Tuesday, December 13, 2011

What do you get the person who has everything?

These days of instant gratification ensure that when shopping for your loved ones you will be certain to get them something that they went out and bought for themselves on Black Friday or Cyber Monday because the sales were just too good to pass up. Then there are the post Christmas long return lines to wait in if you can even find the receipt that you carefully stored somewhere you would be sure not to forget.

No longer! I can guarantee that they won't have this! The solution is right in your own home, sleeping on your pillow, sitting on a windowsill or possibly coughing up a hairball for you to find later, in the dark, in your bare feet.

Your cat!





Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make with Your Cat by Kaori Tsutaya is no joke and they don’t use hairball hair. These crafts are made by first brushing your feline friend and storing the hair until you have enough to felt. Then you use the felt as you would any other felted animal hair such as sheep’s wool, alpaca, and etc. It’s very clever and very eco-friendly.

The projects are small gift type things because, well, cats are small so you don’t get as much fur. There are finger puppets and scarf embellishments, pins, and a little felted cat to cover that hole in your favorite sweater because you didn’t want it to smell like moth balls. (Really, who could blame you?)

In between projects are tidbits of information such as suggestions for grooming a reluctant cat, keeping cats happy and healthy, and the origin of the author’s using cat hair in the first place. If you are a true cat lover your favorite part will undoubtedly be the bios or all the “contributors.”

If you want more check out her blog, http://nekoke.com/ (The Cat Hair Craft Room) but remember that unless you can read Japanese you’ll simply have to enjoy the pictures but there are some really cute projects in those pictures.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Useless Knowledge: Christmas Edition

Love your articficial Christmas tree?

The first artificial trees were made in Germany in the late 1800s using goose or other feathers sometimes dyed green to resemble pine needles.

But the real innovation came in the early 1900s in America when the Addis Brush Company decided they had a better more permanent solution to making artificial trees. One crazy employee must have been looking at the brush he was making and said, "Hey, this would make a good tree!"

It makes more sense when you know that the Addis Brush Company manufactured toilet brushes.

See the resemblance?


They obtained the patent for the "Silver Pine" in 1950. I think someone in my family had one of these. It was designed to have the rotating light underneath changing the color of the tree.

Thus the modern day artificial Christmas tree was born. Only now-a-days we call them permanent life-like. I guess it sounds more positive. I say it's fake tree and doesn't shed needles on my carpet so I love it!

Best thing is now I know what to do if the toilet desperatly needs cleaned and I run out of those handy dandy wand thingies.