Pesky Cat Designs

Create Your Own Custom Wayfarer Purs e I finally added a listing to my shop for a custom order Wayfarer Purse! You can now choose the exterior fabric, interior fabric and applique design to create your own purse. I've listed five color choices in a lovely linen-look upholstery fabric and lots of different interior cotton prints to select from. At the moment I am offering nine different applique designs to choose from. See the full listing here . In the future I plan on adding a custom order Messenger Bag and more!  Exterior Fabric Choices for your Custom Order Purse Selection of Applique Designs for your Custom Order Purse

I've been working on creating a listing in my shop that will allow my customer to "build" their own purse. I am playing around with a lot of different ideas at the moment. The listing will include a choice of exterior fabric in several colors with a selection of coordinating cotton print fabric to choose for the interior of the purse. There will be a selection of my applique designs to choose from such as cherry blossoms, a bird on a branch, seahorses and more. I think my custom listing will be a great addition to the Pesky Cat Designs shop. If you have any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear from you. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Today I discovered that my Wayfarer Purse with a Bird on a Branch Applique made it to Etsy's front page this morning. Hooray!  Thanks to Splurge for creating such a stunning treasury and to Etsy for choosing it for the front page . Check out Splurge's shop for very beautiful and unique jewelry.  By the way, if you have an Etsy shop you can easily check to see if you have been featured on the Front Page, in the Storque or a Gift Guide by typing in your shop name  here . 

Yesterday morning my Wayfarer Purse in Black made it to Etsy's front page! The treasury was created by an administrator using the search term "summer flowers". Thank you Etsy! Lately I've been paying a lot more attention to the key words I choose for my tags and it has really paid off.   If you have a shop on Etsy, I would recommend checking the gift guide categories and keeping in mind what is in season or what is popular when choosing your tags. Recently Etsy added a new gift guide category called Equestrian Prep so I tagged my new purse with a horse applique with the word "equestrian"   and it got into that gift guide!   With summer approaching I decided to tag my Wayfarer Purse with a Cherry Blossom Applique with "summer" and "flowers" and luckily Etsy chose my purse for the front page. I also check the gift guides on a regular basis to see what is "in" at the moment and will consider creating a applique design that fits

Last week I got an email from Gina @ A Bit of Whimsy , letting me know that she has given me the One Lovely Blog Award! Thank you Gina! I am truly honored to receive this award from such a lovely person. You really must check out her blog, A Bit of Whimsy and her Etsy shop Indigo Rain . Her blog is filled with such inspirational thoughts and photos. I look forward to each post. Her shop is filled with magical photos and whimsical paintings. I can not say enough good things about Gina, her blog and all her artistic endeavors.  The rules of the blog award are: 1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. 2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. I hereby award the following blogs the One Lovely Blog Award! ( In alphabetically order) 1.  Artmind 2. Chickaboom 3.  CollageClips 4. Daily Dolan Geiman 5. Daily Felt 6. Edward and Lilly 7.  GetReadySetGO 8.  Hare and Drum House of

I am thinking about introducing a custom order listing that will be available in my Etsy shop sometime in the near future. I recently purchased a large stock of the most wonderful cotton-blend upholstery fabric in a linen-look weave, see purse posted above, in a variety of great colors. The custom listing would allow my customer to select this fabric in the color of their choice and select an interior print fabric. Included in the listing would be a list of applique designs you can choose from. So basically my customer will be able to create their own purse!  In the past I was not able to take on too many custom orders as I always purchased my fabric in small quantities and often ran out of something a potential customer would request. I'm hoping that by offering a custom listing, my shop will appeal to a larger audience . I'm pretty excited about this. Now all I have to do is wait for my shipment of fabric to arrive. If you have any suggestions or ideas I would be very happy

The Wayfarer Purse with a Seahorse Applique This past Thursday, after reading Star of the East's post, Nature Inspirations ,  I  was so inspired to create purses with seahorse appliques again. Seahorses are quite fascinating creatures. According to Wikipedia "there are over 47 species of seahorse mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world. The male seahorse is equipped with a brood pouch on the ventral side. When mating, the female seahorse deposits the eggs in the male's pouch, which the male then internally fertilizes. The male carries the eggs until they emerge, expelling fully developed, miniature seahorses in the water. Throughout the male's incubation, his mate visits him daily for "morning greetings". The female swims over for about 6 minutes of interaction in which they change color, wheel around sea grass frond, and finally promenade, holding each other's tails. Then the female swims away until the next morning.&q

