In with the New and Out with the Old

Several new apparel items are in the shop and there are a ton of tees on sale with more to be added soon!

Here are just a few:

clever kitty briefs

fancy kitty tee

lucky kitty tee

Remember, this month's giveaway will be announced tomorrow. Any purchases made between the 15th and 30th of this month will earn you an entry into the draw. And of course, commenting on my blog will do so too. That's all for now. Until tomorrow!

Making Room for Baby & Shop Stuff

That's a bit of what I've been up to recently. Since we live in a loft, the open concept requires a bit more planning for a baby and we've been racking our brains on how to divide up the space. Right now we only have these curtains as a room divider.
I am leaning towards enclosing our bedroom to keep the cats out - where baby will sleep for the first year, most likely - but whatever we put up has to still let light in, be relatively lightweight but sturdy, be easy to install and affordable! Yeah, wishful thinking. Matt wants to build shoji screen sliding doors himself - I took out the book below from the library for him - but without a proper workshop and tools, I'm wondering how easy this diy project will be. Those of course would be ideal (except who knows how they would hold up with the cats loving to scratch wood?). We've got less than 4 months to come up with a solution.

{Oh yeah, we found out it's going to be a girl!

I've kind of just been savouring the news and telling a handful of people so far. We'll see if the results hold up, since I've already had my share of surprises with the pregnancy so far}

We've been making room for our new addition in there over the past several months and finally acquired a lovely new dresser for all of us on our last trip to Ikea.


Most of my clothes have made their way onto the other side of our bedroom and I am badly wanting to finish my walk-in closet plan for them, since it is kind of a sight for sore eyes at the moment.

The Stolmen system from Ikea is what I have in mind for our personal clothing and also for my shop stock, as it works well in places with high ceilings. So I'm on craigslist daily searching for that and numerous other Ikea pieces at reasonable prices.


And speaking of making room for baby, unintentionally, this past week we had to throw out almost everything we had stored in our building's basement storage locker, due to our own and someone else's ignorance. Apparently every time it rains - and this summer has been a wet one for sure - the basement in our building tends to flood. We only found this out recently. Well, combine that with someone not speaking up about a broken pipe in her storage locker and our choice to store stuff in cardboard boxes, and you get damaged goods. Plus, since we didn't try to salvage things right away, mold started accumulating and for our safety and our baby's safety, we - well, Matt mostly because I shouldn't be moving heavy things right now - had to toss out everything that we thought had been contaminated and wasn't utterly important.

That included all of his childhood mementos, albums, artwork and his most prized toy, a stuffed rabbit - his mom had gathered it all to give to him when she and his dad moved out east several years back. For me, I had to let go of a box full of old journals and sketchbooks, which had me a bit ill at ease. I don't want to imagine someone else reading those or going through my personal things. But oh well, if that stuff had meant such a great deal to us, we probably wouldn't have put them down in storage. That's what I've tried to tell myself.

As well as rearranging stuff in our home, I tried out the new rearrange shop feature on etsy the other day and colour coded all my items. I don't know why, but I tend to do that with things. My clothes are like that and when I had my own section for clothing in stores, I would do that. Our bookshelves are like that too.

Right now, red is on the first page. I will change that up probably every so often. At least you can still change the view to select "most recently listed".


Other than that, I've been pretty busy screen printing for others and getting together my own Fall stock to send out to various shops. This is one of the images I printed, which is also one of my favourite new ones available through Oddbird Designs.


I'm also working on a new design featuring an owl - yes, not just a puttytat! - and will hopefully have it ready to unveil and print in a week or so. And I've got a new custom portrait keeping me busy too, which I'll post about another day. So all in all, pretty busy and happy for it.

This month's giveaway will be another good one, with 3 different winners chosen, so be sure to check back on the 15th!

And the Winner is...

I made the draw for the August blog giveaway earlier this afternoon. And the lucky winner is Sarah! Thanks to all who entered last month. It started out a bit slow, but in the end there were 60-some entries. I loved hearing about your favourite summer movies and will have to check out the ones I haven't yet seen.

Remember, giveaways are on a monthly basis and a guaranteed way to enter is simply by becoming one of my blog followers or by joining my Happy Customers gallery on flickr!

