Father’s Day

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

Father’s Day cards are now available in the shops.  Cafepress went up a couple of days ago and Zazzle went up today.  I’m working a few weeks ahead of schedule for a change so these are up in plenty of time for the actual event, which makes a nice change.  It does take a lot of time though not only with the making but then the uploading, the tagging, the descriptions and so on, so it may not seem like much to put a few cards up, I am actually feeling quite accomplished.  More designs on more products will be going up over the next few days but now it’s time for a cuppa.

Check the footer for the new designs on Zazzle and Cafepress below. :)

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Blog redesign

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

So I’ve been reading this book Smashing WordPress Themes by Thord Daniel Hedergren over the last few days and it might sound a little dull to some people but I assure you it’s not – well it’s not if you’re into stuff like this lol.  Anyway, I like it and I also read his previous book Smashing WordPress – Beyond the Blog which is also excellent.

Anyway, it has of course inspired me to change my layout here a little bit.  I’m not making too many changes, and I’m aiming for simplicity over clutter, something simple and elegant would be nice, so let”s hope I can achieve that.  At the moment I am reverting to the default theme and making a child theme of that and then using some of my original artwork as the header and background and so far I’m pleased with it.  After reading more of the book, I am considering adding a second sidebar as I do like to have two of them, but it really depends how it looks in the end and how much width I have to play with for the main content.  I don’t want it to end up too narrow nor too wide!  It might be a very gradual work in progress though, depending on how much time I have to devote to it, so main changes first, little tweaks later if needed.

 

 

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Birthday present for Mum

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

I’ve been working on something as a present for mum’s birthday at the end of this month.
Here it is so far

This is a small version of it but the original is huge.  It’s taken me four hours of painting in CS to get to this point and then I will print it onto something as a gift.  It’s taken me longer than I’d planned to get this done so I hope I can get it to her in time for the big day.

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Nicole Mallalieu’s brand spanking new book You Sew Girl – My book arrived this morning!

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

Nicole Mallalieu‘s brand spanking new book You Sew Girl arrived today in my hot little hands.  I was so excited and as usual post from Australia is brilliant and superfast so I didn’t have long to wait.  I ordered some other goodies along with the book and Nicole was kind enough to include a little something extra too – thanks Nikki!

you sew girl
Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to spend with the book so far due to other things taking up all my spare time, but I am hoping to investigate it more fully this weekend and then, you know, actually make something.  Wouldn’t that be nice!  Proper review to follow in due course.

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Yoga Mats at Cafepress! Now you see them now you don’t :(

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

One minute I had just discovered that Cafepress were now offering yoga mats for customisation and I was over the moon and instantly thought up some great ideas and the next minute I discovered that they had been withdrawn with, I thought, no reason to be found.  OK so I was a bit late to the party but I missed the memo announcing the arrival of the yoga mats and then I missed it all :(  Anyway, after a bit of googling, I found the reason on another yoga site.  Turns out that some people had put some pretty un-yoga-like sentiments on their products which also applied to the yoga mats displayed for sale and the manufacturers of the yoga mats (Gaiam) understandably objected.  Some of these sentiments included several about Osama bin Laden being dead – which when you think about it, no self-respecting yogi/yogini would EVER want on a yoga mat!!!  Anyway, if you want to read more and see samples, head over to Yoga Dork

I’m assuming there is some misunderstading involved and hopefully the situation between CP and Gaiam can be resolved soon as I am itching to upload my new designs.  CP already have many arrangements with other companies that pose restrictions on what is and isn’t allowed so I would expect that it’s only a matter of setting some ground rules for the approval process and then everything will be fine again.  Let’s hope so.

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design course

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

So my design course which I am for the most part enjoying, is actually taking up quite a lot of my spare time on account of the amount of stuff you have to complete and upload to the “design studio” each week – this is in addition to the usual work that gets submitted to the tutors.  Needless to say that’s what I’ve been working on all morning – just when you think you’re up to date, you find something else you have to create /draw /design /upload /comment on /reply to etc.  It is kinda fun though and I’m wondering if that continues through all the design courses ie do they still use a design studio/group approach.

Anyway, got my results back from the t-shirt assignment – the one where you had to design a t-shirt but weren’t graded on the actual t-shirt.  I got 86%.  Anything that’s 85% and above is distinction level so I’m happy enough

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Knit your own royal wedding!

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Cat Mistress El

On Monday, April 18, 2011, a book by Fiona Goble entitled ‘ Knit Your Own Royal Wedding’ , on display in London. The bride’s dress, it can now be revealed, is made of wool. So are the groom, the guests and the royal corgi. Amid the acres of souvenirs, memorabilia and merchandise produced to mark the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, one surprise success is “Knit Your Own Royal Wedding,” a stitch-by-stitch guide to creating the April 29 event out of yarn. The book has sold 50,000 copies and been through four print runs since it was released last month by a small English publisher, Ivy Press. It is part of a tide of stitching, printing, painting and other handicrafts that are commemorating the royal nuptials _ and celebrating a a quirkily old-fashioned sense of British style. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110419/D9MMLP201.html

Is it me, or does anyone else find it disturbing that 50,000 people have bought this and potentially will have knitted royals in their houses?

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