Kitty Cabinet

Awhile back, I wrote about cat-proofing the apartment and I alluded to a solution I had in the works for the litter box.  Well, that solution has arrived.  I designed a cabinet to house the cats’ litter box in a stylish way in order to keep Colbert away from their litter and to prevent them from scattering litter throughout the apartment.

Having no carpentry skills myself, I recruited Vincent’s stepdad to build the Kitty Cabinet for me.  After emailing him the construction drawings and explaining it in detail over the phone, he quickly got to work, texting me progress photos throughout the process.

This past weekend, Vincent’s mom and stepdad made the 500 mile drive up from North Carolina for a visit, bringing the Kitty Cabinet with them.  I designed it to be larger than most people might want--because we have a rather large litter box that both cats share and I added space adjacent to the opening to provide a buffer between the outside and the litter box--but it fits perfectly in the office.

My design inspiration came from multiple sources:

The initial idea to build a cabinet to hide the litter box.

via The Chive

I shamelessly copied this cat opening.

via Architizer

I love the legs on a lot of mid-century modern furniture.  Unfortunately, you can’t see the legs that well because of the proportions.  

via Mid-Centuria

In retrospect, I should have have designed the legs to be more like this...

via BLTD

...or this.

via Fab

The next step is to make a cushion to sit on top of the cabinet, which I hope Pat and Selma will use as a cat bed.  I suppose it could also serve as a bench for people, as well.

Christmas Craftiness

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to find a creative way to decorate with candy canes that could be placed out of reach of the felines. Deciding on a candy cane wreath, I quickly got to work, breaking out the glue gun for the first time in probably 5 or 6 years! I don’t love the final product, and I certainly learned some lessons immediately after starting it, but it was fun getting crafty again. It has been far too long.

If you would like to make your own candy cane wreath, here is the step-by-step with tips on how to do it better than I did:
Step 1: Supplies

6” wood ring from Michaels
Candy canes - I bought the first cheap ones I could find, but the ones I got from Target last year looked a lot nicer than these ones.
Glue gun
Fishing line
Red Ribbon - This wasn’t part of the original plan, but a way of hiding the imperfections.

Step 2: Glue Gun

Add a strip of glue to the wood ring first and attach the straight part of the candy cane to it, making sure to keep the hook on the candy cane as tight to the inside ring as possible.

Step 3: Candy Canes

Continue gluing the candy canes to the wood ring.
Learn from my mistake: At the beginning, I kept the candy canes too close together, leaving little-to-no room for them to curve in a circle.  If you maintain a more even spacing, you should end up with a consistent pattern.

Notice how mine go from being tightly packed together on the top half to being spread out and angled near the bottom.  This can be avoided with some planning.  To fill in the large gap at the end, I broke the remaining candy canes to fit.

Step 4: Ribbon

This step was added to hide the ugliness that resulted from my poor planning, but I think it ultimately looks better with the ribbon.  Weave it around and through the candy canes until it’s a solid red (no gaps).

Tip: Using a thinner ribbon works best.

Step 5: Fishing Line
Tie a loop in the fishing line and then tie the bottom strands around the wreath where you would like the top to be.

Step 6: Finishing Touches
Because these candy canes were cheap, they have extra plastic wrap sticking off of the ends. If yours have this as well, you can choose to trim off the extra plastic like I did. It also helps to clean off any stray glue gun stands to create a finished look.

Step 7: Hang and admire!

Happy Holidays!

Ho Ho Ho

It’s that time of year again, when the decorations come out of storage, the apartment starts smelling like cinnamon and mulling spices, and I can unabashedly blast Christmas music on Spotify.  The one difference this year is that we have two new furry friends to consider when placing decorations. Last year, I was in love with our mini-tree, mostly because it was the first real tree we had ever gotten, but also because anything miniature is always adorable.  I was finally able to use the ornaments we have either collected or been given as gifts over the years to decorate our perfect little Christmas tree.  While I would love to recreate that tree this year, I know exactly how that will end up: with my beautiful creation lying upside down on the floor, ornaments either broken or converted into cat toys, and tree water everywhere.  To avoid a situation like that, I had to get creative with my decorations.

At first, I considered wrapping the stair railing in our shared hallway with the Christmas tree lights, but quickly realized there’s not an outlet to plug them into.  I also thought about stringing them across the living room ceiling, but I wasn’t sure how good that would look since there’s a ceiling fan in the middle.  FInally, I realized that I could wrap them on the fake tree in our bedroom.  Even though the cats like to play on that tree, it’s too heavy for them to knock it down.

Last Year

This Year

To make up for not hanging ornaments on a tree, I strung the ball ornaments that filled my Palmetto vase last year on fishing line and hung them in the open doorway between the kitchen and living room.  Using 3M micro hooks, I tied fishing line from one side of the opening to the other, and hung the ornaments on individual strings of fishing line at varying lengths.

Last Year

This Year

Also, last year I filled a glass with candy canes and holiday M&Ms, but because of the cats, that’s off limits this year.  I’m still trying to come up with a unique way of decorating with candy canes that’s out of reach of the kittens.  Hopefully, I’ll have an update on that next week.

Last Year

What are some of your favorite ways of decorating for the holidays?

And so it begins...

