Clare Davis Etheridge

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Pom Pom ghost

Halloween meets pom poms and out pops a ghost!
I had the bright idea of making a ghost using pom poms this morning, so I did!

Want to make your own pom pom ghostie friend?
Easy peasy. You need to make two pom poms the same size.

When you have two pom poms, sew them together using the same wool. Then the fun part, you get to play ghost hair stylist. Trim trim trim away to get a ghosty ghost shape.
Final touch is adding the eyes. Choose two buttons and sew them where you want the eyes. Add a length of wool to hang him and you are all done.

Now you can make lots of ghosts and make a spooky garland or fill a glass vase with ghosts or just run around scaring people with them.

Weekly Photos October 7 2013

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

I am joining Emily at The Beetle Shack starting this week and posting a little collection of photos taken over the previous week.

1. Bodhi decorating the porch now it is October and we have dragged out the Halloween decos.

2. We found a toad in the woods who sat bravely while I stuck my phone in his face.

3. Little white mushrooms in a row.

4. Field of corn at the pumpkin patch.

5. Corn sacks for sliding speed.

6. Spooky owl.

7. Bodhi conquers the hay pyramid.

8. Giant pumpkin.

That was last week, I am looking forward to the cooler weather predicted for this week and getting some lovely pictures.

Six word Saturday

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

Today’s Six Word Saturday. I found the tiny buttons at a yard sale on the way to bootcamp where we got soaked in a downpour!

New look for CatsEatDogs

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

I sat myself down last week to find a font I could use for all of my CatsEatDogs banners and profiles. I like to look at typography, but I am no expert and rarely does one jump out yelling ‘pick me’!

My trawl did not go unrewarded as I found a lovely new font and I have changed my Etsy banner and my Facebook page and my lovely blog too.

Now, I need you to be impressed because I managed it all on the dreaded Photoshop which I am worse than horrible at. I was so proud of myself I even made a new personal Facebook cover, look –

Not bad!

In keeping with my new font love, I made some new lovely jewelry and here are some photos with my new fancy type.

I am happy with my new ‘look’ and I feel much better now that my typography is going to be consistent. Photoshop is a little less scary too.

Don’t you just love to learn new stuff then feel all smart about yourself?!

Have a fab weekend. What are you up to? Do share. We are off to the pumpkin patch and we are part of a city wide yard sale tomorrow, so I will be on the hunt for yard sale treasure!

Photo filters and apps for Halloween

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

October is here and apparently so is Halloween fever! My youngest fetched up our bag of Halloween decos gathered mainly from November sales, so it has taken us a few years to gather a spider or three.

I did like that he squished a pair of skelly-bob gloves behind a drain pipe, to rather good effect I think! So I took a snap and then I added a few (too many) finishes and got a spooky photo as a reward!

For this shot, I used Snapseed and cropped and added a ‘grunge’ finish and a texture and a creepy frame. Spooky huh?

I started with this –

After this one, I had to do the spider too! An innocent giant spider chomping on a glow in the dark skelly, add a few photo finishes and creepy spider with a swarm to help him….

For this one, I started in Camera+ , cropped and added the ‘Dreamstate’ filter, then on top of that I used the ‘Pinhole’ filter. I messed with the intensity to get the effect I wanted – scary! Once this was saved in Camera+, I switched to Rhonna Designs and added lots of bees and a frame. I like this one. Kind of creepy, kind of pretty….

I started with this.

Just a friendly fuzzy giant spider.

Have you got Halloween decos up yet? Do you decorate or do you allow your kids to throw the decorations up?

September 2013 photo a day

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

It’s nearly nearly nearly October which surely means we are all gathering pumpkins and making apple pies with freshly picked apples. You know, with the apples you picked at the apple orchard and ended up with a quadrillion pounds even though you told everyone to only pick a few!

I haven’t been apple picking yet, but I am sure we will and I am also sure we will bring home the required quadrillion pounds of apples!

In the meantime, September whizzed by and brought us a few cool mornings and plenty of afternoon sunshine and here are the photos I took this month. I have been playing with Flipagram too, so the photos are also all on Instagram zipping past your eyes in the new video format. I am @catseatdogsmakes on Instagram, go and see what you think.

Day 1. Together

Day 2. My name begins with.

Day 3. Lines

Day 4. Alone. Had I eaten the rest? Or was this one the only rice krispie treat which wouldn’t fit in the box?

Day 5. Here forever. The bird feeder has been claimed by the tree!

Day 6. Getting ready.

Day 7. White. One of my few ‘going out’ dresses.

Day 8. Made by me. Zucchini choc chip bread.

Day 9. On the wall

Day 10. Sweet

Day 11. What you did today. Photo some new jewels.

Day 12. Shadow

Day 13. Unexpected. Batman on the light pull.

Day 14. Liquid. We have moon jellies at the zoo!

Day 15. Season.

Day 16. Frame.

Day 17. In front of me.

Day 18. Vintage

Day 19. What is this?

Day 20. In the morning

Day 21. Rule of thirds

Day 22. Made me smile. I am about a quarter of the way into my scarf..

Day 23. From my childhood.

Day 24. Space

Day 25. H is for…

Day 26. Curve.

Day 27. WTF?

Day 28. 10 o clock. We were at the Endangered Wolf Center.

Day 29. Gold

Day 30. Found

Another month passes by and the seasons are changing. I do like the Autumn, cooler mornings and evenings and eventually cooler everything. Almost time to dig out the scarves and gloves, coats and hats. I wonder if there is anything in there I have forgotten about?! I love it when I have a scarf or a sweater I had forgotten all about! It is like it is new again (if I still like it of course..).

