The book I’m currently working on features a group of animals that work for an organization that investigates strange occurrences. Their first adventure has to do with finding missing pet food. Agent Stealth is in charge of the investigation. Agent Stealth is based on my cat, Stealth.

My husband and I were lucky that Stealth decided that we were to become his humans in 2020. We like to say that something good did happen in 2020!

Something to know about Stealth:

• Like his fictional counter part, Stealth loves to eat!
• Stealth was originally a stray
• Stealth has been part of our family since he was a kitten
• Stealth has two older sisters named Oreo and Olivia
• He loves to play! One of his favorite past times is batting his mouse toy around
• Stealth has a lot of nicknames. Some examples are:
  • Stealthanator
  • Bubsy
  • Buddy
  • Stealtharino
  • Sir Stealth

Stealth is a very loving kitty and gets along with both his sisters. We’re very blessed to have him as part of our family!

We also look forward to seeing what adventures the fictional Agent Stealth and members of the C.A.T.S. organization get into!

It’s about a group of animals that investigate supernatural and non super natural events. The idea came about because I like to imagine what my three cats are doing when I’m not home or they’re hiding somewhere in the house for hours.

Now for the tricky part. Do I want C.A.T.S. to stand for Caring Animals That Are Super or Caring Animals That Are Special? Personally, I’m leaning towards Caring Animals That Are Super. My only concern is that people will think its about pets who are super heroes.

What do you think? Which do you prefer? (Let me know in the comments!)

Also if you’re looking for a gift for the young ones in your life, feel free to check out my other books!

Here are some fun facts:

• Mimi is based on my teddy bear Ginger. My Grammy gave me Ginger for Christmas when I was ten years old. (She’s obviously been loved! :))

• Tro is part of the Drom. The word drom means dream in Swedish.

• I designed the book cover

• Lucky the Cat was inspired by MacGyver.

• Eclipse was inspired by a black that hangs around my husband’s place of employment

• I first thought about the black cat fighting squad while volunteering at the SPCA. Some years ago, there was a bunch of black cats hanging around and climbing on things. They reminded me of ninjas.

If you end up reading the book, don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions are are curious about anything!

Crocheting is a hobby of mine. I’m not very good at it and my stuff always come out wonky, but I find it relaxing.

Most of my stuff ends up becoming cat blankets whether it was intended or not!

You can see some of the ideas that crochet inspired at the following sites:

Zazzle:

Gifts for Crocheters
by ValeriesGallery

Redbubble:

Teepublic:

http://tee.pub/lic/UDcv38bttLY

And my Etsy shop:

https://beautifulcuteness.etsy.com

Do you crochet? Any tips?

For everyone, what is your favorite hobby? Let us know in the comments!

When I was working on this particular design, my husband came in to my office and said, “Oh! Is that a cat wearing pants?”

I had to inform him, no, its a kawaii style werewolf.

This werewolf started out as part of a design that contained a group of monsters. The monsters in the group included

• Kawaii Style Werewolf
• Kawaii Style Vamprie
• Kawaii Style Mummy
• Kawaii Style Frankenstein

The original design came about as part of Spoonflower’s weekly design challenge. This particular design challenge was called Monster Mashup. The instructions said to make a design featuring monsters.

You can see the fabric design here:

https://www.spoonflower.com/en/fabric/15194740-monster-vampire-ghost-werewolf-kawaii-pattern-by-beautifulcuteness

I then decided to pin off each monster into their own design.

Kawaii Style Werewolf is available in the following shops:

Zazzle
Werewolf Kawaii Style Halloween
by ValeriesGallery

Redbubble

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/148591810

Society6

https://society6.com/art/werewolf-cute-kawaii-halloween-monster?curator=beautifulcuteness&utm_campaign=2574&utm_source=sharedlink&utm_medium=social&utm_content=ddp_from_artist_studio

TeePublic

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/47854062-werewolf-cute-kawaii?store_id=2488167

This is a great design for Halloween. Halloween theme clothing is a great way to join in the Halloween Spirit without having to wear a costume!

What is your favorite monster? Does this design look like a werewolf or a cat in pants? Tell us in the comments!

