Last night C and I were riding to his parents house for his mum's 66th birthday party and we rode down a really dodgy street. I call C the cat whisperer  because if he sees a cat, he makes that little clicking noise with his tongue and cats immediately run up to him and roll onto their belly for a pat.

In the street we saw a sweet year old cat with a collar and then a tiny kitten ran out from under a parked car and wanted a pat too. He was very grubby and covered in fleas and the street wasn't far from a very busy road. He didn't seem to belong to any of the houses, but we rode off and left him with the other cats in the street. When we rode past at 10pm he was still out on the road wandering around and (after some short but intense deliberating) we made the decision to put him in our backpack and ride with him home.



It felt really dodgy taking him, but to me, a dirty, starving, flea-ridden four/five week old kitten out on the street at 10pm near a busy road at night doesn't have a responsible owner. You might feel differently. When we got him home he ate like he had never eaten before. He has a lovely, kind nature, follows us around and walks about purring all day. I didn't even think about what we'd name him, as soon as we picked him up he was Dexter. I said to C that we are such 'fangirls', naming our cats after our favourite singers and tv shows, ha.

So, I have four cats. FOUR CATS. I know that sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But I do. They are all clean (except Dexter, still working on that), wormed and flea treated, they get along and spend a lot of time sitting outside in the sun or curled up on our beds. I guess I just didn't want anyone to think I'm living in squalor with my four cats, haha. If I were ever able to, I'd love to be able to foster stray cats until they found homes.

Maybe my cat rescuing adventure had something to do with reading this book at the moment.

Ps. How great is Kitties and Bullshit?

Just a couple of mail bits and pieces.




+ A lovely bunch of papery bits from Crystal. I love her mail art.


+ Sarah sent me some awesome ephemera. She has so many papery goodies in her shop.


+ A cute postcard from James T


+ I bought this sweet little zine by Natalie of Awkward & Beautiful.

These last two weeks I've been attending an intensive Summer School at my university. Instead of completing a subject in 13 weeks, as is done in regular semesters, we completed one subject in about 8 days (making, all day every day) - I wish all subjects could be done that way! My class was called The Artist's Book and I made about eight books in total. It wasn't nearly as rushed or scary as I thought it would be, with lots of time for sitting and chatting and learning the skills and gathering inspiration. We still won't find out our mark for a few weeks, but I had so much fun and now I want to make books all the time. I'm still waiting for a couple of the books to be returned from the little exhibition we had yesterday, but here are the first few (bearing in mind, I am still very much a novice at book binding).

1: Coptic Binding with collaged hard cover and internal painted signatures.




2: Saddle stitch binding with varied collected paper pages.




3: Japanese stab binding.


4: Concertina lamp with drawn and stitched motifs and paper cuts.




5: Chinese star book.



I'd love to put together a little post on how to make some of the easier ones. Let me know if that's something you'd be keen on :)

This week in the challenge I chose another easy one - my ten most important things (not including people or animals). I found it so hard to think of ten things. I really don't value things very much. Of course, if my bike or computer were to break or get stolen, I'd be pretty upset, but both things are entirely replaceable (money permitting). I have a few items of sentimental value, but thankfully the internet is good at preserving photographs and music and the like. This list reminded me of the Burning House project (via Laura), which I adore. I have been meaning to submit a photo there for ages.



If you'd like to play along, feel free to link up! The original 100 Ideas list is here.