Thought I would give you a little glimpse into my creative space today. The purses above are in various stages of production. I usually work on several at once. The process starts with the cutting of the fabric and I always have so many ideas that I end up cutting many patterns in different fabrics and colors. After that I decide on the interior fabric and then the applique design if I plan to use one. At the moment my purses with the  cherry blossoms  seem to be the best sellers. I recently added an  equestrian inspired applique  for all the horse lovers out there. Since summer is on the way, seahorses  will be making a splash very soon! Purse with Seahorse Applique

It has been a wonderful week for me on Etsy.  Yesterday I discovered that my Downtown Bag in Lilac and Chocolate made it to the front page. Thanks Etsy! It was created by an administrator browsing through Etsy's categories. I received a lot of traffic to my shop because of this feature. :) Today I learned that my Wayfarer Purse with a galloping horse applique is featured in Etsy's gift guide, Equestrian Prep !   My Limited Edition Downtown Bag made it into two Storque articles this past week! It was featured in  Summer Fashion Showcase on June 8th   and Etsy Finds: Bag Lady on June 10th . Thanks Etsy! Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend! :)

If you have been following my blog then you know how excited I get about fabric. I recently received a shipment of cotton print fabric that I ordered online and I am thrilled with it. The retro-look floral cotton fabric posted above will work well with lots of different colors. Can't wait to line my handbags with these great prints. The black and white number posted above will look great lining a black handbag or perhaps a red one. I also have some soft pink cotton/linen blend fabric that will be perfect. I just love this retro-look strawberry and flower fabric in gray and red. It is just sweeeeet! I think I might coordinate it with a dark gray cotton/linen blend fabric.  Last but not least I just had to purchase a few yards of this cotton fabric with grazing horses. It was just too much fun to pass by. It will work so nicely with my equestrian line of handbags. So now I'm off to cut, cut  and  sew, sew.  Stay tuned for the results!

Yesterday I discovered that my Limited Edition Downtown Bag was featured in the Storque article,  Summer Fashion Showcase ,  reported by Bethela . Thanks Etsy and Bethela! So today I am dreaming of beautiful summer days spent by the ocean, my favorite place in the world, while it is raining cats and dogs here in NYC!  

Today I found out that I received a Kreativ Blogger Award. Thank you Meltem! I was honored to receive this award from Meltem, a wonderful person, who has a wonderful and creative blog, Breezybead , and makes beautiful jewelry.  You must check out her Etsy shop, Meltemsem , for the most unique creations! The rules of the Kreativ Blogger Award state that I have to list seven things I love and seven blogs I love. So here they are! Things I love: 1. My family ( My partner Tom, my kitty and my entire family.... I love them all!!!) 2. My sweet friends 3. Creating  4. Day trips ( discovering new places or re-visiting a place I love) 5. Long trips ( somewhere I need to bring a suitcase)  6. Watching Ghost Hunters on Wednesday nights  7. Smart Puffs ( cheesy puffy snacks...mmmmmm) There are many more things I love but I am only allowed to list seven! Seven Blogs I love:  Listed in Alphabetically order. I have so many but I can only pick seven....OK.. here they are.   1. Artmind 2. CollageClip

The Limited Edition Downtown Bag in Chartreuse and Olive Green I've decided to start producing some limited editions of my creations. I usually purchase my fabric in small batches but I plan to start ordering larger amounts in the future. This will enable me to produce more than one of a particular design. But where to store all this fabric? I will have to come up with an idea when the time arises. I would love to have large bolts of fabric hanging from the wall like they do at my fabric shop. With that day dream I will end my post here and head to my studio. Have a great day. :)

Today I added another equestrian-inspired purse to my shop. It's made from cotton canvas in a deep red color with an ultrasuede applique. Check it out in my shop ! Also today, A Nostalgic Breeze, the treasury   that I curated, was selected for Etsy's front page! It featured IndigoRain, staroftheeast, lulubugjewelry, trapperjane, ingermaaike, dolangeiman, SecondLineFrames, fleurfatale, madamehoux, IllyriaPottery, Bellebas and inkypots. Congrats to all the artists featured!

Rider Crossing 8x10 Print by Otradausa   Purse with a Galloping Horse Applique by Pesky Cat Designs My latest equestrian appliques are inspired by a recent road trip that took me through the many horse farms located in Ocala, Florida .  The purse above features a galloping horse applique that was hand drawn, hand cut and machine sewn onto the bag. It is now available in my shop . Stay tuned for more equestrian-inspired creations coming to the Pesky Cat Designs shop very soon! I found Rider Crossing , by Otradausa , posted above searching Etsy's new category, Equestrain Prep . Anita of Otrada creates stylish and distinctive animal-inspired products. Check out her shop for lots of beautiful items! 

I woke up about 15 minutes ago and turned on my computer to find my Semi-Circle Purse on the front page of Etsy! The beautiful front page was created by an Etsy administrator browsing through Etsy's categories. I'm glad she decided to search the handbag section!