Penguin Rock and Roll band is the result of a sock design challenge I started a few years ago. (For those of you who don’t know, when I was in a design rut, I decided to take pictures of my socks for the month of February. The idea was I would do a daily design based on the socks I wore that day. Only things didn’t work out that way and here I am a few years later trying to finish it. Oops.)

I wore these socks on Valentine’s Day. As much as I like the penguin hugging a heart idea, I didn’t want to just copy the design. I was working on something and caught a glimpse of Kitty Cat Kawaii Band file and thought to myself, “I have a cat band, a sloth band, a unicorn band and a cthulhu band, so why not a penguin band?”

Thus, Penguin Rock and Roll Band was born. Of course in order to have a penguin band, I had to create Penguin Playing Guitar, Penguin Playing Bass and Penguin Drummer.

The other bands also have art pieces of their individual members for sale.

Musical Penguins
by ValeriesGallery

Penguin Rock and Roll Band, Kitty Cat Kawaii Band, Sloth Rock Band, Unicorn Kawaii Punk Band and Cthulhu Kawai Music Band are available on Zazzle, Red Bubble and Imagekind.

Which band is your favorite? Penguins? Cat? Unicorn? Sloth? Cthulhu? Let us know in the comments!

This is another design inspired by what seems to be the never ending sock project.  (As a refresher or for those of you who don’t know, in 2013, I was in a bit of a design rut.  So, for the month of February, I took a picture of the socks I wore every day. (I picked the month of February because it’s the shortest month.)

Piano Musical Instrument Sky Clouds Notebook
by ValeriesGallery

  Initially, I pictured doing the design the same day I wore the socks.  As you can see that didn’t happen!)

  These socks feature neon color piano keys on a black background.

  The first step I did was draw a picture of a keyboard using markers.  I then scanned it in the computer and traced it in the graphics program. 

  I drew the picture with the markers that seemed to match the original color palette of the socks.  When I used the eye dropper tool to get the colors, it read them as being more pastel than neon.  Worked for me!

  As you can see in the drawing, the original background was made up of music notes.  However, I felt it was too simple and lacked something.

  On a whim, I decided to add the blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  Maybe it was my love of old trapper keeper and Lisa Frank designs.  To me, this design looks like a mash up of the two.

  Have you ever been in a rut?  How did you get out of it?

On October 19th, 2021 my Robot Christmas Card my Christmas Robot Snowflake Bleep Bleep Funny Card was awarded Design of the Day on Greeting Card Universe. The design was featured on the greeting Card Universe Home Page for the Day. I posted about it on the Valerie Gallery Facebook page.

  It’s an honor to be chosen considering how many talented artist and wonderful designs are on Greeting Card Universe!

  This is the second time one of my designs have been chosen Design of the Day.  The other one was Doctor Superheroes Doctors’ Day card in February of 2015.

  The “Bleep Bleep is Robot for” series was actually inspired by my “Roar is dinosaur for” series.

  I came up with the “Roar is dinosaur for” series because one day I was moseying around Target and noticed that a lot of the items had dinosaurs on them.  I decided it would be a good idea to come up with a dinosaur design of my own and thus, the “Roar is dinosaur for” series was born!

A Dinosaur for Every Occassion
by ValeriesGallery

People really seemed to enjoy the dinosaur series, so I started to brainstorm more ____ is for __________ ideas.  One of the ideas I came up with was a robot.  I also have “Meow is cat for” and “Roar is Lion for”.

“Meow is cat for” can be found in the Cookie and Olivia store on Zazzle.

Cookie the Cat Meowy Birthday
by cookieandolivia

And “Roar is Lion for can be found on Greeting Card Universe.

  “Bleep Bleep is Robot for” is also available for birthdays, Hanukkah, Easter, Thank You, and I Love You.

  It’s tough to pick which is my favorite, but so for it’s a toss up between the dinosaur and the robot.  Do you have a favorite?

  Cookie, from my children’s’ book series, Cookie and Olivia, is based on my cat, Oreo.

  Oreo and her sister, Olivia came into our lives in June 2009.  My husband and I were enjoying a walk around our neighborhood when one of our neighbors stopped and asked if we wanted to see some kittens.  She also asked if we would be interested or if we knew anybody that would be interested in adopting them.  She had found a momma cat and her kittens in a box.

