Cat ownership in a nutshell.

     It's terribly exciting. 

Hello Cake-Kitty!

     This weekend I was commissioned to make a special birthday cake -- one that was not only shaped like a kitty face, but had a surprise inside. Because I like to do things all backwards and nutsy, let's start with the surprise inside: what looks like your average everyday cake is a rainbow explosion inside! 

     I placed the sides opposite one another when I layered them so when it gets cut open it will be a color explosion. The reason I didn't swirl them more for a tie-dyed effect is mainly just that I'd never done a tie-dyed cake before, and I worried about the colors getting muddy. I wanted them to stay super neon!

     And now for the outside! It looks like...this! 

     Bear in mind that it also had whiskers that were formed from uncooked spaghetti noodles dipped in chocolate, but I didn't want to install them ahead of time for fear that the moisture of the cake would turn the noodles soggy and weird and sad. The ears and nose/mouth region were made from a third batch of cake that I cooked into a sheet to cut from and layer. The eyes are chocolate discs, the eyebrows, melted chocolate piped onto waxed paper and set, and the nose, tongue, ears, and bow are all pink buttercream. The buttercream fur was definitely the hardest part, but only because of how much time it took; in terms of actual skill it was still not difficult. And I can attest to the tastiness of the whole shebang thanks to having leftovers from the sheet cake the ears and mouth were made from. Mmm, mm. 

     Not a bad way to spend a Sunday! 

Welcome to the internet, here's a cat picture.

     The past few days have gone by so fast! They've been the kind of day where you get up early, then do THINGS THINGS THINGS and when you stop to take a breath and sit down for a second, suddenly it's bedtime. So I haven't really had time to think about doing any crafting or writing anything or even drawing a quick little picture for this here blog. Instead I offer you the cutest picture I have of Big Bessie. I don't think I've posted it before (I might be wrong, but hey, if I am, let's just relive a classic). I was working on editing a manuscript and she kept stealing my post-it notes, so I gave her one that expressed  her feelings more accurately. It says "plz to b feeding now," which I suspect is the only thing Bessie would ever say if she could actually talk. I also enjoy how small Bessie looks in this picture. It's just the angle, she was never actually any smaller than she is now, but a flattering picture is a flattering picture.

I made a deal with the devil...

     ...my eternal soul for exceptionally pliable hair. Not really, but since the underlying theme of this week's posts seems to have inadvertently become "look at all the weird things I can make my hair do," I thought I'd finish out the week with a post about possibly my new favorite hairstyle: cat ears. 

     Yeah, I said it. I made cat ears with my hair yesterday for a low-key daytime Halloween look, and realized I totally loved it, being the weirdo that I am. With some faux rolled Bettie Page style bangs (that I ended up liking so much I actually cut my hair into Bettie Bangs for real), it was kind of a 1950s Catwoman situation, but if Catwoman was like, swinging by the vet for more flea and tick preventative and running some errands along the way on her day off. 

     To make these ears, all I did was section off two small ponytails on the top of my head, then twist each one until it coiled a bit in on itself, pin down the little hair nugget it forms (real talk, it totally looks like a cartoonish little pile of poo at this point), then untwist the remaining hair, comb it smooth, and kind of carefully fold it around the base-nugget-thingy until the angle looks right for a cat ear, then pin and hairspray like currazy. And done! I thought this was such a fun style, and not just because it reminded me of a particular villain from the Sailor Moon episodes I loved as a kid (and now, I won't lie). 

     But let's be honest, total style icon material right there. 

Ch-ch-changes!

     Ok, now that the obligatory Bowie reference is out of the way, let's get on with the post. Fall is the season of change, and thus, appropriately, I've been making a few little changes here and there lately. Let's take a look-see. 

1. I did this to my laptop.

Should maybe have added a warning to grab a bowl for when your eyeballs pop out.

      I dunno why. Cause I'm a grown-up now and I can put stickers on WHATEVER I WANT, I guess. I was just randomly struck with the urge to make my laptop look like it belonged to a third grader, so I covered it in ponies and Batman and sharks and Hello Kitty and cupcakes. Such is my life. I'll be mature in the ways I have to be (like being punctual and honest and responsible and shit) but you can pry my stickers and cartoons and sugary cereals from my cold, dead, sticky-from-recently-eating-candy hands. But this explosion of chid-like glee isn't the only thing I did to my laptop...

