I Meant To Behave But There Were Too Many Other Options – Books, Cats & Tea – AJJ September 2023

Today’s Art . . .

Today’s art is another page for my theme on Art Journal Journey for this month – Books, Cats and Tea, which are three of my very favourite things.  So far, including this page, I have created 17 pages for this month’s theme – have you seen them all?  I have a few more ideas, but not sure I have time to finish them, we’ll see how the rest of the week shapes up.

This page also features all three options from my theme – book paper, teacups and a kitty.   I had been diecutting these little bird dies out of some book paper ages ago, and this is the negative piece that was leftover after I removed the birds.  I left some of the bird “spaces” white so you can see what I mean, and I coloured the rest in with a black pen.

The teacup paper that I put around the edges came from this book of Vintage Summer Fete papers which was free with a magazine in 2013 lol. TEN YEARS AGO!!! I found it inside the magazine still when I was rearranging the bookshelves last week.  I’d forgotten all about it and it’s not great quality paper but it will do and I can find uses for it now.  My coffee mug is also in this photo as well as a few spoilers for other things I might be using or have used already, in my pages this month!

The kitty comes from a packet of cat treats – freeze-dried chicken cubes – they really like these treats but they are stupidly expensive for what they are, so they don’t get them often unless they are on special.  I used another packet of these treats on a page back in April if you are interested in seeing that page and what the treat packets look like.

I found this Tim Holtz quote sticker that seemed appropriate.  Perhaps the kitty is referring to all those birds as her “other options”? She wanted to behave but the temptation was too great!

Kitties . . .

Here are some recent kitty photos. Miss Lily wasn’t very well last week but she is doing much better now.

Miss P is snuggled up in her bed in her private room (since she doesn’t care for other cats!) That could just be a scam so she can get her own room, you never know with cats!

Miss Lily on the left and her brother, Mr G on the right.  Oh to have opposable thumbs kitties, and you wouldn’t need me to open the cat treats!

When we were at the vets, the vet was telling me that she was trying to teach her cats some words.  I told her that Miss Lily had about 20 words that she knows and understands the meaning of – it makes me think of 6.30 and his 900 words (Lessons in Chemistry) – she’s nowhere near that number but I think she’s doing well and has the words she needs.  Anyway, the vet told me about cats that she follows on Instagram that have been taught to press buttons in order to “talk” to humans.  It started with dogs, but now people are trying it with cats and of course they are smarter so it works with them too.  I don’t know how I feel about that, or that I need buttons to be able to communicate with my cats, but here is a video showing them in action.

Garden . . .

We have been having very wet and stormy weather, so the garden is not looking its best and my corn has blown over.  I harvested a few things that were ready before the weather battered them too much. Purple French Beans below…

And all my carrots are mutants lol.  If I plant carrots again, it will have to be in pots with compost as my garden soil is too rocky, and every time a carrot root hits a rock it goes off in another direction or sends out another root!  There are several kilos of them.  I had planted multicoloured carrot seeds but I only got orange and yellow carrots – I was hoping for purple but there were none.

And a surprise!  My Brussel sprouts are growing!  I had put butterfly netting over my brassicas but they still got through and decimated my broccoli, cabbage and the leaves of the Brussel sprout plants, but the caterpillars are all gone now and the sprouts have started growing.

Unless something else arrives to munch on them, we might be having home grown Brussel sprouts for Christmas dinner (it’s the only time I eat them lol.)

Let me know what you think in the comments.   As always, thanks for reading and Happy Journalling!

Ingredients
my handmade journal, diecut leftover book pages, freebie scrapbook paper, cat food packaging, tim holtz stickers, black ink, glue, pitt artist pens, white pen,

Challenges

Art Journal Journey – Books, Cats and Tea

T Stands for – teacup paper and my coffee mug