Cat Tchotchkies

One of the coolest things about being a crazy cat lady is buying adorable cat tchotchkies for the household.  And in this day and age, getting your hands on some cool cat merch is a mere Google search away.  It is probably no surprise to all of you that my house is littered with feline fancy decor, especially since I work for a popular home furnishing store that loves to adorn pieces with cats, cats, and more cats.  And while I've been known to do some shameless posting on Instagram anytime I acquire a new piece to my cat decor collection, I haven't shared toooooooo much of it on this blog yet.

And I've been running my own one woman sweatshop trying to get ready for next month's pop-up market, so basically I have sucked at blogging.  I really wanted to change that, but didn't want to just keep posting photos of my works in progress (as much as I love them!).  So I decided that featuring some of my favorite cat decor items would be a welcome change.  Hopefully you will agree!

I must admit that in preparing this blog post, I had a really tough time narrowing down which items I actually wanted to feature.  Don't get me wrong, I did consider picture-spamming the heck out of this post just to show off my kitty collection, but a top 3 is probably much more tolerable.  Less is more, yes?  And if you enjoy this post, then at least I will have more goodies to show off in the future rather than spoil them all in one obnoxious post.

Without further ado, here are some of the fancy cats (besides Prince Roland, of course) of my household!

This Cat and Birdcage Bookend Set from Pier 1 is by far one of my favorite items.  I love that it has a Victorian feel to it, and it's extremely well-made.  The cat/bird combo also tickles my fancy...growing up, we had lots of pet birds and I still love them almost as much as cats.  But my husband hates them, and I'm pretty sure Roland would eat a bird were there one in our house.  And I love both of them much more than birds, so I'm cool settling for the inanimate version!

Here is a good story (maybe?  by my standards, it's good, at least...) about these prints.  First off, I recieved them sooooooo randomly.  My dad renovates mobile homes, and often times, the old owners leave things they don't want rather than take them to a dumpster...and every now and again, there lies a hidden gem in the rubble.  These two prints were such gems, and my dad brought them home to see if I wanted them.  I have to say that usually the man doesn't choose things that match my taste, but he scored a major home run with these babies.  Pretty sure he had no idea that these are totally in line with my aesthetic, either!  The girl in these prints looks a lot like a Blythe doll, and I have collected those for years now.  And the addition of the orange tabby makes these vintage prints almost too cute to handle.  So happy to have scored these, and the way they look in my kitchen with the yellow walls reminds me a lot of my grandma (always a good thing in my book).

This silicone kitty ice tray was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law this past year.  There is nothing more whimsical than sipping (or slugging) a lovely ginger ale filled with numerous swimming kitty cats.  I would also love to eventually use this tray to make molds of some sort for Lady and the Cat.  Maybe wax melts or bath bombs?  It would be a brand new venture for me, as I've never done anything like that, but I'm definitely into the idea.  Would you buy a bag of kitty bath bombs????  Let me know in the comments!

Well, there you have it.  I hope that you had fun reading this post, because it was a lot of fun to write!  Don't forget to comment and/or share this post on social media if you liked it, and please let me know if you would like to see another post like this one!  Thank you SO MUCH for reading, especially those of you who have stuck around despite my recent blog hiatus!  I love you all to the moon and back!  You're the cat's meow!

Xo*

Jess

May Mews and Zen: Cat Lady Style

Meow for May!  Here in the Midwest, this is basically the very beginning of spring, which means there's only like a 15% chance of snowstorms over the next few months.

So with the true onset of warm weather, I've been inspired by floral prints far more than usual...which is kind of saying a lot.  Give me any and everything floral, the gaudier and more colorful, the better!  Luckily, my summer issue of Midwest Living arrived a couple weeks ago, just in time to start pulling swatches for Hunt and Gather pieces...and for once, I decided to not be a giant Pig Pen...  

I cut, labeled, and organized all my swatches into teeny envelopes. This way, they're ready to go when my next batch of ring charms (close to 100 more pieces!  Holy carpal tunnel, Batman!) gets back from its bisque firing.  Let me just add, too....sooooooooooo many pretty floral prints in Midwest Living this summer!  I could eat the whole magazine, it's so good.

As for the aforementioned carpal tunnel, hand-sculpting is like, so zen, man, even if it does cause cramps...I love it so much that I will try to take breaks when my hands start to cramp, and all the sudden realize mere minutes later that I've started sculpting again without even thinking about it.  It's like the clay just appears in my hand.  Zen, man.

Really, though.  This is why Lady and the Cat/creating in general keeps me from going nuts.  Making things from scratch, and now doing it in large quantities, is such a challenge and at the same time, so natural...it's relaxing, yet such a perfect exercise in focus.  Hand-sculpting in particular is so cool because that tiny bit of difference in each charm makes the finished pieces that much more like real cats--no two are the same.  I've gone back and forth eight million times about creating some sort of template for my jewelry, but I simply can't bring myself to do it.  Anyways. Zen Movement 2015: Cat Lady Style is a thing, and it happens every time I get on a roll making ceramic jewelry.

But can zen sculpting include simultaneous Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathons on Netflix?  Because I've been considering throwing that into the mix also.  Just sayin'.

Until next time, love and kitty kisses.

Xo*

Jess