Holiday Home Preview

Here’s a peek of what’s going on at home…we started unpacking the Christmas ornaments on Thanksgiving and decorating in earnest.  Still some things to do…but its a lot of fun setting it up.  Christmas is such a kid centered holiday, but growing up, I couldn’t wait until I was adult and could have my holiday, my way.  In fact, in my college dorm, I was the one with the fully decorated tree, including presents beneath, with hot chocolate brewing in my mini microwave…I’ve always been a nest maker – trying to build roots wherever I went.  The store can be a bit traditional for my taste, so at home I have free range.  Most of what I like is candy colored and packed with glitter.  I have a lot of vintage ornaments that I’ve happily married with new acquisitions from the shop.  A lot of people ask me what’s my decorating secret at the store and home…um, here it goes…see an empty spot?  shove something glittery in it.  (and that’s 4 years of design school talking!)

The one challenge at home though is cats.  We have three – and basically, in years past, my tabletop tinsel tree is just a big ol’ giant cat toy.  We’ve stopped putting anything breakable on the actual tree and moved those types to a garland over the doorway – which everyone raves about to me.  So far, the tree this year has been knocked over 2-1/2 times…not by the cats…by me!  I say 2-1/2 because I caught it once…so, I guess this is a good system for the clumsy.

–Lisa LeBlanc

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Quality Control

I feel like I’m being micro-managed!  This is “Baby” – she’s making sure every stitch is perfect as I work out my newest pattern.  Which by the way is available now for an introductory price in my Etsy shop…Yay!

–Lisa LeBlanc

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Putting the Crazy in Cat Lady

A few weeks back, I was reading my copy of Crafternoon, and nearly gagged when I ran across the author’s suggestion to use cat hair as filler.  Now I really love my cats (all four of them), but I can’t really say I’m a fan of their hair and never contemplated using it in my crafts.  So, when I saw a pre-order for Crafting with Cat Hair, I started to wonder if this was some burgeoning trend where crafty cat ladies are rising up and shouting from the roof tops “hair balls be dammed…I’m making something cute!”  For all practical purposes, one quick search shows this is a definite trend with a handful of blogs popping up and even a Facebook site.  I have sinking suspicion that when Crafting with Cat Hair releases November 1^st, 2011,  solitary Cat Ladies will unite and rise up, reveling in their new found craft acceptance.

If you are one of those crafty cat ladies or just curious, the publisher has asked for help collecting donations of cat hair for an upcoming project:

Our two cat loving crafty ladies want you to send in your cat hair. That’s right. Send in some cat hair and make sure you include your cat’s name and photo. When the book’s publication date gets closer, I’ll feature several of your proud, hair-donating kittens on the (soon to be) re-launched Quirkbooks.com. Margaret and Katie may even make a little framed portrait of their favorite kitty, to be published online for the world to see. We’ll see how much cat hair we get.

Send your bags o’ cat hair to…

Quirk Books
C/O Margaret & Katie
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

–Via Catsparella

–Lisa LeBlanc

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