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!

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!

Surfer Penguin is a continuation of The Sock Project I decided to do in 2013. For those of you who don’t know, in 2013 I found myself in an artistic rut. I decided one way to combat the rut would be to take a picture of the socks I wore everyday during the month of February and then do a design based on the pair of socks I wore that day.

Originally, I had planned to do a design a day. Oops!

Anyway, here is the sock that the design is based on:

For some reason, a penguin and the word chillen made me think of a penguin relaxing on a beach with a surfboard while watching the sunset.

Surfer Penguin on the Beach

by ValeriesGallery

Even though I’m not much of a beach person, I’ve always found it relaxing walking on the beach during a sunrise.

This design was originally done in marker. It can be found in my Zazzle shop, Redbubble and Imagekind.

What do you think of Surfer Penguin on the Beach?

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?

Please Note: This post contains affiliate links.  All that means is that if someone purchases something through one of the links, I do make some money at no extra cost to you! Thank you for your support!

In last month’s post, I wrote about Zazzle Notebooks.  You can find that blog post here.

This post will be about notebooks from Red Bubble.  (On a side note, they also sell hard covered journal notebooks.) Hopefully you find this post helpful in getting an idea about what the spiral notebooks from Red Bubble are like.

The two spiral notebooks I bought from Red Bubble were Monster Bear and Orange Slice Fruit.

Here are the backs of the notebooks:

The nice thing about the Redbubble spiral notebooks is that there is a folder towards the back of the notebook.  This is super helpful for people like me who make notes for various reasons on loose paper and then shove it into the notebook, only to have the paper constantly fall out!

Redbubble also included a sticker.  The art work is by Sophie Corrigan.

Another bonus is that the Red Bubble spiral notebooks seem super durable.  I’m very hard on my notebooks.  Whenever I go somewhere where I know I’ll be sitting around for along time, I always bring a bag full of stuff to keep me entertained.  I’ve been known to accidentally rip the cover off of a notebook.

Luckily, I was able to bring the Red Bubble notebook back and forth in an over stuffed bag and it looks just like new! Yeah!

For those of you that are interested, here is how Red Bubble packages their notebooks:

I like the fact that each notebook comes in its own protective bag.  The box that Red Bubble uses is also very sturdy.  This  seems to help in protecting the notebooks during the delivery journey.

I’m note going to lie.  I also like the fact that Red Bubble includes a fun surprise sticker. It feels like I’m getting a bonus!

Just a heads up, if you’re frugal like me, but still love cute notebooks, Red Bubble does have good sales.  You can sign up for their emails or check their website.

Hopefully this post gives you some insight into what the spiral notebooks from Red Bubble are like.

Do you have a place where you like to buy notebooks from?  Do you have any questions about Red Bubble notebooks?  Let us know in the comments!

The DJ black and white cat in Cat Rave Dance Party Paws Up is based on my cat Oreo. She is definitely the most nocturnal of my two cats.

Our cats are not allowed in the bedroom. The idea for this design came about because Oreo lately has gotten into the habit of meowing outside our bedroom door at about five o’clock in the morning. When she does this, either my husband or I will say, “Shushi, Oreo.” Or “Oreo too early. Go sleepy.” Being the good cat that she is, she usually obeys.

When we get up a little while later, the black and white cat will be all tuckered out and fast asleep in one of her favorite sleeping spots, while her sister, a tabby, is up and running around the house.

In reality, my cats are strictly indoor cats. I am too much of a worrier for them to be out door cats. Though, that didn’t stop me from joking with my husband that Oreo had a secret life as a club DJ or something and she was just letting us know when she was home. And thus, Cat Rave Dance Party Paws Up was born!

Did you know:

• The gray and white cat paws are based on Oreo’s sister, Olivia.

• Oreo is also the basis for Cookie the Cat in the Cookie and Olivia book series.

• Cookie and Olivia have their own store on Zazzle

• This is the second design I’ve made where an animal is DJing. The other one is DJ Piggy Pig.

• Oreo is also in a few of my other designs. These include Sleeping Black and White Cat, Here’s Looking at You Cat, and Cat Eyes (Black and White), to name just a few.

Cat Rave Dance Party Paws Up is available for sale on:

• Zazzle

• Red Bubble

• Imagekind

• Skreened

Do you have a pet? Do they have any interesting habits? Has your pet inspired you in any way? Let us know in the comments!

For those of you that don’t know, you can use water color pencils just like colored pencils or dip them in water.  When they’re dipped in water, the material acts like water color paint. Since, I was eager to try them out and wanted to see how they performed in pencil form and watercolor form, I made the following picture:

Since I liked how the picture came out, I thought it would be fun to make a digital version! Here’s how it turned out:

Fun Facts

• The original has black flowers, the digital version does not.
• The flowers in the original version, have different color centers. In the digital version, they all have yellow centers.
• The original was done in a 5X7 sketch pad which my husband also bought me for my birthday.
• Colorful Flowers Red Blue Green Orange is available on a variety of products on Zazzle, RedBubble, Imagekind, Society6 and Skreened

Have you used water colors before?  Any tips?

Didn’t happen. Although I have managed to do a few designs based on this challenge. For some examples, see previous posts The Story of…Bears Flying Planes, The Story of…Polar Bear Eating Ice Cream, The Story of…Stripes in Gray, The Story of..Bokeh Inspired Hearts and The Story of…Grim Reaper with Flower. Every once in a while, I decide that I should finish that challenge and continue creating designs based on the socks I wore in February 2012. Honestly, I thought I had photographed every pair I wore that month. It turns out I was wrong. For one reason or another, there is a day that is missing a sock photograph! Though, I felt I couldn’t just skip over this day since I had done every other one until that point and thus… Missing You Socks was born!

Fun Facts:

• For some reason whenever I look at this design, the song Missing You by John Waite pops into my head.

• The text on the front of the Missing You Socks card on Zazzle(along with the inside text) is customizable. Only the inside text on the inside Missing You Socks card on Greeting Card Universe is customizable.

• The day of the missing sock photograph is February 8.

• February 8^th is the day after my birthday.

Just realized I admitted to being wrong and failing in the same post. Ouch! Ha ha. Has there been a time that you’ve been able to make a mistake work for you? Let us know in the comments!