...I have started cat-proofing the office.  Patty and Selma have been pretty good for being cooped up in the room while we work on getting them and Colbert used to each other.  They’ve been relatively non-destructive, except for one place: my new SAYL Chair.  

They view my beloved new desk chair as their personal playground and the seat as an extremely comfortable scratching pad.  To combat their razor-sharp kitten claws, I rigged up this ridiculous seat cover using a towel, twine, and packing tape.  I tried a toilet seat cover, but it was way too small.  The towel works well enough, and we’ll see how well it continues to protect from their scratching.

Patty and Selma also enjoy knocking computer cords onto the floor, so a couple of binder clips on the back of the desk have put an end to that.

I’m also in the process of working on a solution for keeping contained all of the litter that spills out of the litter box.  Apparently kittens like playing in their litter box.

Pretty Paper

Close friends and family know that I am a stationery fiend.  I have always loved paper products for some inexplicable reason.  I love the look, the texture, everything.  Those same friends and family members also know that I am terrible at sending out thank you cards in a timely fashion.  So it comes as no surprise that I am just now writing the thank you cards from my birthday, which was almost 2 months ago!

For these particular birthday thank yous, I went with one of my favorite stationery brands, Crane & Co.  The cards are blank with a thin strip of color around the edge, and I chose to personalize each with a hand-drawn “Thank You” on the front.  I’m not sure if that is the intended use of these cards, but I did it anyway.  The envelopes are great too because they contain a nice surprise burst of colors, contrasting the simple exterior.  

Now I just need to send them!

Gettin' Crafty

For my grandfather’s 89th birthday, I decided to try out a new way to wrap his present.  I had wanted to do special gift wrapping for Christmas presents this year, but time got away from me.  In the past I have used solid-colored wrapping paper, butcher paper, and even old architectural drawings that would have otherwise gone into recycling.  Since I no longer have access to the large rolls of butcher paper scattered throughout the architecture school, I cut up a brown paper bag from Whole Foods to use as the wrapping paper.  Also, I recently purchased a spool of red and white twine and blank gift tags from a craft store located dangerously close to my apartment (I’m going to need to restrain myself when passing by it!).

 

 

The inspiration for the gift tag came from these free printable holiday gift tags.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking clearly and I tied the tag to the present before actually writing on it!  Big mistake, hence the smudges and poor handwriting.  I wanted to keep my grandfather’s gift simple, resembling an old-school parcel, and in the future I plan to try out some of these ideas.

Image from More Design Please

Image from Callaloo Soup

Image from Pinterest but can't find the original location.

Image from ManMade

 

 

'Tis the Season

For as much as I love Christmas decorations, I have never actually decorated my own apartment.  Over the years, I have amassed a collection of household decorations as well as Christmas tree ornaments.  This year I decided that laziness is not a valid reason not to decorate for the holidays.  I started simply, taking what I had in storage and placing it around the apartment.  I then repeated the one holiday item I did last year, which involved switching out the fall vase filler in my Palmetto vase for Christmas ornaments.  I also put together a little table display, filling a water glass with holiday dark chocolate m&ms and candy canes.

 

 

Finally, I picked up my very first Christmas tree, albeit a mini-tree.  While shopping at Whole Foods, I stumbled on these cute table-top trees, realizing one of them would be the perfect addition to my recent holiday decor.  I have to admit, I was so excited about my new purchase, I smiled the entire drive back from the store and immediately set it up.  After a little rearranging of the furniture, I placed the tree on the round side table directly under our canvas-wrapped wedding portrait.

 

 

Apparently almost all of the tree ornaments that we own are from Dunkin Donuts.  I have plans to make a couple other ornaments, and when I’m at my family’s house after Christmas I intend to steal some of my childhood ornaments as well.  I have tried to find some sort of tree topper, but everything has either been too big or too tacky.  Another project in the works is a handmade star for the tree.  Hopefully I will get it done before Christmas.

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season and not stressing out too much!  Happy Holidays!

Off the Wall

Vincent and I have been married for 16 months, and only yesterday did I finally hang photos from our wedding.  We received the brushed silver Crate and Barrel frames as wedding gifts, but they sat in a closet until we moved to New Jersey.  While hanging everything on the walls, I insisted that we hang the empty frames as well in order to force us to finally print photos from the wedding.  Well, as you might have expected, they remained empty on the walls for a couple week.  Monday night, we decided to flip through all of our wedding photos to choose the ones to frame.  This process took about 10 minutes.  That’s it.  After 16 months of procrastinating, it came down to 10 minutes.

 

 

Now the photos are at home in their beautiful frames, and I’m feeling silly for letting it go for so long.

The move also prompted me to hang a shadow box with two models I made in architecture school.  I graduated in 2009, these models have been sitting on the desk for over two and a half years!  I bought the shadow box about a year ago.  All I was waiting for was to get some pins to use to hang the models in the shadow box.  Again, it wasn’t until moving to New Jersey that I finally put the models in the shadow box.  It took a total of 4 pins, 2 for each model.  Actually I didn’t even buy the pins.  Vincent recently purchased some new work shirts, and I used 4 of the roughly 30 pins that came with the shirts on my model display.  

 

 

As soon as I hung it on the wall, I again felt very silly for waiting so long.  At least it's up now!