Meet our new kitty

On Saturday we got a kitten!

 

I wanted a female to even up the boy girl ratio of our household and a tortoiseshell, because they're so pretty but there weren't any tortoiseshells around so we agreed to go and look at a tabby kitten. There were two tabbies a boy and a girl and of course the first one we caught was the boy, so we put him back, picked up the girl took her home.

 

Charlie was so excited, the carrier was strapped in next to his seat in the car and Penny our new kitten made little mewing noises all the way home. It was love at first sight for all three of us, she was so small, 8 weeks old and v pretty!

 

When we got home we opened the door of the carrier in the area we've made for her in the end room and after taking a few photos left Penny to get used to our house.

 

 

She came out of the carrier and ran under the table where she stayed. To give her time to adjust and with a three year old who could only focus on the new cat, we decided to leave the house. We went to buy kitten supplies as we'd waited to buy food and litter so we could get the same brands as she was used to.

 

By the time we got back Penny was so brave she came and let us stroke her, she ate her lunch and then followed us into the living room. It was as we were playing with her on the sofa that she rolled over and showed us her speckled belly and also the fact that she was definitely not a girl. So Penny has become Baxter, a mischievous, friendly, toddler tolerant (to an extent) kitten, and although we've only had him for a week, he's fitted into the household perfectly.

 

 

Homemade Christmas - cat baubles

I found some really cute papier mache cat models in Hobbycraft and thought it would be nice to paint then in the colours of friends cats, dip them in glitter and give as tree decorations at Christmas.

Credit - HobbyCraft

What started out as two has become a whole army/herd of cats. Here's how to do it:

1. Paint a base coat. If you're getting a toddler to help this is a part he can do. I used kids poster paint and needed to do 2 layers. Leave to dry.

2. Paint on distinct markings (too tricky for my toddler). The black cat was easiest as he just needed a few white whiskers on his chest. Eyes and noses are painted now but go easy on the whiskers as they'll get glittered on later. Tabbies were the trickiest as lots of different stripes, so lots of drying time in between building up the colours. Leave to dry.

3. Paint feet the same colour as cat and then add paddy paws in pink paint.

4. Paint with glitter paint. I bought the already made up in bottles of gold and sparkly white. Choose the glitter to suit the cat's colours. Black and ginger cats got gold, tabby and grey cats got white. Leave to dry and if needed add another layer.

4. Draw on whiskers, I used gold and silver metallic sharpie pens.

5. To make the collars I bought some little red and gold ribbon bows with tiny gold bells from Hobbycraft. I then pulled each bow loop further, so the two ends were hardly showing and used a dab of superglue to secure the two loops at the back of the cat's neck.

6. Tie on the decoration hanger (this bit turns them from being a cat model to a Christmas tree decoration). I found some gorgeous red and white striped string in Waterstones. Cut between 20 - 30cm string depending on how long you want the hanger to be. Put the centre of the sting under the cat's tummy and tie in a double knot, the knot the two ends at the top together and snip off any excess. (I tried putting the string around the collar, kitty looked like he'd hung himself and around the tail, kitty did a nose dive, so round the tummy gives the best hanging position).