Owl ACEOs available now on eBay

After some reflection (and barely being able to tear these away from myself… and then from Phrixy), I decided to post my 3 owl cards on eBay. If you are interested in purchasing them, please see the link at the end of this post. And without further ado, here are my adorable owls:

Owl card by IceKat

"Delivery" ACEO by IceKat

The first is “Delivery” and features a horned owl on a branch with a letter in his claw. He’s lovely for a Harry Potter fan.

The second card, “Little Messenger,” is similar, but features a little bubo-type owl.

The third card is a parent and owlet cuddling, called “Owl Snuggle.” I think it’d make a cute Mother’s Day or Father’s day gift for an owl collector.

Check out the listings on eBay here. And please feel free to share this link with friends who might like an affordable, original, handmade owl gift. Thanks!

 

 

 

owl ACEO by IceKat

"Little Messenger" ACEO by IceKat

owl ACEO by IceKat

"Owl Snuggle" ACEO by IceKat

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Calico Critters Madness

Our new obsession is sooo cute! The Calico Critters cats are multiplying! Today I got my package full of Persis cats! There are not enough exclamation points here to express my reaction upon freeing them from the bubble wrap and baggies!!!!!!!!! Yes. So. Everyone is congregating in the living room of my dollhouse, and let’s just say that it’s getting crowded. LOL I think I’ll have to buckle down and finish up some of the renovations so I can spread them out more comfortably.

I plan to use the Persis cats (the fuzzy white ones) as Ice’s kittens as they grow up. Chels made me Ice and Orm from Sculpy, but they need hair and such, and she made me promise not to post them until they’re fully complete. The household also needs Khalon and Oki made.

Calico Critters

Calico Critters Christmas

Here are the kitties. Oh, and she decorated the Christmas tree for me too! It has a star on top and wee bulbs from a novelty necklace.

To recap, there are 6 Persis cats (family of 4 plus the twins set), Buttercup cat twins, and the brown tabby teetertotter baby. There are 2 kittens in the cradle behind the teetertotter. Papa Persis decided to wait outside, as you can see. I don’t blame him. LOL

 

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Fun with polymer clay

Here are a couple of the polymer clay gifts I made for Chels this year. First up is a Harry Potter Sorting Hat ornament. For this one I washed it with a bit of black acrylic paint to bring out the details:

Sorting Hat Ornament

Sorting Hat Ornament

I love how it came out. Sadly, no room for a tree here. Though if we did have one I’m afraid the kitties might pull it down. Little ruffians!

The next item was just supposed to be a couple figurines, but since there are babies it sort of looks like a weird nativity scene. LOL I guess that’s okay. It features the characters Saysh and Phrix, with their little naga babies Phillipos, Phaedros, Makarios and Phaedra. The little leafy nest started off more like a woodland basket but the plastic base I was using didn’t make it out alive. I picked out the good parts left and made the current nest instead. I think it’ll hold up.

Accidental Nativity Scene

Accidental Nativity Scene

They aren’t very detailed, but it was just meant to be a quick little fun thing to do.  The babies are removable.

What else have I been up to? Well, I’ve started collecting Calico Critters/Sylvanian Families. Chels got me some of the kittens for my dollhouse, and they’re so cute! From the box I’m creating a fireplace for my dollhouse. I have the base together and just have to give it a nice fieldstone finish with an egg carton technique I found. I’ll post progress photos for that once I get working on it some more.

Here are my kittens playing by the Christmas tree. I’m planning to do some decorating of my poor Dollarama tree. LOL We plan to rename the kittens eventually. Most of the furnishings here are from Dollarama or Goodwill. The case of wine, pie and art box at the foot of the easel came from eBay.

Calico Critters kittens

Calico Critters kittens playing

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Strut! Newsletter Sign Up Now Available

Okay, I’m ridiculously proud of myself. Today I worked through adding a newsletter sign up to the sidebar of this blog. Take a look, it’s right over there at the top right of the page, in the sidebar. Nifty, huh? I feel like a big-girl blogger now. LOL

So, pride aside, I’d now like to invite you to sign up for my newsletter. Don’t worry, it’s not an everyday-drive-you-nutso thing. Probably never more than monthly at the most. I’ll try to include what I’ve been up to, where you can find my work, and shoot some exclusive discounts and bonuses your way. There may even be contests just for my loyal newsletter subscribers! This is something I’m still working on, so please feel welcome to make suggestions or ask me questions. I’d love to talk to talk to my fans!

Oh, and I’ve been working on more BOS pages. I think you’ll all LOVE them. I know I do. I know I’ve been mysterious about it, but there will be some photos soon and I’ll be working out freebies and packages as I accummulate more designs.

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Jar of Hearts

So I’m all jazzed about a new swap I’m doing over at AFA… Jar of Hearts. The players are all making hearts to send in, I swap ‘em around and send them back. The idea being that you can fill up a jar of hearts at the end. I’m doing ornaments while I’m at it, and plan to make a jar of hearts to give to my mom to hand out to her visitors over the holidays.  Here’s what I’ve got so far…

needlework hearts by IceKat

Needlework hearts for my Jar of Hearts swap.

