Cushions with cats on!

Aaargh, five months since my last post, oooops! How have you all been?

GUESS WHAT! For a limited time (until 20th November 2017) you can get your paws on these yummy cushions featuring Bob, Dave, and the new cat on the block Maggie! Look – aren’t they plumpcious?!

I’ve entered the designs into the “Pillow Fight” competition being run by the fabulous Ohh Deer – so if you don’t want to buy one, could I beg for your vote? It’s very quick and easy! There’s a teeny tiny registration involved (to make sure people don’t vote more than once for the same design) and you can vote for as many designs as you like (but only once per design). You can see all three cushions here – just click on the images to take you to the voting pages. Simples!

If you do fancy buying one, here’s some info…

The cushions are handmade in the UK (by Ohh Deer – my sewing skills haven’t progressed to neat zips yet!) from super soft vegan faux suede and come complete with a fibre insert. The covers are 43x43cm with a 50x50cm insert to keep it plumpcious. They’re machine washable and have a grey back with a zip fastening. Oooh, and if you live in the UK, shipping is free! Hurrah! They cost £29.95, or £28.45 without the insert.

I reckon they’d make super-cute Christmas gifts for sofas, bedrooms, children’s rooms or home offices – but remember, they’re only available until 20th November (unless I win the competition and get taken on as an official Ohh Deer illustrator!) so don’t delay with your votes or purchases!

Big advance thanks to anyone who votes!

In other news, my “Dave Bakes A Cake” illustration is now available to buy from my Etsy store in the form of jolly birthday cards…

…and Maggie will be available as an enamel pin in a few weeks time, yay!

Thanks for reading, I’ll try not to leave it so long until my next post!

Win a Dave stationery bundle and enamel pin!

Yo! Long time no see, how are you all?

Remember back in December I showed you a stationery subscription box I illustrated for the lovely folk at Paperhaul? Well, I have a spare one up for grabs, hoorah! AND I’m throwing in a Dave hard enamel badge too!

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is head over to this post on my Instagram page and leave a comment – it’s that easy! You have until midnight GMT in Tuesday 16th May 2017 to enter, so don’t delay!

In the stationery bundle you’ll find a birthday card, postcards, gift tags, stickers, wrapping paper, and a notepad, featuring Dave and a massive birthday cake he made all by himself!

And here’s the yummy enamel pin I’m throwing in too!

I’ll be drawing the winner’s name out of a hat on Wednesday 17th May.

Good luck everyone! 😸

New Bob cards…

Just a quick one!

Yesterday I got my little Gocco printer out to print some new cards…

First I traced the colour separations with a carbon pen – it has to be done with a carbon pen to expose the screens…

After I’d exposed the screens (three for this card – red, grey and black) I started printing… red first, then grey…

…and finally black…

…then I stamped my logo on the back of each one…

And ta daaaaa! Here’s the finished card, now available in my Etsy store! 

I also have a clearance/seconds sale in my store at the moment – drop by and you might find a bargain!

Cats is where it’s at…

A couple of things of note happened last week…

Firstly, I finally bought some Promarkers.

Secondly, whilst rummaging through books in Forbidden Planet in Newcastle last week during a stopover for work, a cover caught my eye. Flipping through said book I spied some illustrations that caused a massive flashback to when I was little and I used to go through my parents’ vinyl records – not to play them, but to look at the pictures on the covers! The book was “The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora”. So I’ve randomly stumbled upon an illustrator that probably, unbeknown to me, played a part in influencing my drawing!

I decided to try a little doodle last night with my new Promarkers, in a Flora-esque style… the main thing being not to use black outlines, and here’s the result:

It’s growing on me… I think I might try re-doing it in Illustrator on the Mac. The cats need to be more tangled (homage to my love of Celtic knotwork), and their expressions need to speak more, the colours aren’t quite right, but I’m quite excited about developing this, perhaps with a view to pulling some screen prints. What do you think?

In other doodle news, here’s another from last night, loosely based on a cute house in our town. This was sketched freehand with Promarkers, using Google Streetview to remind me of the details of the house:

ps – the cat with the odd black face? Yep, I messed the head up so went over it in black to try and disguise the mess… Nope, it didn’t work!

A Dave a day…

So I’ve started a little doodle thing, “A Dave A Day” – not sure how long I’ll manage to keep it up! Day 1 yesterday was Dave in his Hogmanay gear, and here’s a quickie for day 2…

“After a hard day of shopping, Dave likes nothing better than relaxing in a big bubby bath…”

It’s all about Dave…

Happy new year everyone!

