four black garbage bags of goodies to a swap I've come up dry and decided I will need to invest in a new cheap pair for this project!

Turns out - the search for simple and paintable footwear is slightly more difficult than expected! I thought for sure I'd find some reasonably craft-able flats at walmart or forever 21 but no such luck. My search continued at the mall (ack!) where I checked out all the awkward cheap teeny bopper stores and found nothing that wasn't insanely embellished with medallions or bows or ruffles or something that covered the toe. Rats. I finally decided it wasn't very likely I'd find anything around the $10 mark I was hoping for, and turned to Payless as a hopefully still somewhat reasonably inexpensive option. The result? Success (sort of)! I landed myself a surprisingly comfortable pair of simple black shoes and only went $6 over my original budget:

(source)

Yay! Now I just need to decide what colour cat I should paint on the toe! (Note: this is where you come in)! Sure it's easy to paint a cute darker cat toe on the brown shoes from the tutorial, but there isn't anything darker than black and going too light would mean that any eventual dirt would show and make those puss-kins less than adorable (or at least that's how I picture it turning out). I thought I might be able to come up with something in photoshop but after a little experimentation I'm still waffling. Check out a few rough ideas of colours I was leaning towards:

I figure there are two options here. Option 1 - go with somewhat naturally cat coloured like brown or grey cat (since white would be awful and orange would look too halloween-y) or Option 2 - something non-cat coloured but still cute enough to work most outfits (like the teal on the far left there)! Hmm....I'm stumped. I thought I'd pass it along to you lovely gals out there and hear what colour option you'd go with (if you're the cat shoe type) and see if you'd be kind enough to share some input. Any thoughts?