Flooded Again, The Valentine's Cottage and Fudge's new Bandana on The Pet Parade 340 with Dash Kitten, Barking from the Bayou and US!

Happy Wednesday supurr pals

Welcome to our weekly news round-up.  Sorry we missed mew on Monday, only we had a severe brush with Storm Dennis which left the P.A.'s business premises flooded again for the second time in 8 months.

The garage workshop was 6" or 15cm under water again, and mew know the really daft thing is that the new flood defence system was only just installed in January, and it did wurk up to a point, but the water came in the middle of Saturday night, and it came that fast that it went up the carpark and in through the showroom and then back down into the workshops.

The Showroom.

The only good thing was that in a perverse way while the water got in it didn't bring the thick layer of red-clay silt in like before, that all stayed on the carpark and dad is jetwashing off right now.

So the P.A. and dad spent 9 hours on Sunday pumping the water out and starting the clean up which has been in progress for the last 3 days.  But at least they can still operate, which is great news as last time they were out of action fur a few days.  So no downtime and the clean-up is 90% done, they just need a few dry days to dry out the building.

It could have been so much worse.  But aftur many years and many floods they've got used to it and it's not going to get any better.  The next plan is to dig up along the forecourt and put in a large pipe onto the front lawn of Granny's house next door so the water goes there, as sadly the Highways department and local councils are as much use as a chocolate teapot.  They make tiny changes which don't benefit these premises in any way, in fact, they have channelled the water to it faster now. 

This is our local river below, the last time the P.A. remembered the water being that high was October 2001.

If mew're in one of the flood-hit places in the U.K. do stay safe and tell your peeps neffur effur drive through flood water.

In other news, due to the P.A. getting a nasty cold a couple of weeks ago our scheduled Valentine's Edition of Crafting with Cats was delayed, but the good news is she has now completed our project and we'll be sharing it imminently.  And here's a sneak peek of what's in store... 

This time we're making a supurr cute Valentine's Cottage complete with a dormer window and climbing roses. And it has a lovely pink velvet snuggle mat just purrfect for your pampered, loved-up kitty to snooze on.



And finally this week, Fudge was a bit hissed off that Melvyn got the Koala bandana the other week, so he was supurr surprised when a special parcel arrived at BBHQ just fur him on Monday and in it was this...

His pawesome pal Eric, sent him a brand new design to try and it is not even in the shop yet, so Fudge is feeling EPICALLY EPIC and majorly exclusive right now! MOL

Smugness factor right now - OFF THE CHARTS

Thanks so much Eric, dude mew're the best!

And we'ver just ordered this one fur Parsley.

If mew've missed any of the posts offur the last week, here's the catch-up links:

Feline Fiction on Fridays #120 at Amber's Library 

Valentine's Selfies & Melvyn's Kissing Booth 

Colouring with Cats #94 ~ Getting Your OM on with Mandalas on Mondays 

What's In The Box? Valentine's Review

Crafting with Cats #18 Valentine's Special

Amber will be here on Friday with a fantastic book she can't wait to share with mew all, so do stop by the library, tea and nip cookies will be served, and we hope to see mew then! 

Oodles of purrs

Wing Commander Basil The B Team

Now let's HOP on... 

❤

Go visit our pawesome host

The Dash Kitten Crew

 & Co Host

Barking From The Bayou

❤

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The B Teams Valentine's Selfies & Melvyn's Kissing Booth on The Sunday Selfies & Caturday Art Blog Hops

Fabulous greetings pawesome pals

Welcome to another selfie selection and today our theme is:

The B Teams Valentine's Selfies

and young Melvyn is back with this....

Melvyn's Kissing Booth 

Just look at his little face, he's so cute, but he's so nervous and thinks no-one will want to smooch him!!!

For effuryone that would like to kiss Melvyn, Parsley will add £1 to our OZ bush fire fundraiser for the RSPCA in Victoria.

Tell us in the comments if mew'd smooch Melvyn! MOL

We're also joining in the lovely Athena's Art Hop so do stop by and show off your pawesome arty-farty skills.

The effect was created with Befunky - Underpainting DLX

We also turned this fab arty-farty picture into a puzzle, so do stop by the puzzle page and see if mew can beat our time of 11 mins 03 secs.  A tad slower than last weeks but it was quite hard! MOL

Well, that's a wrap for our Valentine's week festivities, we do hope mew've enjoyed all the extra love.  