Seeing as we spent New Year’s Eve in Scotland, Dave went all Hogmanay…

Today has been quiet and chilled, and I’ve started work on an idea that’s been buzzing around in my head for a while… This is the first rough of a panel for a story/comic-strip/thing featuring Dave…

Not sure if I’ll move over to the computer to carry this one, or if I’ll stay with my sketchbook… Anyway, stay tuned to see how the story develops!

Pintastic!

Wotcha! Hope you’ve all had a jolly Christmas, and that there weren’t too many cat-related Christmas tree incidents in your household…

I have an exciting announcement! Look what arrived!
Squeeeeee! Dinky little hard enamel Dave and Bob pins! They’re so cute!
Bob is 22m high, and Dave’s 28mm high, and they fit perfectly on the little backing cards I showed you in my last blog post:

They’re both available now in my Etsy store, and are £7 each, or £12.50 for both, and ship worldwide – they’re just the thing to pin onto your jacket, jumper or bag – but please don’t try to pin them on your cat!

As there are only a few days left of this year, I’d like to thank all my customers for their support in 2016, and to wish you all a happy and healthy new year – see you all in 2017!

Cheers!

Cat news!

Ooops, has it really been that long since I blogged? Oh dear… Well here’s a little update of what’s been going on in the wonderful world of stupidcats!

I’ll start with something festive seeing as it’s nearly Catmas – sorry, Christmas!

Bob and Dave have their own range of Christmas cards, hurrah:

Dave took *ages* trying to decide how to wear his hat! Each card features a two-colour Gocco-print on lovely textured Brampton Felt card, and comes with a Kraft envelope. There’s still time to order them in time for Christmas from my Etsy store if you’re in the UK (last orders 16th December), they’re £3.50 each or mixed 4-packs are £12.50.

Most recently I finally managed to release my line of t-shirts featuring the gang! Dave is also available on pink, orange, green and grey shirts, and I have a few childrens’ sizes available too!

The designs are screen printed by hand by me, using the facilities at Nottingham’s very own School of Print in Cobden Place – I’m really enjoying this screen-printing lark. As with my tote bags, I sew a little label on to each shirt, so you know you have a real stupidcats shirt and not some kind of fake! The labels are on the outside of the bottom hem on the left hand side:

Also new are hand-pressed pocket mirrors featuring the gang, to match the little button badges I showed you in a previous post:

And my handmade notebooks now feature all four cats, and I now Gocco-print my own lined paper so you can choose blank or lined versions:

A really exciting side project recently was being asked to be guest illustrator for the Crafty Creatives Paperhaul stationery subscription box, eeep! I choose a doodle of Dave and a birthday cake he made – I originally drew it to wish my pal Lesley from The Royal Bakery happy birthday (check out her AMAZING cakes!), and re-drew it especially for Paperhaul. The box features wrapping paper (my first attempt at a repeating pattern design), a birthday card, small cards (or they can be used as gift tags), postcards, a notepad and sheet of stickers:

I was so pleased with how everything turned out! There *might* be a chance to win a box soon, keep your eyes peeled if you want to get your paws on one!

A new range will be appearing in my store soon in the form of hard enamel badges featuring Dave and Bob! I’m hugely excited about these – the backing cards are already printed and waiting for the badges to arrive. Here’s a sneak-preak – the Dave badge is a prototype
shrink-plastic one I made a while back:

Watch this space for the real things!

Phew, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something… Oh yes! In my last post I talked about getting ready for Kirstie Allsopp’s Handmade Fair! I had an AWESOME time – here’s the space I had to fill (I couldn’t resist going for an orange carpet!):

And here it is full of stupidcats!

Squeeeeeeee!

Last but not least, there’s been addition to the gang – Maggie (modelled on a real-life cat called Maggie who lives at Newcastle’s Mog on the Tyne cat cafe) just needs a bit of fine-tuning, then she’ll be available on notebooks, cards, badges, pocket mirrors, tote bags and t-shirts next year:

Well, that’s enough for now! If I don’t post again this month, have a very merry Christmas and a fab New Year!

x

It’s tomorrow today!

Morning!

Apologies for the five-month absence here since my last post – as you can imagine, things have been a bit crazy preparing for this event! 

“What event?” I hear you cry!

This one:

Squeeeeee!

Since my last post I had to make a hard decision between learning to sew to make those cushions from my last post, or honing my screen-printing skills – it just wasn’t possible to do both and juggle the full-time job! I went for the printing thing – with the launch of Nottingham’s School of Print after their successful Kickstart campaign (see my post from March) I decided to become a member and have been learning the process under the watchful eye of Tom Camp. I LOVE IT! 

