Hello Friends and Happy Tuesday!
Hope you are having a great week. I’m having a very productive arty week so far! I moved some furniture around, plus all the layers of stuff that was in front of the furniture, and managed to give myself more working area. I don’t know if that was the catalyst, but since then I have been very busy arting and Miss Lily has been very busy being her little cat self and climbing on everything. I am joining in a few things at the moment including two free courses from a wellbeing site called Commune so I’ve been watching Deepak Chopra and yoga gurus while getting my art on with Kaleidoscope Taster Session classes which as always have been extended for another week, so go watch some free art classes if you want to. I am also participating in ICAD still, along with #JunkJournalJuly and now Fodder School 10 Day Challenge (also free) has started today and I’m itching to get started on that too. Just wondering how I am going to fit it all in and keep up but at least it’s all fun stuff and not like hard work! In addition to all of that (DT journal page and tag, four junk journal pages, a cat painting, and seven ICADs) I also made two ATCs for the napkin swap! It’s been a really creative week! I also feel like changing up my website a bit as I get bored with it after a while, maybe you do too, who knows lol.
This is a bit of a long post today because I packed a lot into a week so the order is below and feel free to skip things you aren’t interested in.
ARTFUL PAGES MAGAZINE – I made a magazine *excited*
TODAY’S ART – Day 35 icad
ICAD CATCH UP 29-35 & slider
THIS WEEK’S ART & another slider with links to posts (Kaleidoscope taster class, Junk Journal July, Joy Tag for MTW)
KITTIES/STUDIO CLEAN UP
GARDEN – strawberries are bonkers!
T STANDS FOR
NAPKIN SWAP
artful pages magazine . . .
I made a magazine last month. It’s something I’ve been playing around with for a while and finally got something done that I was happy with. It’s called Artful Pages and it’s for More Than Words Challenge but has more in it that just the challenge stuff. Hopefully people will find it interesting and inspiring and useful. It’s available to browse through online for free and after some trial and error using different platforms, i was able to find one that didn’t stick annoying ads on the screen. So if you are interested in seeing some DT inspiration, challenge information, Guest Designer interviews, or info about free classes and events this month, have a look below and tell me what you think 🙂 The magazine should open in any browser, just use the arrow controls to flick back and forth like a real magazine and use the square icon to go to full screen.
If that doesn’t work for you, just click this link to go straight to the magazine.
today’s art . . .
Today’s art, well I made so many things in the last week, it’s hard to choose just one for today so I’m not going to lol. But let’s start with today’s ICAD which is definitely an ICAT and one that I think Bleubeard would like! If you missed the first seven days you can see that post here and Days 8-14 here and Days 15-21 here and Days 22-28 here and I also put the first 30 days in an instagram story.
ICAD Day 35 – Yellow
Today’s prompt is Yellow and right up until this morning I didn’t know what to do, but you’re probably looking at this and thinking well duh, it’s obvious – yellow cat eyes! But I only just thought of that this morning – at 7.30am! Why was I awake so early? Maybe to some that’s not early but on a cold wet day, I want to stay in bed longer. Anyway IDK but it was better than the 5.30am cat wake up I got yesterday! So I was up and making art today and prior to that I was thinking should I made a yellow cat like I did when I made a purple cat for the purple prompt? And then duh, yellow cat eyes of course! However, I had a helper that was not really helpful…
Miss Lily is a frustrated artist kitty! Try colouring between the tail swishes LOL. That big cup in the background is full of decaf, It’s actually the blender cup from my stick blender, but it holds more coffee and can’t break so I’ve been using it for the last week or so.
Not content with “painting” with her tail, Miss Lily decided to sit on it!
As I mentioned at the beginning, I moved some stuff around in this room at the weekend. I’ll talk more about that in a sec but let’s just say she is embracing the extra space which she thinks is just for her!
The cat was intended to be black, but I started with several shades of grey watercolour pencils and then liked how it looked so kept it that way.