The two painted hearts at the top are for holiday ornaments. The left is for my mom, the right is me and Phrixy with our kitties.  The other hearts have embroidery, beads, charms, buttons, ribbon, etc. These are only a few, since I’ll need at least 10 for the swap and a whole jarful for my mom. Don’t know if she’ll like the idea of it, but I thought it was cute, and nice to have little things to give out when there will be lots of guests around. *shrug* Some might end up on Etsy or eBay…

And in the midst of all that, plus holiday crafting in general, I’m doing some little trades at AFA for cross stitch and other items for my dollhouse in exchange for ATCs and 4x4s, etc. Busy, busy. I’ve completed 4 cards to trade away for some cross stitch items. People are making me wall hangings, pillows, little blanket pieces, micro crochet plushies…

The water swap is coming along too. 4 people’s cards have arrived!

So far Zazzle has been a washout. I spent a bunch of time making products only to not have them load. Very disappointing. I might poke at it some more but for now my focus is back on handmaking things.

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Be-Zazzled!

Woo! I just started setting up my own Zazzle account. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Zazzle is a site where you can upload your images and have them printed on various items from T-shirts to household products and so on. I’ve tried Cafe Press before, but their shop fees kept eating up my sales, so I’m going to try this out instead. I don’t think they have a book option, sadly, but who knows what they’ll come out with next.

Anyhoozle, I’m not even started putting up content since I’m not at home with access to my picture files so I’m not going to promote my actual shop yet. But I will by this weekend, for sure! I have lots of great images that were pretty popular in the past so I’ll put those up first. Lots of kitties will be coming your way, including the sunbathing merkitty and Maneki Bast. :D

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Ink, ink, ink…

Today has been full of re-inking line art from some of the paper dolls I previously made as gifts or swap items. I’d scanned the line art before colouring it, but I’ve been feeling that many of them needed some touch ups to the proportions or other similar problems.

Since my hours have been reduced at work, I’m making this and the book of shadows pages my major focus for now. What BOS pages you might ask? Well, inspired by my Samhain swap with Wulf, I’ve been making half and full sized book of shadows pages that will be available in batches to either print out or buy pre-printed so you can use them in your own book. Some will have full content and others will be decorative so that you can enter your own thoughts, recipes, spellwork, journaling, etc. The full batches will be for sale but don’t worry, there will be some in the freebies section to download and use as well. Phrixy will be contributing to these as well.

And just so you have something to look at, here are the cards I completed several days ago during a Tim Horton’s loiter. They’re for the Magical Water Elemental swap I’m hosting at AFA.

Moon Blossom, Otter Spiral, and Hippocampus, for my 2011 Magical Water Elemental swap at AFA.

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Paper doll book on its way!

I’ve been working on the line art for my Gods & Goddesses Jointed Paper Doll book. It’s been a long but enjoyable process, and some of the designs have been play-tested as gifts to friends and swap buddies at Craftster. :) This will be a colouring book where you then cut out the figures and assemble them with mini brads to create your own altar images, meditation figures, spellwork figures, or just to play with.

So far we have Bast, Athena, Pan, Cernunnos, Brighid, Sekhmet, Demeter, Anubis, Isis, and I’m working on some Norse additions. Probably Odin, Thor and Freya, I think. I’m trying to have a few from each of several pantheons, and plan to do a couple editions of this book so that I cover many of the popular deities. I was going to do a separate book of ‘monsters’ but I may just include them in the main book instead. I should have about 20 in total when the book goes to publication.

When I get a little closer to finished I’ll be opening up pre-orders! Books will be in the neighborhood of $10 plus shipping. I will probably have a contest for the pre-orders where someone will win a prize pack.  Keep an eye out, I’ll probably offer one of the designs as a downloadable freebie soon!

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Construction is Underway

I know, it’s taken me forever to get at the rebuild of my site here. It’s had many incarnations, some of which I torched before they ever really launched. But I love how easy WordPress is for making sites, and I’ll do my best to keep this one updated. Truth is, most nights after work and dinner I’m busy drawing or making something and just don’t get around to sharing much.

I think most of the informational pages are as done as they need to be for the moment. My next project will be getting a nice gallery installed so I can share my work here with you. For now you can see what I do on my Facebook page. There’s also a link on the menu bar, above.

What am I working on now? Well, I’m about done with my personal mail art swaps for now. I just have to wrap the Samhain swap items for my partner and arrange a meetup time to swap in person. The items I made from him sparked a really cool idea I’ll be sharing shortly. Can’t divulge yet in case he gets bored and browses any of my pages. The second swap is a Goddess swap. I actually completed my original swap and then volunteered to send to someone down under who got flaked on. Her stuff is nearly done.

So, on the front burners are my magical ____ project inspired by the Samhain swap, a book of God and Goddess jointed paper dolls, a first-ever issue of a zine for the GoddessCraft project, and some ATC swaps. On the back burner but bubbling hard are a couple of tarot decks, dollhouse stuff, dollhouse dolls, and setting up the event portion of the GoddessCraft project. Simmering quietly is the Pandaemonium project and our TCR yaoi project. Yeah, busy. It’s a wonder I have time to sleep! But I’m never happy unless I’m juggling a million things at once. LOL I carry a notebook everywhere in case I have an idea or find a useful link.

Those of you who don’t know me yet might be wondering what inspires me. Online I hang out and trade at a few different art/craft forums, including ATCsForAll, IllustratedATCs, and Craftster. When we get sick of being at home, we like to pack up our art gear and loiter at Tim Horton’s awhile. And when we feel like role play games we head to Furcadia, where I met my lovely wife originally, and where we have an elaborate world of our own. Fun!

Okay, so don’t expect most of my posts to be this long in the future. They probably won’t be unless I have a lot to update. Bit by bit I’ll be adding things about my various projects so you can be up to speed. So, on that happy note… welcome!

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Coming Soon!

More info about IceKat Design Studio coming soon!

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