Beth Wilson - Cats, Art and Photography – Home of Doodlecats

I decided that I wanted to brighten up my shop a bit. I liked the blue backgrounds but felt that something lighter would work better. I’m not done with all the photography yet, I’m doing it over a week or so because I’ve got so much stuff it would take so long to do all at once. I’m pretty pleased with how it’s looking so far. I might work on my website next.

You can find my shop on Etsy.com

Wow, what can I say about 2012? It’s been fantastic. 2012 is the year that Doodlecats really took off and now it’s a full-time job and I’m making a living doing something that I really love.
I couldn’t have done it without all of you lovely customers and followers so thank you so much!!

Here’s a few highlights from my year.

Attending the National Cat Awards

Screen printing my first ever range of t-shirts

Raising £216 for Cats Protection with my paw print

and out of all my cat clothes, making my cat rain coat has to be my favourite.

Daz and I have been away with family for the past 5 days (the cats stayed at a lovely cattery). We had a lovely time but it’s nice to be back home with the cats again. December has been the busiest month of my life so I’m pretty tired but very happy with how it went.

Now to get on with normal life again, with Christmas over it’s time to get on with new ideas and I can’t wait.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Did your cats prefer the presents or the wrapping?

Cat litter trays has to be one of the very few things about cat ownership (who am I kidding they own us) that isn’t great. For lots of people just the concept of having a box in which they pee and poop is pretty yuk. It’s one of the things we have to accept though if we’re going to have these adorable little creatures in our lives.

It took a long time for us to find a litter that all three of our cats are happy to use. Arty is the most fussy and once when a brand changed their recipe he stopped using the litter tray and developed a life threatening FLUTD. On our quest for the perfect litter we tried everything from clumping to crystals, paper pellets to chick crumbs (seriously!).

Finally we settled on wood pellets so when Verdo offered to send me some of their wood pellet litter to review I was happy to.
There are lots of things I like about wood pellets over other litters.

Firstly the smell – this is a huge factor if you want to live in a home that doesn’t stink of cat pee! The natural smell of the wood pellets combined with its absorbency means that you don’t get stinky trays.

Secondly – you don’t need much. With other litters you really have to fill the tray with a deep layer. Wood pellets expand so you only need to put a little bit in and it will expand when wet.

Thirdly – it’s better for the environment. You can compost the litter or put it in your green bin for disposal.

Fourthly – It’s not heavy (well compared to clay litter especially, I can’t carry that stuff!)

Verdo is great as you can order online and delivery is included so you don’t have to carry a heavy bag back from the shops with you. The price is really competitive too, it costs the same as the other similar litters that we’ve tried. The other great thing about them is that they donate to Cats Protection, my favourite charity! For more information, check out the Verdo Website.

You can win a year supply of Verdo Cat Litter, just leave a comment on this blog post to enter. Sorry to overseas people, you have to live in the UK for this one. Entries close on the 21st December. One name will be drawn at random.

Thanks for all the entries, the winner is Kat Humble!!

This is my Christmas gift to you guys, to thank you all for being so awesome!

You can download the PDF here (right click – save as) which has the box pattern on it.

The instructions can be downloaded here (right click – save as)

One of things I love about doing lots of different markets at Christmas is all the wonderful artists and creators I meet and all the lovely stuff they make.

Here are some of the cats I found at the Trinity Art Market on Saturday.

I bought one of these, they’re fab!

http://www.emmaleveyillustration.com

http://misterpeebles.tumblr.com

The lady who makes these doesnt’ have a website.

And here is my stall

Last year I blogged about the auction that Cats Protection put on every year selling the ‘paw prints’ of celebrities. This year they asked me to join in!!

This is my paw print, it will be available to bid on from the 29th November with all money raised going to my favourite charity in the world – Cats Protection.

Check out the Cats Protection site for more information.

I’m really excited about these new shirts in my shop, they turned out great!!

You can find them in my Etsy shop. They’re available in black and purple.

I was so happy with the purses that I made last week that I decided to work on a bag idea. This is one style I’m trying out, I’ve another idea too which is similar but more simple to sew. I think this one is a little deep (or narrow!) so back to the sewing machine :)