There are not so many grey cats with yellow eyes but there is a gorgeous French breed called Chartreux that do. They are so beautiful, quite rare and I think around £5000 each! They were almost extinct after WWII but breeders were able to bring the numbers back to something healthier. Like all French pedigree cats, the first letter of the official name of a Chartreux cat encodes the year of its birth and this is something that is strictly adhered to so for example, last year, all Chartreux cats born in 2021 must have an official name starting with S and be registered with that name. Of course that doesn’t stop you using “pet names” for your beloved cat, but the official name must begin with the official letter for that year. If I had a lot of money, I would probably buy more than one of these beautiful cats, they also have very good temperaments.
A friend gave me a book about them last Christmas, it’s a very cute book, with drawings of the cats up to all sorts of things and written from the cats’ point of view. The book is called The Writer’s Cats.
icad CATch-up . . .
Days 29-35 are in the slider below, it will flip through them automatically or you can scroll through them using the arrows.
this week’s art . . .
Since I made so much stuff in the last week, I thought to save scrolling through a long post, I would put it all in another slider. it will flip through them automatically or you can scroll through them using the arrows.
kitty update . . .
The kitty update this week is also a studio update with kittens! As I mentioned at the top of the post, I did some tidying up at the weekend as ever since I moved back into this room it’s been a disaster with zero space to move or to work! I’d finally had enough! So here’s some makeshift shelving above a table. It has a lot of stuff crammed on to those shelves but none of it is used on a daily basis and usually there is a mountain of stuff piled in front of them, so even if I wanted to reach this stuff, I usually cannot.
Here’s a much better use for these shelves lol What I did when I moved back in here, was put a long 2m wooden worktop on top of the table top to give me more space (it didn’t) and allow me to extend my shelves for the full 2m so I could pack more stuff on them!
I dismantled the whole thing, removed the worktop, and went back to normal tabletop size of 1.5m. I have one tabletop sitting on top of another because I have an extra tabletop and nowhere to put it but it does make the table a little higher to which is nice.
Here’s Mr G enjoying some empty horizontal space – not much of that around in this house!
Here’s Miss Lily again, on her regular sleeping spot on top of a chest full of yarn!
So on the other side of the room, I have an identical table which is where I usually do all the art stuff, but it is also usually piled high with stuff and I end up working in a tiny space about the size of an A4 piece of paper. I cleared all that off, took some of the shelves I dismantled from the other side, and laid down a giant A1 size green cutting mat leftover from my sewing days. The blurry photo is due to her being in motion at the time lol
Miss Lily appreciates the extra space so she can roll around and stretch out more than was previously possible on this table lol.
Thank you mama! (note the purple and white mug on the right side – it’s empty but it’s another ticket to tea). Miss Lily also likes some old school hip hop btw.
At last, room to work, drink coffee and some cat space!
Miss Lily seal of approval! And two mugs for tea 🙂
Space to lay out and cut up some amazon packaging to make a journal. Plus decaf for T.
Room to spread out heaps of collage fodder and room for coffee!
This might look like a lot of mess but it felt so much better to have space to spread everything out – and look three coffee mugs in one photo!
Oh before I forget, someone asked me last week if the visiting boy cats ever fight – they are brothers so they get on pretty well except for brotherly disagreements, but neither of them fights over Miss P haha.
garden update . . .
The strawberry patch continues to be very productive even though it has rained non stop for at least a week. Here’s this morning’s mini harvest. Honestly I expected there to be a handful and ended up with this lot!
I can add them to these which are already in the kitchen to be snacked on.
t stands for . . .
Coffee, but decaf because I don’t like the shaking and irritability that goes along with caffeine now that I am no longer addicted. It’s funny when I think about how much regular black coffee I used to drink with no apparent side effects and now that I don’t drink it, the side effects are very obvious – does it make you want to quit your caffeine habit cold turkey?
What I’ve discovered from my experiments with this machine is that I need to have a smaller decaf coffee to water ratio. I want the biggest cup possible, which in this machine is 220ml, and so I usually dump two of those in a bigger cup (my blender cup) but with that much water, the decaf is a bit tasteless. Turns out 150ml is the sweet spot for tasty decaf, so I am having two of those in one cup, and it tastes great. So glad as I was about to give up on it altogether!
The photo above is from a few weeks ago, but all this week’s coffee shots are scattered throughout this post – now that there’s enough space on my desk to sit a cup down! There are actually at least EIGHT photos with mugs in them in this post, four different mugs in total, see if you can spot them all!