  I said no because I never pictured myself as a cat owner.  (Don’t tell my cats, but I wanted dogs.  Ha, ha.  Jokes on me because the cat are now my very spoiled fur babies. ) We also had plans to travel to New York to see our families and then we were off to Europe to visit my brother in law.

  However, at the same time my husband enthusiastically said yes.  He was so excited, and he rarely gets excited about anything, that there was no way I could say no!

  So, we followed my neighbor to her house and out on her back porch was a long haired brown and black cat just relaxing.  In different areas of the porch, were four kittens playing.  Two black and white ones and two tabbies.  (I still remember Olivia playing with a sparkly ball when I first saw her.)

  Our neighbor had a ten year old son at the time who had already named the kittens.  Oreo was originally named Black and Whitey.  However, I had decided long ago if I ever had a black and white animal, I was going to name it Oreo.

  Olivia was originally named Hidey, because we were told, she liked to hide.  However, a few days before, my husband had joked that if we ever got a cat, they were going to give it a regal sounding name.  Olivia’s full name is Olivia Fluffybottom the III.

  Since we had been talking about getting pets, we decided to adopt two of them.  It’s a coincidence that we ended up with two girl cats.  Our neighbor asked us which ones we wanted.  I chose Olivia because she was adorable playing with her sparkly ball and Oreo got chosen because se was closest to us.

  Don’t worry though.  Their brothers and mom are living their best kitty life with a nice lady in South Florida.  It’s weird to think there is another Oreo and Olivia out there, but boys.

Some fun facts:

• Cookie and the Frowny Face Day came about from a time I was going through a bought of depression.  I decided instead of wallowing in my misery, I was going to make something positive come of it.
• Oreo’s name got changed to Cookie in the books because I didn’t want to worry about trademark issues with Oreo cookies.
• Oreo loves to cuddle!  She also enjoys lounging in boxes, paper piles and the sun.

• She loves soft food and tuna! (Which she only gets as a treat.)
• Oreo has several nicknames. They are: Cuddle kitty, the black and white one and Sunshine Kitty.
• Not only has Oreo been the inspiration for Cookie, she’s also been the inspiration for various art pieces such as Cat Rave Dance Party, Here’s Looking At You Cat and I Can See You Cat to name just a few!
• Cookie and Olivia also have their own store! You can check it out on Zazzle.

Do you have any pets?  How did they come into your life?

  In the beginning of 2013, for a variety of reasons, I was feeling very uninspired and in a rut.  Knowing I needed to do something about it, I decided it would be a good idea to take a picture of the socks I wore everyday for one month and do a design based on them.

    The original plan was that I would do the design on the same day I wore the socks.  Needles to say, that’s not how it worked out, considering its now 2021 and I still haven’t finished the project.  Oops.)

  On the bright side, even though I haven’t fully finished the project yet, my idea seemed to work!  I got pulled out of my rut and ended up with some cool designs that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.  Some examples are: Grim Reaper with Flower, Bokeh Inspired Colorful Hearts and Bears Flying Planes.

  Due the pandemic and Florida summers being a little to hot for me, I figured it was as good a time as any to continue the sock picture project from 2013. 

  When I looked where I happen to leave off it was a pair of white socks.

  I had originally picked February because it was the shortest month, thinking that would make it the easiest. One thing that I forgot to factor in was due to my birthday, anniversary, and a bunch of other reasons, I had a bunch of weekend getaways planned.

  When I travel, despite all the fun socks I own, to make life easier, I pack black and/or white socks.  This way, my socks always match my outfit no matter what clothes I pack.

  Luckily, I can still come up with designs based on plain white socks without just doing a blank page.

 After thinking about it for a while, I realized I had a design with red circles on a white background, so why not white circles on a black background?

 

White Circles Black Background Classic Pattern Satin Ribbon

by ValeriesGallery

  Voila!  White circles on a black background was born!

  This design can be found in my shops on Zazzle, Redbubble, Society6 and Spoonflower.

  I’m hoping to wrap up the socks project sooner than later!  Seven years is a long time, but sometimes life gets in the way.

  What’s the longest it’s taken you to complete a project?