The latest items to hit the shop are pictured below:

moustache kitty on pink & brown

moustache kitty on teal & brown

Moustache Kitty undies!
These have been in the works for some time but I only got around to printing them this past weekend.

And here's a sneak peek of what else will be added to the shop very soon. Still some finishing touches needed to make these all the more special. Check back in a week or two.

Woo Hoo!

My Too Cute bookmark made the front page in this great looking treasury last night. Thanks to Jenn for letting me know about it. And thank you to the new blog and twitter followers. There's still a few days left to enter my August giveaway! Winner to be announced on September 1st.

And I'll finally be able to find out if we're expecting a boy or a girl on the 2nd! My doctor is making me wait - poo on him! - until then. At least he/she is kicking lots, which makes me happy.

Have a great weekend! I'll be back in a day or two to unveil some new items.

New Shop Items

Finally listed a few new tees in the shop. More things are coming and I will hopefully get around to adding them sometime next week.

Clever Kitty Boatneck

Light Aqua Hi Kitty Shirred Front Tee

I'm meeting Matt for lunch soon - my hard working hubby who was asked to work on the weekend - so I'll say Ciao for now!

Happy Furry Friday!

Here's an iphone snapshot that Matt took of the kitty he and a coworker rescued earlier this week. She looks pretty big here, but I think she was actually tiny. We tried to go see her after work that day, but were told that we wouldn't be able to until 4 days had passed. The owner apparently had 48 hours to come and claim her if she wanted. We're hoping that whatever happens the kitty is doing well and finds a good home. As much as we'd love to adopt her, 2 kitties and a baby on the way are plenty for now.

Happy Furry Friday!

It's a...

?? MYSTERY ??

still

--- what we're having.

We went for the latest ultrasound yesterday, where the sex of our baby could have been determined. But the technician said at the beginning that she wouldn't be allowed to tell me if it was a boy or girl. That's the doctor's responsibility. So Matt and I are trying to be patient with it... My next doctor's appointment isn't until September 9th, but I can call my doctor and get the news in a week. I will probably call him before the end of this week though :)

We will be happy either way, but we both have a feeling it's a girl. And of course the most important thing is that he/she is healthy. And from the ultrasound, baby seemed to be doing well. He/she is growing bigger everyday (along with my belly) with a good heartbeat, so we're pleased.

I also found out what caused my erroneous blood test results last month... someone messed up and entered the wrong estimated due date, which totally affected my numbers. And luckily someone noticed the error. It was good to get to the bottom of things, considering all the stress it put us through.

Okay, these are a little late, but I have a hard time taking decent photos of myself. At least ones that I feel okay sharing with others.

before

after

My haircut couldn't have been timed better though. The past week has been so hot and humid, I'm glad I don't have hair flowing down my back right now. Plus I was badly in need of a cut, I had so many split ends. Although I'm not a Katie Holmes fan at all, I do like her hair right now. And I thought a short bob would be more manageable as I transition into motherhood. That's what the cut was based on, but of course it never looks exactly like the photo you bring in, at least for me.


I also went on a little shopping spree last week, spending some birthday money from my sister. I had planned on getting stuff for my home office from Ikea (of course) but ended up buying some much needed maternity clothes instead.

I adore this tunic from Suzy Shier that I think will serve me well into the Fall/Winter season over a pair of leggings.


New sandals were on my list of things to get too but I didn't see any that I liked at the Mall, so I decided to save that purchase for another day. Go figure that as I was walking to meet Matt after work for one of his coworker's going away party, my one sandal decides to come apart. I still had several blocks to go so prayed that there was shoe store around. Luckily there was one just down the street and I limped my way over, then rather hastily bought a pair of sneakers AND a pricey pair of sandals.



Love the red sneakers despite the one giving my right heel a beating on the walk home, but I will be returning the sandals as I don't really like the way they fit my feet.


I'll round out this post with a photo of some less recent purchases: these sweet miniature renditions of Suki and Dex in paperclay by one talented artist and devoted animal lover/activist. They have the purrfect place on my desk atop this darling miniature chair that I found at Value Village many months ago and share it with two ceramic lucky kitties from my mom.

And new things are coming to the shop soon. Really! Ciao for now.