For the love of cats

As you are probably aware, this week has been a difficult one for us as we lost our beloved cat of 11 years, Lottie, last Sunday.  She developed a few conditions over the space of about 10 days but the route of it all seemed to be the last one we found, a brain tumour behind her eye which was causing her a lot of pain so we had her put to sleep to end her suffering.  Your kind comments and cards this week have been a great comfort, so thanks to all who sent them.

My card today was actually meant for last weekend but I didn't manage to finish it then.  I started the colouring whilst keeping an eye Lottie who at that stage had taken to wedging herself in odd places (we think now because she had such pain in her head and was trying to stop being dizzy) so I thought I'd finish it for today as the sentiment still rings true.

I stamped the Courtney Loves Kitties stamp by Stamping Bella onto a kraft base card and set to work with my coloured pencils (a mixture of prismacolour and polychromos) to colour in all the kitties.  For the background I used pencils again keeping the strokes vertical for the wall and blending them out for a softer fade.

The border is another piece of kraft cardstock which I stamped all over using versamark ink and Luna the Halloween Cat by Hero Arts.  I loved this set as soon as they brought it out as the solid cat images have scope way beyond Halloween - they are just lovely cat silhouettes.

I then simply die cut a circle from my top panel and trimmed it to fit centally over my coloured image and finished with the sentiment from the same Stamping Bella set.

NEWS FROM THE STORE

It's the start of a new month so it's crazy time for placing orders and receiving deliveries.  The folllowing will be coming this month:

• We just got Ranger Distress Blending Brushes and Distress Resist Spray in stock.
• WaffleFlower Crafts new release will be in store soon.
• Our Art Impressions order was finally delivered although we still didn't get everything we wanted and won't be using this supplier again.  Once we get it all online (there is a tonne of new items) then if there is something you really wanted that isn't there, let us know ready for our next order as we can now buy direct so can get a more reliable supply.  Word of warning though - as there were sooooo many new items to buy, we could only get a handful of each so some will sell out fast.  If you use the out of stock notification system if you miss items then we know what people are waiting for and can re-order it.
• We have some fab new collections from Echo Park/Carta Bella and Simple Stories so paper fans watch the store to grab them whilst you can as papers rarely come back after selling out.
• MFT new release should be here by Wednesday we hope but the bank holiday may delay it by a day.
• Reverse Confetti is on order
• Neat and Tangled is on order
• Avery Elle's new release is in transit so will be here in time for release.
• Hero Arts Summer Catalogue is on order and will be here hopefully by the end of May along with the latest monthly kit add-ons.  We have a huge restock order coming too later this week.
• Concord and 9th's new release is on order and will ship to us later this week but won't be here for release on the 9th.  The good news is though that the bitty turnabout you saw as their gift last month has now been made available for purchase so will be included in this release this month.
• Mama Elephant's new release is on order and will be with us by the 15th when it is released in the USA
• Lawn Fawn's big new release which starts peeking this week, has already been ordered and will be here for release day later this month.

It really is another mega-month for releases so I will do my best to get them all in store as soon as I can but it takes time and orders get priority over stock entry so you aren't waiting for your goods to arrive once you've paid for them!

Hope you're all getting some lovely sunshine where ever you are this long weekend.

Tara