Anyhoo it's time for us to go on a supurr quick kitty patrol around the garden before it starts to rain again with gale-force winds, so we do hope mew have a totally terrific day and we'll see mew on the morrow if mew're in the blog'o'sphere.

Wishing mew lots of snoozy snuggles

Best Sunday Purrs

Basil & The B Team

Don't furget to join in the pawesome Sunday Selfies Blog Hop with

 Angel Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth, Calista Jo, Cooper Murphy and Sawyer ~ visit them at their pawesome blog:

www.thecatonmyhead.com

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Crafting With Cats ~ Part XVIII ~ Valentines Special ~ Sharing the Valentine's Heart Crinkle Mat from 2018

Welcome to

Supurr Greetings Pawesome Pals

Thanks fur joining fur us fur Part XVIII of our Crafting with Cats segment.  Mew know we have so much fun making all this stuff for feline enrichment, and we hope mew enjoy seeing it and/or making it too! 

If mew missed any of our previous CWC posts, stop by the Crafting with Cats Page and see all our previous projects, and mew don't have to be an expert in anything to make any of them.  Plus we offer workarounds and no-sew projects for those who don't like to sew.

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**A quick note before we begin**

All Crafting with Cats ideas and creations are of our own design and we share them fur purrsonal/home use only.

  So purrlease do not copy fur commercial/resale purrposes.

Copyright ©BionicBasil®

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Today rather than making something new, which we have but mew guys can't see it yet, we thought it would be nice to share the Valentine's Heart Crinkle Mat from 2018, as these posts don't get a lot of air time. So enjoy Smooch and Fudge today...

What We Used:

Fabric of your choosing, ours is red

Wadding/padding

Lining fabric

Plastic shopping bags ~ yes we're doing our bit and recycling

Sewing machine

scissors - cotton - pins - needle - tailors chalk or similar - ruler

Optional Cat ~ Smooch was today's Snoopervisor

Furst we suggest measuring one of your kitties to see how big your fabric needs to be, as not all kitty's are the same size.

Take your fabric and give it a quick iron.

Fold it in half and draw half a heart shape directly on the fabric with your tailors chalk, so your heart is symmetrical when mew open the cut fabric out. It's so much easier than trying to draw a complete heart on the fabric.

Cut out your heart.

Cut out two pieces of lining fabric and one piece of your padding using your furst heart as a template.

Take your plastic bags and see how many mew need to fill the size of your heart.

We used 5.

Optional kitty fur testing if there's enough rustle! MOL

Pin your padding between your main fabric and one piece of lining fabric, pin together and sew around the edge.  We used a zigzag stitch.

Your heart should now look like this.

Take your ruler and tailors chalk and mark your quilting lines.

Mew don't have to do this but we think it looks really nice.

Sew along your quilting lines, we sewed larger squares as it looked better, and your heart should look something like this.  Use a piece of fabric off-cut to rub any tailors chalk off the heart - it should come off furry easily.

Next, take your quilted heart and place it and your second piece of lining fabric 'right-sides together' pin and sew all the way around the edge with a straight stitch leaving about half an inch / 1cm seam width.  Leave about 5" or 13cm gap so mew can turn it the right way out and stuff the bags inside.

Position the bags inside the heart so they aren't lumpy or bunched up together, then hand stitch the remaining seam closed.

And mew should have something that looks like this:

It took approximately 90 minutes to make from start to finish, as we always make it up as we go along.  We have an idea of what we want to make, and then we just dive right in.  So we think it shouldn't take more than an hour to make with destructions!

And here's Smoochie testing it, watch fur Pandora's total eclipse! MOL

All in all each of The B Team have had a try and give it all paws up!

In fact Fudge, much to Smoochie's chagrin got himself on it and refused to move!

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And that furiends furry sadly brings us to the end of our eighteenth Crafting with Cats post, we do hope mew liked it.

We'll be back tomorrow with the last of our Valentine's posts; our supurr selfie selection and do hope mew can join us then.

Bestest crafty purrs

Wing Commander Basil & The B Team

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Disclaimer:

We at BionicBasil HQ are not responsible or liable fur any injuries to person/s and/or cat/s, crafting addictions, glue on cats, paper cuts, misplaced pins and needles, cats stealing your supplies, broken scissors, cat fur stuck on your projects, or your project not turning out as planned.  By using this information you hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless BionicBasil and staff from and against any and all claims for personal injuries or damages of any kind arising from the use of any Crafting With Cats posts we may share.

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