Rather ambitiously I went for two colour designs for tote bags and chose an extremely temperamental ink that has caused a few problems, but I’m getting better and better and am looking forward to continuing my membership and printing more and more. Much as I loved painting my own screens at home, using the proper kit at the School of Print, including their carousel, has meant I get much better results than I could achieve at home. 

Here’s a tote bag in progress:

Next up will be t-shirts!

I’ve also started using my Gocco printers, and have launched a new range of Gocco printed notebooks and greetings cards. 

I also have three new cats for you to meet, hurrah!

This is Bob. 

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Don’t tell Dave, but he’s my favourite! As a long term fan of The Cure, I named this cat after Robert Smith because he’s a bit spikey and miserable looking (not that Mr Smith is miserable, but you get my meaning!). Bob has his own tote bag, screen printed in two colours by little old me, badges and pocket mirrors, a notebook and a Gocco printed card.

Here’s one of my original sketches for Bob:

Holly was inspired by meeting our friends’ cat of the same name who has the most startlingly green eyes that matched her blanket perfectly:

And finally Nigel was born after revisiting some old doodles:

Here’s a freshly-printed Nigel tote bag!

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All my new things will be available in my Etsy store once the fair’s over. Hurrah!

Right, busy busy busy – I have a stand to set up! Keep your eyes peeled on my Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages for fair updates, and if you’re coming, details of last-minute flash offers!

Laters!

ps: I have been sewing a little bit – all my handprinted tote bags boast rather cool embroidered tags on the back! Whilst I didn’t embroider them (!), I did sew each one on, and chose thread to match the colour of the bags. I’m well chuffed with them! 

Another new venture, and all the fun of the fair…

Greetings cat fans!

Yesterday I finally had to give in to an urge that’s been poking me in the ribs more and more of late, and have a go at a prototype Thing. It’s going to involve learning another new skill, and this one has nothing to do with ink…

  
Yup, this one involves dusting off my sewing machine and also remembering how to brandish a needle and thread without making too many tiny holes in my fingers. Dah-dah-daaaaaaah… *waggles eyebrows ominously*

I’m going to need to learn some Proper sewing techniques to make these, but for the purpose of this prototype I just went for it – I didn’t have much time and wanted to get it done quickly so it didn’t end up as a half-made idea in a box in the loft.

I just used cheap acrylic felt, as it was to hand. For the proper ones I’ll need to research the material properly, because I want them to be hardwearing and washable. 

The first thing I discovered was that controlling a sewing machine to sew around shapes is quite hard! The second thing was that I should have had two seperate pieces of white felt, instead of one with the collar shapes cut out – doh, schoolboy error! What a silly moo! I stitched on the white felt, then cut out the black outline and double-stitched it over the top…

  
Well, I say over the top – I might have missed in a few places. See, told you my sewing skills need work! 

Once I’d got the basic design on the front done, I added the border then stitched the back and front together – and probably broke every rule in the Good Sewer’s Guide! 

  
Don’t zoom in too closely – my stitching is very embarassing!

Then it was time to add the face, which I cut out in felt and hand sewed on. I wanted to embroider it, but couldn’t find any black embroidery thread so that’ll have to wait for the next prototype. Maybe. I’m still at the planning stage, really!

For the whiskers I just used a couple of strands of wool, and loop-stitched (is that a Thing?!) them on.

Then I ran out of time! It still needs whisker-dots, collar-holes, and stuffing, but you get the idea! Meet the first stupidcats cushion:

  
It’s convinced me that this is definitely something I need to learn how to make properly to add to my range of stupidcats goodies! This one is small, about 12 inches square. The next steps will be to research materials and learn how to sew properly! Although, in my defence, I did handsew some stonking corners to a tablecloth I made a few years ago:

  
I’d like to be able to perfect the cushion-making process by September and offer them in green, pink, blue and orange – like my cards, and soon-to-be-launched tote bags. Fingers crossed!

“Why September?” I hear you cry? Well. I have a Big Event in September. A few weeks ago I received an email that I thought at first must have been a mistake, but turned out to be real! I was asked by the organisers of Kirstie Allsopp’s Handmade Fair if I’d be interested in taking a stand at their 2016 fair at Hampton Court in September – little old me and my stupidcats! I decided to go for it, so keep your eyes peeled for more news about that over the next few months. I’m hugely excited about it, and a little bit scared as it’s going to involve A LOT of work (not to mention designing and building a stand!) but hopefully it will be a real step up for stupidcats. I was delighted to be asked, and it was great to find out that social media does work, because they’d come across my work on Twitter!

Finally, an update on the tote bags I was prototyping in my last post – I’ve set myself a launch deadline of May, so it won’t be long now until you can get your paws on one!

Laters! x

UPDATE: Finished it! 😸