I have managed a full year of photo a day, following prompts provided by Fat Mum Slim, but I am not sure I am going to carry on with them. I might do a different, but regular photo thingy. I have seen blogs which do a weekly round up of photos which I like.

Do you like the daily photos? Do you take them? I just sometimes think that some photo are just crappy shots to get the prompt fulfilled and I wonder if a few deliberate photos a week to share might not be better.

I will be doing some photo based posts, we will just have to see what!

Happy Monday and have a lovely week.

Six word Saturday

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

Do you have a six word Saturday? Share here or on Instagram.

Favorite instagrammers

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

Do you Instagram? Who do you follow? Family? Friends? Big corporates? Small businesses? Celebs?

I have used Instagram for about a year and a bit now and to start with there was the option to share or not, so I used it more as a filters app and not a social media app. Now, of course it is all sharing and all social media which is fine, I just use other filter apps and think about what I want to share with anyone who cares to take a look.

About that anyone can take a look thing. How do you feel about that? Are you careful to watermark so your photos can’t be reused? I am not, but then I am no top photographer, so I am not too worried. I follow @davidloftus and he interestingly doesn’t watermark his photos and he is a top photographer. I think watermarks are only useful when they are slapped right across the middle and that completely ruins the whole point of putting a photo up in the first place. So I suppose it is best to save your masterpieces for somewhere else, like your living room walls.

Do you put up pictures of your kids and where you live? I try not to put my children on Instagram and if I do it is a picture where their face isn’t clear. Call me paranoid, but this is a public site and I must admit that I cringe when I see half naked kids on there. Yes, I know they were having great fun in the water during the summer, but save it for Grandma on a private Facebook page. I am amazed that some celebrities post pictures of their kids all over Instagram. I wonder what these children will think about that when they are older.

Talking of private, are you (on Instagram)? Most of my ‘followers’ are people I don’t know or have connected with via my blog or someone elses, so I keep my Instagram public, so that I can keep these connections going and growing. I have found some cool stuff via Instagram, everything from funny challenges to a cool product someone makes. I must admit if I come across a private account, I won’t even bother unless I know the person. I want to see the photos first before I add them to my feed.

If you like an app on your phone, I recommend following them too as this is usually the first place they post new features or tips. I like @over, @rhonnafarrer, @emmaredvelvet (A Beautiful Mess) and of course @instagram.

I am enjoying the Fashion week photos at the minute, my favourite Instgrammers for the Fashion week (s) are @harpersbazaarus @imninagarcia (watch out for Project Runway spoilers though) and @rebeccalowthorpe (British Elle and a school friend from way back when!).

Generally I follow people I know and/or people whose photos I adore and admire. I don’t follow many big companies although I do follow some great small businesses like @scribblesandstripes and @eyecandyboutiquestl.

How about celebs? I follow @jamieoliver and @karliekloss and love their posts, but most celebs and music stars just post really boring pictures I think. No photos of Justin Bieber and his monkey in my world!

My favourite ‘grammers are @davidloftus, @kalbarteski, @missfoodwise, @tinkerlab and @khiesti.

Who do you follow? Want to follow me @catseatdogsmakes? Put your Instagram name in the comments I will pop over and say Hi!

Pumpkin Spice M&M Peanut butter cookies

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

I make this basic Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies all the time, so it is the recipe I went to when I wanted to make some Autumn-y cookies with the new M&M flavour ‘Pumpkin Spice’. I intended to add cinnamon too, but I forgot, so you will have to make them and tell me if cinnamon works or if it is too much. I must admit I don’t usually like the new crazy seasonal flavours in chocolates and sweets. These are ok though and make good cookies! I am not sure why the M&M guy on the front looks so sad.

Peanut Butter, Pumpkin Spice M&M and cinnamon cookies Adapted from the recipe in ‘Relaxed Cooking by Curtis Stone’

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup chunky peanut butter

1 cup light brown sugar

8 tablespoons butter at room temperature

2 tablespoons runny honey

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup Pumpkin Spice M&M’s

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper

Mix flour, cinnamon and baking soda and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg, peanut butter, honey and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture and fold in. Mix in the M&M’s.

Use a heaping teaspoon amount per cookie (or more if you like big cookies) and press down gently with a fork. These cookies don’t spread out, so they end up thick and cakey if they are not squashed slightly.

Bake for about 12 minutes, turning the trays halfway, until they are golden but still soft.

Cool for 5 minutes on the trays and transfer to a cooling rack.

I would have taken a photo of more cookies, but there are only two left!

I want to find more seasonal sweeties to make cookies with. I am thinking caramel kisses in a basic cookie base. Do you use fun candy in baking? Do share, no secrets here!

Free motion machine embroidery

Published by Clare at CatsEatDogs

This week is ‘Selfish Sewing’ week thanks to Made with Moxie and Imagine Gnats and I promised myself I would embrace it. One hour a day at the machine, not much to ask of myself, especially as I want to make more fabric lovelies like scarves and bags.
Today’s project was my very first go at machine embroidery. Presser foot off the machine and feeder teeth gone. Just me and a sewing needle.

I did a quick sketch of a tea cup and found instructions in my sewing machine’s manual. The fabric went into my embroidery hoop and off I went.

All of my sewing experience and knowledge was to be ignored and my sewing mind had to expand to welcome this new and strange technique.

Drawing with my machine needle became easier as I practiced and practiced. It is super weird to be able to move the fabric so freely, forwards, backwards, around corners with no stopping and starting to keep the fabric where I need it.

My trust was in the embroidery hoop and my little sketch to guide me. I had a blast and can’t wait for the next outing into the world of freemotion embroidery.