Napkin Swap . . .
About the napkin swap, funny story…I went to post mine last week and the mobile post office was NOT THERE!!! Turns out the van has gone off for maintenance for a COUPLE OF WEEKS and meanwhile we have no post office!!! So I had to drive to a real post office in another village in order to post my napkins, and since I was in a real post office I asked her if she could put stamps on the package instead of the postage label. A lot of fussing about later, and I got real stamps on my package but it cost more since she couldn’t get the exact postage cost £5.85 to work out in the stamp values she had available, so I paid £6.25 for the privilege of having real stamps on my package haha. And then of course, there is no automatic proof of posting because that is generated automatically with the label, so she had to do that manually for me. She is probably hoping I don’t come back any time soon but at least she was more pleasant to deal with than the man in the van usually is – they have put a number of parcels per person limit now due to limited space in the van! I need to move somewhere that has a proper post office within walking distance. I feel like we are going back in time here, maybe I’m living in Brigadoon and just didn’t realise lol.
Happy T Day! As always, thanks for reading, and have a great week!
Ingredients
as mentioned above
Challenges
Altered Book Lover – T Stands for
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I love your ICADs, really great fun adding cats! Loving the magazine and junk journal too. We finally got our coffee machine working- with a talk through from the help line! Our first cup was a decaff! I’ve really got to get something done about my craft room – yours looks very organised!
Elle, Happy T-day. I totally love your magazine and all your fun art (you have been busy and all of it is fabulous). The kitty pictures s are wonderful. Super fun post – one of my favorites you have done (that I have seen). Hugz
Elle i’am so sorry i’am late to the party this Tuesday.. We got called out of town at the last minute… This post looks so wonderful but it is after 10 pm and i need to hit the bed.. I promise i will come back and look at all the wonderful things soon! Just scrolling through i see alot of your black kitty i love so much! Happy T day ! Hugs! deb
Oh, my goodness! I love your post, art and best of all , I love the kitty photos. Love your kitties! Happy t Day
Your icads are lots of fun to look at Elle. I like your cat theme, And I like the new shelves too. And one more thing, I love seeing all the kitties. They do like to be in the way, don’t they? I had a couple of cats several years ago and they were the same way. On the art table, in my lap, on the floor so I couldn’t move. You have to love them, don’t you? I hope you had a super T day and that your creative busy streak continues. hugs-Erika
You have been very busy. Loved the index cards and the magazine. Beautiful!
Happy Tea Day,
Kate
LOVE your ICADs. They are amazing and so well done using the prompts. I’m loving your junk journal. It is so well done. I wish my collage fodder was that impressive. Your first few pages are stunning.
That is a great magazine you created, too. I was very impressed and in awe.
Nice that the cats now have a place to spread out. I don’t let mine in my craft room.
So glad you were able to get your coffee maker working to your specifications. I tried going without caffeine for about half a day and when the pain got so intense, I HAD to make a pot of coffee. I’m glad you didn’t suffer like I did.
Thanks for sharing your ICADs, the Junk Journal, the kitties, and your coffee with us for T this Tuesday. SO sorry about the postage stamps. I hope you didn’t have to use all of them on your package. If so, I’m doomed!
What a fun, jam packed post. So kind of you to clear you workspace to make room for the kitties. They are so cute. Your ICADS are wonderful. My favorite was the black cat on the broom under the crescent moon and stars. Happy T Day
What a lovely post. I just spent a pleasant half hour looking through everything. Your magazine is fab! Very professional. Well done you.
I had to smile at the cat positions. Trying to find a flat surface to stretch out on. And helping to paint by swishing a tail ha ha.
I’m glad you have got your machine sussed out. It takes a while with these newfangled things. I just have one coffee a day, so I have no problems really. We (strangely) drink coffee at 12 noon. We get up late so breakfast has worn off by then and we always have a piece of cake with our coffee. I spoil my husband and at the same time I don’t seem to be able to lose weight (I wonder why…)
Happy T-Day,
Hugs,
Lisca
You really have been busy, Elle! I looked at the magazine, it is awesome – great work! Your artwork is delightful, I like all of it and just wish I had your art-energy. The cat photos are wonderful, those cats certainly know where to lounge and be in the way. Fun book as well.