Furry Friends - Cat by Kaisercraft

As an assignment from my LSS design team, I was to do a layout and one additional project with some of the Kaiser Kraft Furry Friends line.  to be fair, there are some cute embellishments that go with this paper, but at the time all we had were some earlier release pieces of the paper.  With that in mind, I made my own embellishments. 

 I started by picking the very first two pictures of my cat James Otis, aka Patriot.  He is named after my favorite American revolutionary. James Otis was revolutionary before revolutionary was cool.  He's the original. Samuel Adams called him The Patriot, so thus, my cat's nickname.
There was so much cute paper it was hard not to use it all on the one page.

 I opted not to use a title and to just let the page speak for itself with the words, images and journaling. I used the Tim Holtz / Sizzix Heartfelt die to cut out the different hearts in different sizes.

This journaling pretty much says it all.  I grew up in the country with animals, lots of them! And when I married my husband, he is allergic to everything with fur.  If a dog even touches his skin he gets welts. And when we visit a home with animals, we are soon leaving with him in a full blown allergy attack and his asthma kicks up.  So having furry animals was never an option.
My younger sister had passed away after a long illness, and that first year was pretty brutal for me. I missed her terribly. Her birthday rolled around in April and I had an incredibly hard week.  I had always done something fun and special for her.  I found myself in tears more often than not that week just because I missed her so much.

Saturday dawned, and a Saturday morning eight months prior, with us at her side, my sister had left this world and stepped into Heaven. I did what many people do when they are mourning and I took a long shower and sobbed my heart out in prayer. My tears weren't for my sister, who I knew without a doubt was in a far better place, but for me and my broken heart.  I begged God to comfort me and ease the pain of missing her.

As I was praying, I heard a noise out the bathroom window that I hadn't heard in years. I quickly dressed and ran outside to find the tiniest little orange tabby.  He was alone and terrified.  He tried to find a place to run and hide, so in order to catch him, I grabbed the towel I had around my wet hair and I threw it over him. Then I scooped him up and brought him inside. The towel calmed him and as I sat down in the house, I pulled the towel back and his sweet little face peeked out at me.  So the one with his big blue eyes is the first picture I ever took of him.  The second picture is of him fast asleep later that afternoon, in a different towel after I had taken him to the vet for a check up and advice.
I knew I couldn't keep him, so I worked to socialize him and find him a good home...but oh, I didn't realize the extent to which God had answered that prayer for comfort.  That morning He gave me a little tangible gift to show His comfort for me, and when God gives a gift, He makes what seems impossible for us, possible.
My husband didn't have any allergy problems with the kitten.  He could even hold him and pet him and no sneezing, wheezing or red eyes. God had made it possible for us to keep him. And in the infinite wisdom and humor of God, James Otis was just the beginning of His amazing answer to my prayer that April morning.  But more on that at another time. ;-D

 This is my second project. I used a Dollar Tree Frame and distressed the outside with paint. Then I covered the mat with paper and used one of the title cards in the top photo spot and one of my favorite photos of Patriots sleeping in my arms.

Since I still had to make my own embellishments, I glittered some more chipboard hearts with Antique Linen and Black Soot Distress Glitter by Tim Holtz and Ranger Ink.
The cat on the large heart is one I detail cut out of the cat silhouette paper.  Then I covered it in Glossy Accents and Vintage Photo Distress Glitter.

For the top I did much the same as I did for the St. Patrick's frame a few posts back, I cut some of the paper up with Tim Holtz / Sizzix Banner die and attached it to twine. I added a few rhinestones to cover the glue dots where I adhered it.