     (On a side note, if you're wondering why my reading lamp is turned upside down like that, it's because when I turned it on the other day the light bulb went out, and when I tried to change the light bulb, it turned to shards and dust-clouds in my hand, resulting in a big debacle in which I was pretty sure I was gonna die from accidentally breathing the powdery stuff they put inside light bulbs, and the coroner would be sure I was some delinquent trying to huff light bulb guts, and my family would live in shame forever. After that massive freak-out I kind of didn't feel like dealing with getting the remnants of the bulb out of the lamp, so for now it's just a decorative vase of glass shards hanging above my bed. Stylish.)

2. I replaced the keyboard. 

     This isn't exactly an exciting accomplishment, but I was pretty pleased with myself for getting it done without somehow mutilating the computer beyond repair and having to blow my savings on a whole new computer. Why did i have to replace the keyboard, you ask? WELL. That's because my mom threw a pattern envelope to me for my perusal, but I wasn't paying attention, so I didn't catch it. Instead it went skittering across my keyboard, popping off and breaking (as in, it was not a matter of just popping them back on) a few of the keys in the process. If that sounds implausible, that's because you must not know that apparently my mother has been a secret ninja, practiced in the art of the throwing star, all this time. Yeah, I was surprised too. You can order replacement keys, as well as the little plastic mechanisms that hold them on and make them function, but with the cost of the keys themselves plus the shipping cost (not to mention the wait-time that comes with standard shipping -- I can only go for so long without parentheses keys, you know? Yeah, you know), it ended up making more sense to just buy a replacement keyboard from Amazon with two-day Prime shipping so it'd be cheap and get here quickly. After watching a Youtube video showing how to change the keyboard on a laptop similar to my own, it was a pretty simple operation. Aaah, nothing like a new keyboard, keys all present and functional, all clicky and new, with no food crumbs stuck in the crevices (I'm the worst).

     I also have a pink keyboard skin coming to a) prevent any more freak accidents like that from happening again, b) help keep the new keyboard clean and dust/crumb free, and c) to really take the pink-cuteness factor from the stickers on the front and just amp it up to 11. Whose laptop is this, Katy Perry's? Nope, it's mine. 

3. I dyed my hair again. 

Oh look, it's super blown-out on a white background; it's like Terry Richardson takes my blog photos. Just kidding, I just get overzealous with the flash sometimes. Also ew, Terry Richardson.

      It's basically the same color I had before, but it had faded quite a bit and my roots were growing in blonde, which had a weird effect where it looked like my hair was thinning or I did a crap job brushing out my dry shampoo. It's super dark now, but it'll lighten up after a few washes. Not that I mind. I quite like having my hair very dark; I think it enhances my eyes (which is why I'm making the crazy-eyes face above. I think. Maybe that's just my face). Plus it's kind of fun to be really really pale with really really dark hair, like maybe I'm just in black and white, on my way to go hang with Steamboat Willie and Lucy Ricardo. 

4. I reconfigured my bookcase. Again. 

      You may recall that the last configuration I had going on there was a curtain-type cover held up by tension rods. Well, full disclosure: it didn't work out. Turns out I had underestimated my cat's innate instinct to annoy the absolute shit outta me. She got into the habit of pawing at the curtain at ungodly hours of the night and morning until she pushed the tension rods back, making a loud metallic shuffly sound that drove me absolutely batty. So I had to rethink the situation. I sat in the floor staring at the bookcase for a good half hour, plotting and scheming, while my mom's face floated around my head, cartoon style, saying "Why don't you just clear out the bottom shelf and let her have it?" I hadn't wanted to empty the shelf because there were approximately a million cords hanging back there that I didn't want her to chew on and die or start a house fire. And because it would look stupid to have the entire bottom shelf completely empty. So after some frenetic late night crafting, this is the solution I settled on. All the cords got organized (half of them weren't even connected to anything, so I rolled them up into a box in case I ever need them) and put into one of the shoeboxes on the middle shelf. There's only four cords going in there into a power strip (it looks like more, but some of what you see is cords connecting the dvd player and cable box to the tv, and the cable wire loops around like eight times back there, so it looks like more of a mess. Whatever, I'll deal). I'd read that you don't need to worry about cords getting too hot and posing a fire hazard unless they have that block adapter halfway through the cord, but just in case, I cut the back off the box so it stays ventilated and un-explode-y. 

