Marketplace: Out of Stock on Feline Gift Items!
I decided to bundle up all my small feline gift items to sell wholesale to the Homeless Cat Management Team (HCMT) to help cover veterinary costs, especially for Giuseppe’s upcoming visit to a neurology specialist. I have listed the categories included below, and note that this only includes feline-themed gift items, not nature and wildlife-themed items. But as I’ve done in the past for other cats, I’d like to create a feline gift item to sell to support Giuseppe’s care.
Thank goodness for followers who donated to fill in the gaps where my income and sales couldn’t cover the costs of care. The difficulty is not just the money itself, it’s the large sums all at once, and unexpected. Selling all the gift items at once really takes care of a lot of the time and income and care issues right now.
I am actually out of a number of things already because of both the time spent to care for these kitties, grief at losing two of them, and the repair work I had done on my house in my work spaces. That work still has some finishing and I can’t wait to be fully back up to speed in my studios! The grief, well…
HCMT has purchased volunteer gifts from me for the past few years and typically purchases all the things I don’t sell through the year. With lower sales the past two years, especially disappointing holiday open houses, that’s really been a great help considering the end of year instances: Morty’s urinary blockage in 2021, Mr. Sunshine’s tour of emergency hospitals in 2022. We are usually trying to meet a night or two before their Christmas party to get the gifts to them in time, and this way I still have them all packed up, I have my inventory already, and I can drop them off next week with plenty of time for them to sort them out for recipients.
Giuseppe’s current condition
Giuseppe has had three seizures and his vision is impaired to some extent so he needs some care through the day and that makes it difficult to attend vendor events, or sometimes even work on making new items. I can confine him, but he can’t always find his food, and sometimes he walks through it! I confine him to the bathroom overnight and last night he spilled the contents of a supposedly non-tippable ceramic water bowl onto the floor and his favorite cat bed. Keeping him confined isn’t a good regular solution. You can read an update in this post.
Feline Gift Items and Giuseppe’s Care
In 2022 I printed special dishtowels with Mr. Sunshine on them to help raise funds for his care. I was considering that for Giuseppe using the dishtowel that has all three boys on it.
I have always purchased the dishtowels I used for them at IKEA—they’ve carried the cotton dishtowels with the red or black stripes on either edge for decades, I think. This spring I couldn’t find the red stripe ones I’d preferred for these towels, so I got a couple dozen of the black stripe ones and printed on them. But then even the black ones were gone, and then they couldn’t even be ordered online. IKEA won’t say if they’ll be available at some point or not, but I know they probably won’t, and I’m not waiting around.
I had initially made towels out of old muslin sheets and they were soooo nice, but cutting and sewing a project that big with things all out of place in my house, and my sewing machine in need of a good cleaning and repair, was out of the question for time and expense (sewing machine). I purchased the IKEA towels for less than $1.00 each and that makes it reasonable to sell them for $5.00 each (I keep all the items I’ll also be selling at vendor events in $5.00 increments to make cash purchases easier). But I finally did find some very nice blank towels online, nicer, actually, than the IKEA towels, for the right price, tried them out, and they are good. I have been inching things around in the basement to have enough space around my heat press to be able to use it again for a bigger project.
But then I have some nice sketches of Giuseppe, charcoal on toned and colored paper…
…and charcoal and pastel on white paper…
…and then there’s that puzzle idea I’ve had for years. Could you picture this as an actual 8 x 10 puzzle?
That’s the square version I use for a few other things, like the cabochon necklace and small keepsake:
So what do you think? Notecards, prints, puzzles, cabochon necklace, keepsake, other item? Is there a gift item that you might purchase to help cover the costs of Giuseppe’s care, which includes a balance at MedVet from May on which I’ve been making monthly payments? I have the materials for most of those items on hand and can easily make a few. Let me know!
Sold Out Feline Gift Items
Here are the categories of small feline gift items that are sold out, exceptions noted:
Art Paper
Chalkboards
Frames
Garden Flags
Gift Bags
Hand-printed Art, Housewares and Apparel except framed block prints: Tortie Girls, Awakening, Kelly’s Morning Bath
Hand-printed Cards
Hand-printed Wrapping Paper
Jewelry
Keepsake Boxes
Laminated Placemats
Magnets
Ornaments
Painted Signs
Tiles and Coasters
Trays
Trinket and Decorative Dishes
Totes, Accessories and Purses
Votives except custom votives
Marketplace
Giuseppe inspects my inventory.
Take a look at other new merchandise and featured artwork.
Marketplace is a feature on The Creative Cat to share the latest coming out of my studio with my readers. Once a week on Thursday I feature something new in my “shop”.
Read about creating custom items
Find out more about creating custom items for your own home using the images you see here. Visit the “Ordering Custom Art” page to see samples and read bout how to order.
Find out about events and festivals where you can find me and my work.
Sign up for my e-newsletter (below), check the widget on the sidebar on my home page, or sign up to receive posts on Portraits of Animals Marketplace. I plan on plenty of events this coming summer in the Pittsburgh area.
It’s all done under the close and careful supervision of my studio cats!
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Copyright
All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
I think it would take me 810 years to piece together his puzzle, and
that’s assuming mackerull would leave the pieces alone ‼️‼️‼️‼️that would
be one tough puzzle hope you saw my comment about
possible valerian root and omega 3’s for him. I typically can’t re visit once
I leave a comment ( data issues )
I’d be keeping it small, like 8×10, but maybe working on a puzzle for the rest of your life with the help of a cat would be fun!
I did see your message about valerian root and omega 3s. Valerian root is a stimulant for cats on the order of silvervine and it can make some cats act downright crazy, not a relaxer like it is for humans. He already gets extra omega 3s for his osteoarthritis. Thanks, though!