ANTIQUE CAR TOYS

You knew there would be a story, didn't you? ;)

My husband's cat and I both like bugs, but for very different reasons. I think they're fascinating, but Miffr thinks they're living cat toys. He isn't allowed outside, but he loves to go to the basement and hunt for creepy crawlies to bring to us. He doesn't kill them, just stuns or occasionally maims them, and he actually helps feed Valerie (my praying mantis) because she likes crickets. Most of the time, Miffr brings us crickets or "water bugs", but sometimes, he brings beetles, or even spiders.

Last night, I heard Crabby Daddy say, "Oh no...Miffy got a spider." The spiders in the basement are my little friends, providing free pest control, so they are under my protection, and I went to see what kind the cat had got. My husband had taken the spider away from the cat and was holding it in his hand, kind of bouncing it around to turn it off its back so I could see. When he did get it flipped over, I said, "Um, how about if we put that guy down," and he replied, "Why? It's dead." I told him that it wasn't dead, only playing dead, as spiders will often do if they can't get away and are being kind of battered about, but more to the point, it was a brown recluse.

For all the terrible reputation these spiders have, they are rarely seen except at night, and absolutely do their best to stay away from people (they aren't called "recluse spiders" for no reason), but after being terrorised by a cat and bouncing around in a human hand, I guessed this male recluse might be a bit peeved, and inclined to bite once he'd recovered a bit. Many brown recluse bites cause nothing more than a little red mark that heals on its own, but when they don't heal, they really don't heal. (You're on your own to do an image search for "brown recluse bite", but don't say I didn't warn you!)

Have you seen how many free postcards can you find everywhere?
Instead of grab them and then throw it away you may think how can you use them?
Last weekend I pick up some while walking in Melbourne. When I got home I discovered a pocket of my back pack fully of postcards... on Monday I made these paper toys using some of my templates... and now I’m a planning to make a lot of customs design (paper totem for example) as well as some new, using this beautiful and free cardboard.