     Once I had the cord situation under control, it was time to tackle that bottom shelf. I wanted to put Bessie's water and food dishes on it so that I wouldn't kick them as I walked by and make huge messes anymore, but I didn't want to risk a spill ruining the wood. So I grabbed an old Ikea shopping bag, which is essentially a tarp, and pulled it apart, cutting the resulting material to cover the shelf. But that's ugly! So then I raided my scrap fabric stash and found some navy and white polka dot fabric to put over that. To keep it in place I just wrapped it around the back, then pushed the bookcase against the wall to hold it, then wrapped it under the front and slid empty videogame and dvd cases under to hold the fabric taut. If this is all sounding very jury-rigged and mad-scientisty, it's because it was. I couldn't stand another night of waking up to that God-forsaken tension rod slipping. But it's worked so far, and it could look a lot worse. 

5. I don't really have a number five, but I like having five items in a list. 

     I did change some diapers yesterday, this time without having any catastrophic flooding events, so I was quite proud of that. But I don't think you'd appreciate a picture of that very much, so instead here's a picture of cute little baby feet in the grass. 

Cat Toy Apocalypse

     (Dibs on Cat Toy Apocalypse as a heavy metal/traditional yodeling fusion band name.)

     Bessie's cat toys have been driving me nuts. For lack of a better solution, they've just been sitting around in something of a disorganized pile. I can't put them in a box or basket, you see, because Bessie, problem-child that she is, will chew on anything that has corners. Not with enough intention to actually damage anything or leave bite marks, just enough to make loud noises with her teeth that wake me up when she's gnawing on some bit of furniture at 4:00 AM to get my attention so I can wake up and feed her because SWEET MERCY HER BOWL IS HALF EMPTY, CALL FEMA, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY (I cannot emphasize enough to you that although she is my cat and I'm her person and I love her and all, she is a right pain in the ass most of the time). So that rules out most easily found storage solutions. Time to get creative. I decided that if I made a little box out of flexible foam it would keep the toys corralled but not be enticing to the Beast, since it wouldn't make any noise when chewed upon.

THE SUPPLIES

 
     A glue gun, glue sticks, flexible foam sheets, spray adhesive, and cute fabric. 


THE METHOD

     First I decided on the size I wanted the little  box to be. I ended up going with one and a half widths of the foam, because that would make it square, and squares are nicer than rectangles (to work with, I mean, not in terms of personality. This ain't no Flatlands reference). I just hot glued the piece-and-a-half together to make the square base. I also cut two more sheets in half to make the sides of the box. 

     Next I hot-glued the sides onto the base, trying to keep things nicely aligned and straightened but not worrying too much about it because a) I knew I was going to cover it in fabric anyway, which hides a lot of sins and b) it's a cat toy box, it doesn't need to be perfect. Perspective, folks. 

     Once the basic construction of the box was done, it was time to cover its hideousness with fabric. I traced around the base, then added a bit on each side so I could fold the extra on the sides over and glue them down to make nice edges. That way when I stuck all the pieces on the sides of the box down, extending the raw edges slightly onto the base, I could cover the raw edges with this one nice bottom piece. I also made a piece the same way to go on the bottom of the outside, just cuz. 
 

     For the side pieces I cut rectangles twice the height of the sides so that I could cover both the inside and outside of each side with one sheet, and I added a little extra on each side of the rectangle for wiggle room, and so that I could wrap it underneath the inside and outside bottom pieces, concealing all the raw edges underneath the bottom pieces that I gave nice edges to earlier. Does that make sense? I hope it does. Anyway, once I had all the pieces prepared I stuck them on with spray adhesive, sticking the two sides opposite each other on first, then the other two sides on, folding the edges under so everything looks nice and finished. I came back in with the glue gun to fix any places that didn't fully adhere with just spray adhesive, like the folded corners. I burned myself quite badly on this part, so do be careful with hot glue, people. It's hot.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT
 
     Finally all that was left was to pile in all the toys and slip the whole thing somewhere discreet. Next to my desk ended up being the winning location. 

     Aaaahh, much less messy. The one organized bone in my body breathes a sigh of relief (bones breathe and have personality traits, right? Is that a thing? That's a thing). 

Slice of (crazy cat-lady) life.

     Last night I spent a good half hour laying in my floor, trying to will myself to have some creatively brilliant idea (which, as you can imagine, always works out well. Creative block? Fixate on it as MUCH AS POSSIBLE until it overtakes your will to live!). This process has changed since I got a cat. 

