Cat-thulu Times Two!

Full disclosure, I'm not actually a big fan of dressing up your pets. I think hats/things on their head are alright but when you're putting full outfits on, particularly over their paws it's unnatural for them and stressful for everyone involved. The furthest I've gone before is when we used to have antlers for our old dog at Christmas and she used to pose and wait for everyone to say 'aw' then reach up and knock them off, it was very cute! Since we got our cats, Molly & Tilly, I have only attempted to dress them up once. A few years ago, I bought them Halloween capes. I knew I wouldn't get them done up, and didn't really want to, but hoped I'd at least get a cute photo of them draped on their backs. Sadly it was not to be, as soon as the fabric touched them they freaked out and ran and I didn't push the issue. They really hate any kind of dressing up as even collars cause a meltdown. When we got them, they came with harnesses and leads to walk them like dogs but how their previous owner managed it I'll never know as when we tried they got down on their bellies and refused to move before twisting themselves until at least their arms were free of the harnesses.

So when this challenge came up I wasn't sure if I was going to enter, I wanted to because I loved Halloween but I thought there'd be too many claws and too much fury involved. Then I had a flash of inspiration. I made them the Cthulhu outfit above out of a pizza box. I know the colours aren't quite right for Cthulhu by the way, but I was using paint pens and half of them weren't playing ball! I made the hole for their heads nice and big so my plan was to slip it on them, snap a photo, and take it off again before they even noticed anything had happened. That plan did not work, as with the capes as soon as it touched them they ran away. Even if I had managed to get it over their heads it would have been an awful photo.

So I decided to just use it as a frame for a photo instead; none of us had to get stressed, they didn't even have to move, and I think the outcome is really fun! I blurred the background on an app to try and make it slightly less obvious my hand is in it & I got my sister to add those signature red Elder God eyes. Up first was Molly, her Cat-thulhu is more on the surprised side as though she has only just awakened:

This progressed nicely into Tilly who gave us a much more aggressive Cat-thulhu with her refusal to look directly at the camera and her natural resting bitch face:

Thanks to my sister as I think the red eyes really make them!

So I'm thankful for this challenge as it gave me this idea which I'll definitely be using again as it's fun to get the cats involved in these things, even if they have no idea what's going on! I'm dreaming up ways to theme the frames around other holidays, I think there definitely needs to be a Christmas update to these, and it does me good to be creative. I guess I'd better start saving lots of cardboard!

Happy Halloween from me and my pets to you and yours, I hope you've had an excellent spooky season.

If you'd like to see more cute photos of Molly & Tilly you can read all about them helping me work from home here: