Craft Party this week!

Brighton Etsy Team

It’s now just a few days away – have you got your tickets yet? – and we’re getting super excited for our annual Etsy Craft Party!

This year the fun will be taking place at the Brighthelm Centre from 7-10pm on 5^th June. Unlike our other meet-ups throughout the year the craft party doesn’t have a discussion or any agenda; apart from having fun! It is a chance to meet up, have a go at some new crafts, eat some cake and have a drink. The event is open for absolutely everyone to attend, whether you have an Etsy shop or even if you don’t usually make things!

This year the theme for the party is ‘Kaleidoscope: Paper Taking Shape’. Think all bright and colourful with some really inventive uses for paper!

On the night there will be plenty of materials for everyone to have a go at crafting…

View original post 111 more words

// designosaur collaboration out now!

Meow! If you follow me on Instagram and Facebook you’ll know that yesterday me and designosaur released our little limited edition collaboration we’ve been working on!
The result of our collab is two bags which are kind of insane but I love them. As they might not be what you were expecting from us, I thought I’d share some of the inspiration and process behind them…

So about a year ago it was first suggested between us that we should get together to make something; but we wanted to make something a little different. designosaur are known of course for being laser cut jewellery designers (check out their shop here) and I am known for making things with cats on. We wanted to incorporate both of these things but also mix it up a bit. The idea was to make a clutch bag that incorporated laser cut elements, and that’s how it began.
The next part took a loooooong time. Not because we are lazy, but actually the opposite! We are both super busy all of the time with our etsy shops and other jobs, and craft fairs, and Christmas and pop-up shops and the Brighton Etsy team that a million things got in the way! We had a joint Pinterest board that we would pin inspiration to, but apart from that it took several months to get ideas onto paper for what we would actually make. So what were our inspirations? It’s amazing really because we both have pretty similar taste. We both love the 90s, pastel colours, clear acrylic, emojis, fast food, faux fur, glitter… the list goes on. We also knew of course we HAD to include CATS and DINOSAURS!
Everything started coming together and I made lots and lots of illustrations that I then turned into fabric. We chose a sweet pastelly-mint-teal with white illustrations for a cotton lining which features in all the bags, and a purple colour-pop faux suede for the purses. We knew we also wanted a fun faux fur in a pastel colour, so found this amazing luxury long-pile fabric which is so soft and lovely for the clutch bag. Karli and Jaq then turned my illustrations into acrylic charms (I don’t know how they do it! Magic!) in sweet clear pastel shades with etched details, and I got to sewing! The main thing that you need to know about this is that my flat is now covered in a layer of pastel pink fur from cutting into the fabric. It’s nice but not when it gets in your mouth/guts.
Each clutch bag has 14 laser cut and etched acrylic charms! 13 of them are individually hand sewn into the fur, and then one is on the zipper. As you can see all of our favourite things feature… cats, dinosaurs, burgers, bones, pizza, aliens, little angry faces. I love them! I also convinced designosaur to make this ring from the bone illustration. It doesn’t really fit with I like CATS or probs designosaur but I don’t care cos I LOVE it. I’ve worn mine pretty constantly since I got it.
The other fun thing about this collab is that all orders come with a free sheet of stickers we designed to go with the collection!
So there’s the story! And I’d love to know what you think! Maybe it wasn’t what you were expecting but I hope you’ll still love them ! Everything is super limited edition, and you’ll find them both in my shop here and designosaur‘s here.

YAY!

Toby =^._.^=

// 365 Drawings of cats – Week 15 & 16!

Meow! Hello!
You may have noticed a lack of blog posts last week, even including my weekly drawing round up! This is because I’ve decided to split it into fortnightly posts because I’m too lazy for a weekly blog post  so that I have time to make non-drawing related posts in between! And instead of sharing ALL of them I’m just going to pick my favourites, that way there won’t be any blank spaces where I’m just like ‘this is a picture of a cat I drew that got a bit fucked up’. YAY! If you want to see ALL of them you’ll have to just follow me on Instagram to see them daily. awh yeah.

12th April
I had this most awesome Candypants song in my head and that where the words are from. I wish that I was clever enough to say they were written by me.

13th April
Sometimes I like to challenge myself to use every single colour in my travel watercolours. I promptly smudged this whole page 10 seconds after taking this picture.

16th April
How to tell if you have magic powers:
Walk up lots of steps
Move to the edge
Jump
See if you fly.

18th April
Take three fresh stones and grind them with a pestle and mortar. Take this dust and sprinkle it onto the rind of a kiwi. Add a pinch of pink sea salt and 25ml of Sunny Delight. Boil to 100c and blend. Drink immediately.

20th April
A total solar eclipse will occur on September 3, 2081.

24th April
“Let’s Get Serious” is the title track from Jermaine Jackson’s 1980 album Let’s Get Serious on Motown Records, written by Lee Garrett and Stevie Wonder.

April 26th
While most of the residents work and shop outside of town, there are a few local businesses and bars. The largest employer in Lotus is Fergueson & Sons factory, where they make novelty bookmarks that are sold exclusively to Oriental Trading in Omaha, Nebraska.

// 365 Drawings of cats – Week 14!

Hiya! Hopefully you’re not getting too bored of my drawings cos here are some more! I’m sure sometime soon I’ll have something different to blog about, but in the meantime I don’t mind just sharing my little thoughts with you…

I hope you all enjoyed Karli’s analysis last week… I think she knows me pretty well. Merry Christmas!

5th April
It was Easter so obviously I had to add bunnies! Except I got carried away with the buns and ALMOST forgot to add cats. And then my cats looked like buns and my buns looked like cats.

6th April
Happy Gloopy Day! Yeah so I decided to limit my gloopy drawings to one a week, so here is this week’s! Ooh look at that lovely blue. That was an accident.

7th April
I guess I thought I’d been doing too much painting so I thought I’d go back to the pencil. This stated as a desk doodle. I also got an email that started ‘Hi kitten’ which I thought was the absolute cutest.

8th April
Dreaming about Disneyland is the only thing that gets me through this damn life. Have fun or fuck off.

9th April
Don’t want to sound like an emo but this is probably the worst I’ve ever done and if I could go back in time and do it over I WOULD. Nah, no regrets. Except some. This.

10th April
I JUST REALLY LOVE THE MUPPETS.

11th April
This was done at 8am at the start of a looong train journey but I don’t know why I’m making excuses cos actually I really like this one. Someone said it looks like lemons but I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much.

Follow me on Instagram to see my drawings daily.

// 365 Drawings of cats – Week 13!

This week I asked my number one fan Karli to write my regular daily drawing blog post, because I’m lazy to see someone else’s perspective on what I’ve been drawing. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how accurate her perception of me is…

✌✌✌

Heyyyy!

I’m Karli from designosaur! I love Toby’s weekly drawing round ups, and this week Toby has super kindly asked me to guest blog his drawing post. Excited? OBVS.

29th March
We were at the Etsy Captains Summit last week, and after a full on and intense weekend being in a confined space with me a load of other captains I’m not surprised this piece is a bit of self reflection.

I think Toby took a long hard look at himself (he’s represented by the cat that is winking like Beyonce cos separated at birth) and the grimacing emoji is judging him. (That emoji face is me)

30th March
This one has a quote “My influence is mud” I don’t know what this means and I could look it up, but it’s much more fun to make up my own explanations. Painted with his new mini water colour set (I recognise that blue from last week) I would say that he’s fearing spring, the angry cats amongst the spring flowers is an inner dilemma.

31st March
Gloopy paints are Toby’s new favourite, as we reach midweek we see that the drawings get darker and Toby is struggling as we approach hump day.

1st April
He ain’t no Fool, blue and yellow is a new favourite colour combo, and Toby dreams of his 90s dream phone boyfriend proposing… don’t we all.

2nd April
Cats that look like Beyonce, hanging out with those that look like Coroline’s mum. Enough said.

3rd AprilWho doesn’t love stickers?! Those feelings of resentment about sunshine are back, this black cats’ face has been removed and this is the cat that represents Toby. Having an out of body experience is a daily experience and here the removed features show him looking down on himself.

4th April
Easter Saturday! Merry Christmas, Happy Hallows Eve and all that jazz! It’s actually really sad that Toby can’t tell the different holidays apart. He has to celebrate every holiday on the same day so the bank holiday weekend has been a perfect opportunity to go trick or treating, eat Christmas dinner and have an Easter egg hunt. All that is shown here by lots of cats and a cute bunny with really long toe nails.

Thanks for coming along on Karli’s magical mystery tour of Toby’s mind!

See you soon!

Karli x

365 Drawings of cats – Week 12

Meeeeeow! Here’s our weekly look back at my daily drawings!

March 22nd
OK so don’t read me for my bad drawings right now, the left hand side is just a self portrait of what I think I look like and then the actual truth. #ImGross

23rd
I’d been working on some of my new things so I had my paints out, yay! I super love this colour combo. I’m leaving this as a note to myself. I often find my drawings that spread across both pages create much more of a impact too – that’s another note to future me.

24th March
These pages are two of my favourites so far… I have these old gloopy paints I’m trying to use up which I literally just squeezed out of the tube onto the page spontaniously and then formed the painting from there, adding the details later.

25th March
GLOOP! More gloopy paint cos after the day before I thought I was onto a good thing. IDK but I WILL be coming back to it (and not just cos I still have all this old paint).

26th March
NEW BOOK! Yup, I’m onto my 6th book! I doodled an ice cream cat on a napkin the day before and made a note to myself to draw it the next day. pop!

27th March
This past weekend I was visiting Bristol for the Etsy Captain’s Summit, so this is a lovely little train drawing while the sun was shining. It didn’t shine much for the rest of the weekend though, did it?

28th March
I was super happy cos Bristol has a Cass Art! (WHY ISN’T THERE ONE IN BRIGHTON?). I didn’t realise there was gonna be one else I would have had a list of things to buy, but I did treat myself to a little travel half pan tin and my favourite thing about it is the fold-up paintbrush. It was a busy weekend but I did manage to test them out and here’s what happened. FUN!

In other news! I have new things in my etsy shop! Go have a look!

// 365 Drawings of cats – Week 11

Meow! I know this blog has just been filled with my daily drawings recently but I’ve got another post lined up for this week, I promise! Not that I really care that much and neither should you. Anyway here’s what happened over the last 7 days.

15th March
 This was for Mother’s Day which was in the UK last Sunday! I always play the Spice Girls to my mum on Mothers Day, such a good song am I right? I also love drawing these winking cats now. All the time. Also trolls.

March 16th
Fruit Vs sweets I don’t know what I would choose. Probably fruit cos it’s natures sweets isn’t it. That wasn’t even why I painted this picture but I HAVE been having some really intense games of ‘Would you rather’ recently on Twitter.

17th March
Oh I really like this one! It was a pan though because I started to do the background pattern and it was taking ages and the dog wanted to go for his walk so I was trying to rush rush rush. I think it still came out pretty neat. Pink and green should always be seen.

18th March
I wanted to write a short story so then I wrote three! I wanted them to be weird and creepy but it took 2 goes until I got what I wanted.

19th March
Someone on Instagram said they want this as wallpaper and I agree! I have to admit I got carried away drawing the flowers and leaves and then I ran out of space for the tiny cats so some of them are a little squashed but that’s OK.

20th March
This is what happens when I have my book next to me on my desk when I’m working, I just end up doing phone doodles. Some of them are cute tho?

21st March
This was one of the days where I could have easily missed doing a drawing but luckily I didn’t! I had to do it in like 2 minutes but I think the pressure worked this time and I like these pages a lot. HIYA HIYA EAT YOUR VEGETABLES AND BRUSH YOUR HAIR.

// 365 Drawings of Cats – Week 10

Hello! Hope everyone is having a lovely day! It’s about to get EVEN BETTER cos here I am to share last week’s daily drawings. Enjoy!

8th March
It seems like such a long time since I painted this! Not gonna lie, I’ve kind of forgotten if there was any kind of story behind it. I think I was just feeling my delayed teen angst again. Also they’re my two favourite colours in my watercolour pallet.

9th March
I really like mermaids! And having fun. Also all mermaids really like cats and they dream about being able to keep them as pets, which is kind of sad because can you imagine a cat living underwater?

10th March
I was still stuck on mermaids but it’s OK because I’ve made a promise not to try to draw them again. But it’s double OK because I will definitely break that promise.

11th March
I really really love American pageant culture. I could watch Toddlers and Tiaras all day long, it is so fascinating to me! Also I had just been watching Crufts, and also I watched Drop Dead Gorgeous for the millionth time that weekend too and its still one of my favourite films. Anyway, cat pageant.

12th March
I really like these pages. Just a bit of watercolour and mark making but I think it works.

13th March
It’s the return of Sad Floral Cat! Also while I was painting this I knocked over my entire water pot all over the place. Also it was Friday 13th, so coincidence? I think not.

14th March
I do like these pages but also before I started drawing I had this old work I made years ago in my head that I wanted it to look like but for some reason the charcoal pencils I was using wouldn’t transfer their print properly so it came out a bit forced and smudgy and not like a ghost at all. This is one of the rare times where I think the inclusion of cats takes away from the work. Don’t h8 me.

// 365 Days of Cats – Week 9

Meow! It’s a couple of days late but here’s a look back at the week’s daily drawings!
Last week I was viciously slammed (not really) by one of my regular blog readers at my seeming lack of enthusiasm for some of my drawings, which got me thinking a little about some of the pros and cons of the project. While I love the fact that it forces me to create something every day, sometimes on the days where inspiration doesn’t hit me in the face it can feel a bit forced, which means I end up resenting what I’ve created which means sometimes there’s not much to say. I’m thinking this is something I will work on through the year, but in the meantime I’ll try my best to keep it positive!

Now! Back to our scheduled programming!

1st March
Now that I don’t have to work on Sundays I get to do things like watch Sunday morning cooking shows. I can’t remember which one was on but they were foraging for herbs and they had a really sharp knife. I really like sharp knives so it was in my head to draw one and that is the first thing I drew. The book is Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. 

2nd March

Most of the time when I do my daily drawings I don’t have time to get my proper paints out so I use these basic Reeve’s watercolours most of the time. The colours are super limiting so it’s always nice to try out shape and pattern with them as an under-image for the cats on top!

3rd March

Not gonna lie, this is probably one of my favourite drawings to do so far. Swearing is as fun as drawing cats. Also I think I’ve mentioned before my anti-inspirational-quote mentality…

4th March
A bit of a doodly day but I was glad to find my pack of felt tip pens I’d forgotten about!

5th March
Just a bit of my delayed teen angst coming through.

6th March
Cats like sitting and watching you through the grass and then at night they all meet up and talk about all the dumb things they saw you do throughout the day. Cats are better than you and they know it. That’s why all cats are creeps and I love them.

7th March
I guess I had this word in my head from the day before but also I think this thought at least once a day. Everything is creepy. The internet is creepy. Now turn off your computer and go outside and play.

// Mother’s Day Gift Guide

It’s one week today until Mother’s Day in the UK (15th March) so I thought I would get together a lovely little gift guide with cards and gifts from Etsy sellers across the UK. First up, my pick of the nicest cards!

Well, I feel like I would be betraying myself if I didn’t start off with something from the I like CATS shop! Here’s my latest card which is perfect for all the purrrfect mums of the world, featuring my princess kitty illustration. Find it here!

This card by LHdesign features Lola’s hand lettering. I love how simple yet heartfelt it is. Another great thing about this card is that 50p of all sales go to Women’s Aid, the UK charity helping women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. Find it here! 

This card by Pygmy Cloud is the cutest!!! I can deffo relate to the little happy cloud. Here’s hoping for some lovely sunshine for all the mums on Mother’s Day! Find it here!

helloDODO designs always have a clever twist, and I love the hidden heart in their Mother’s Day card. Find it here! 

// CARDS

There are many pieces of jewellery in designosaur‘s shop that mum’s will LOVE, but you really just can’t go wrong with this chicken brooch! Find it here! 

These lovely new floral necklaces by i am acrylic have been inspired by a 1940s silk scarf and the Iris flowers of Ruth’s childhood. They are so sweet and I love the colour combinations! Find them here!

For a gift that’s more personal, Actually I Do creates beautiful custom embroidery hoops with your choice of word or message. It gets extra points cos it’s like a card and a gift in one! Find it here! 

For the crafty mum, Yellow Bear Ware’s upcyled knitting and crochet needle jewellery is a really beautiful and inspired gift. Have a look in the YBW shop for lots of different colour combinations in rings, necklaces and earrings. Find the necklace pictured here! 

Do have a look at all the shops featured, they all have really lovely things for sale! Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve been inspired by any of my picks!

xoxo Toby =^._.^=