     Sometimes I just don't have any crafts or recipes or stories to post about, and I have to think outside the box about what to put up on this page to entertain you lovely people. I actually have a sewing project planned that I was going to whip up yesterday, but then it was one of those days where I basically just want to sit around in my jimjams eating pasta all day, so instead I offer you this photo of Bessie wearing a kitty toy on her head like a fascinator she's going to wear to a royal wedding. 

     Don't say I never gave you nothin!

The things we do for our feline overlords.

     Bessie and I have been having a disagreement. Namely, she thinks it's fun to get all up in these boxes on the bottom shelf of my bookcase and nose around, pawing at them and picking them up and dropping them (with her FACE) so they make an unholy racket at ridiculous hours of the early morning. I disagree. I don't find that fun at all.

     I couldn't just put the boxes somewhere else because they were keeping all those cords back there out of Bessie's reach. Originally I had books and dvds there, but I replaced them with boxes when she started chewing on them, figuring I'd rather have her chew up the corners of a few storage boxes than chew on wires and either electrocute herself or start a house fire (she hasn't chewed on the boxes after all, but as I said, the face-bulldozing is quite noisy). So I had to get creative. Here's what I ended up doing:

     1. First I grabbed some fabric that matches my room nicely, namely a blue and white striped seersucker fabric that my grandma had given my mom out of her stash. Then I got to measuring. I measured the inside width and height of the dresser, because I planned to hold the fabric in place with tension rods at the top and bottom of the second and third shelves. I added two inches to the height measurement to allow for the rod pockets, and decided to just use the width of the fabric for the width of the curtain, because I wanted it to be gathered.

     2. Then I cut it to the appropriate size...
 

     3. Then I ironed in a seam allowance on each of the vertical edges, as well as folding the top and bottom edges in 1/4 inch, then another inch, to create the rod pockets. 

     4. Next I sewed the vertical edges with the pockets (but not the 1/4 inch inside the pockets) unfolded.

     5. Finally, the rod pockets got sewn shut horizontally along the top and bottom edges.

     Then it was just a matter of slipping the tension rods in and putting the whole shebang into place!

    If you're super observant you might be able to tell from the clock in the before and after pictures that this whole thing took almost exactly an hour, and really only that long because I dilly-dallied a lot. Hopefully it will solve the Bessie-the-Destructor problem and let me get some sleep! 

Project fail -- with compensatory kittens!

     I had a major project failure yesterday. The plan was to cut out a styrofoam letter and cover it in faux flowers as a decorative sit-around-and-look-nice type deal. Only I realized as I was sticking the last flowers in that somewhere along the way it had veered tragically in the direction of gravestone decoration. My realization was confirmed when Amanda walked in and said "That looks like you're gonna put it on a grave." An appropriate observation, because that project was dead. I wasn't too terribly upset about it because the flowers were on a massive 80% sale, so they only cost me about five dollars, and I was going to use them for SOMETHING anyway, I just didn't know what yet. 

     I tried to brainstorm other project ideas whilst I sat on my floor petting Bessie and eating a zebra cake (a purring cat + Little Debbie = ultimate stress reducer), but I couldn't think of anything I really wanted to do with those flowers. So I decided to go the obvious route. I shoved them into a big glass head. 

Any time you read something on this blog and think "Ok, that's just super weird, I'm gonna assume she's kidding," don't. Don't assume that.

     
     Why do I have a big glass head just sitting around? Because I'm strange, and I saw it in the store and thought "yes, this represents who I am as a person," and brought it home. I DUNNO OK. I just like it. The heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wanted a big glass head to sit around freaking people out. And now it's full of flowers. Does that make it more or less creepy? I dunno. On the one hand, it adds another level of "why" to equation, but on the other, maybe I can pass it off as an artistic statement about how my head is full of flowers because I'm so damn whimsical. 

You gotta admit, it adds something to the layout. Whether that something is style or screaming nightmares is up for debate.

     
     Anyway, after that catastrophe of a project, here is some gratuitous kitten action to make this post worth your while. These little kitty orphans were brought to the veterinary hospital Amanda works at, and they need to be bottle fed for a little while until they're bigger and stronger. So she brought them home for the night to snuggle them up in a heated blanket and feed them kitty-Gatorade every few hours. 

     Alright, now I have to run screaming from my laptop because they're so cute I'm gonna die. 

How was your day?

     Here's the kind of day I had yesterday:

I got in a fight with the cat.

I over-reacted to stupid situations.

And I had a self-tanner ordeal.

     Hopefully today will be better. So tell me, what kind of day are you  having?