Pottering Cat Stamps

Pottering Cat stamps from Japan! So much fun. Which is exactly what we all need these days. Once-upon-a-time I had had a very small collection of stamps, which included a few of these cats. It was before I was even a cat person! Or, I should say, it was before cats found me and converted me into their servant/house elf.

These stamps are inexpensive and I feel like once you get one, you need more in the family to keep each other company. I’ve been using them in my snail mail and journal, in tiny notes to the kids, in my Traveler’s Notebook. There are so many designs to choose from, and it’s so much fun to see who chooses which ones.

This one is a personal favourite of mine for both snail mail (do not bend) and also for my journaling. It is life and stationery and having fun and not taking yourself too seriously and also sort of reminds me of Tuna. Chicken is also striped, but his stripes are less pronounced and also the look on this cat’s face is a bit more endearing (as opposed to hostile and displeased).

As always, I’m one step behind the ball and we’ve had a couple of shipments in, designs here or there selling out before I could get these photos up. These four above were four new designs in a later shipment, and they’re perfect because they represent me and the kids (Jon staunchly refusing to acknowledge his cat servant/house elf position and so has passed on these stamps entirely): Caleb plays xylophone in his school music class, Naomi plays doctor in her spare time, Junia answers various phones, and me just trying to drink my tea in peace.

The kids each have their own small (but growing) stamp collection, and it’s been fun helping them choose which stamps they want as part of their own.

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In any case, I hope all is well with all of you. This final countdown to the end of the school year has been intense, with all the teacher’s gifts, talent shows, play dates, field trips, recitals, buying gear for camps, year end tests, year end BBQs. I’m frantically paddling under the illusion of keeping the wheels on, bedtimes stretching later and later into the night along with the longer days, despite it still being a school night. The other day Naomi called me “the best mom ever” because I “only pretend like bedtime is important.”

I have a few projects I’m interested in launching, but I’m behind on emails, much less getting something new hefted off the ground. I’m trying to take it all in stride—even as I squirrel away late at night, past my own bedtime, to try and get a few things done—because it’s summer! It is lemonade and bubble tea and sunsets at Riverdale Park and swimming and books on the fire escape.

There are various fun events at the shop this summer, community journaling, Letter Writing Clubs, a Traveler’s Notebook Meet-Up, and various adventures planned with the kids. Lots to look forward to, these golden days.