#CatLadyBox - a review #sponsored

A few weeks ago I agreed to review the July version of the Crazy CatLadyBox from CatLadyBox. The July box was sent to me for free in exchange for an honest review.

Each month, a new CatLadyBox is delivered right to you. In it, you'll find a fabulous collection of unique cat-themed items curated and hand-picked by cat ladies for cat ladies. Discover exclusively designed cat lady necklaces, rings, bracelets and other jewelry, newly released and best-seller books featuring cats, stylish cat lover T-shirts and accessories, handmade cat-themed art and unique home decor, cat lady cards, stationery, socks, hats, tchotchkes , limited-edition pieces... the possibilities are endless!

The box promptly arrived at my house and was even more promptly taken over by the lady cats of the house.

It took a while to get the box back from my cats, and by the time I did it was covered in fur. I will say I was MIGHTILY impressed at the fact that there wasn't an over abuse of tape keeping the box closed. Too many times I have ordered things online only to have them show up in packages that weren't well designed so who ever put it in the mail used an over abundance of tape to compensate. I hate that because it makes it so hard to get into the package and it risks damaging the product.

The packaging can really sell a product as premium and that not only makes you feel good when you open something you bought for yourself, but can make someone feel special when sending it was sent as a gift. It is obvious that CatLadyBox cares about sending a package with a beautiful presentation.

Each CatLadyBox contains two or three items from independent artists and/or small businesses, and one really cool box. If you opt for the 'crazy' box, you will also get a few items for your kitty. CatLadyBox also donates 5% of all profits to cat rescue organizations each month.

When I was finally able to open the box, I found it had a very nice presentation.

or at least it was until my cat sat on it.. lol.  The "Cat Lady for Life" was not only a pretty card, but the back side of it explained the items in the box so you would know a little bit more about each item.

I did really like that some of the items were individually wrapped making the presentation last a bit longer and the anticipation build since I didn't read the back of the card initially because I wanted to be surprised as I was going through it. It was fun to open the bag and the little box and not fish the smaller items out of the box.

There were reviews done on blogs for the June option, so if you are curious what other items have been in boxes, you can check one review out here.

The CatLadyBox is $34.99 (for one month) with free shipping within the continental US. If you would like to include two surprises just for your kitty the price becomes $39.99, both options come with discounts if you prepay for three month or six month subscriptions. If you are in Hawaii, Alaska or Canada shipping is $6.95. They will also ship to the UK for $12.95 with additional countries being added (if you are somewhere else and are interested, I say you contact them and ask).

Be aware, that they do ask for your shirt size because they want to be able to include t-shirts (as was included in this month) and they are in 'lady' sizes... which run quite small. If you are not familiar with ladies sized t-shirts, size up. If you like your t-shirts roomy, you might want to size up two sizes. The other thing of note is that they are not opposed to items that say 'crazy cat lady'. Many cat ladies embrace the notion of 'crazy' and if you don't mind it, then this is not a problem at all.

If you are excited and want to join up, you only have two days to get in on the August box.

Summer vacation coming to a close

Thursday the kittens will be moving through the next steps in their journey to their forever homes. Their next lessons are things I can not teach them.  I have done all I can, and taught them the important things in life, like how good people are and what fun play is. It is up to their new people to help them become the great cats they are destined to become.

Today's background is courtesy of a business that has an office in the building I work at. They are a textile company and they were throwing out a whole bunch of fabric.  I thought this looked a bit like something you would see in a school.

Tails from the Foster Kittens are winners!

So I tend to enter giveaways by my fellow bloggers. I won two of them recently. The first I am going to blog about was the Creepy Critter Cat Toy giveaway over at IHaveCat.com.  Tamar handed my information over to Patti who was very nice in the emails and very promptly returned my reply. Customer service is huge for me, and Patti totally wins that.

How it came packaged

The products I chose

You need a tester for that there product, right mom?
I volunteer ~Skippy

This snake needs the bitey!!

I kills it, I kills it dead.. eventually..
even though it is already not alive.. 

Muffin was lovin the paper.

and then there was the Purrfect Play giveaway over at The Island Cats

The carrots were in the bag with the cat and dog face on it, and the bigger round ball (which is a dryer ball btw but I so intend to give it to the cats) was in the middle package. The bit of catnip came with the 'dust bunnies' which is so uber cute!  I love that the packaging is all recyclable.  Even the cat face on the top of the tea bag originally came off of a calendar (I noticed when I took the cat nip tea bag out of the packaging)

These are so super cute and eco friendly.

You have got to love giveaways to help you try new products. I probably wouldn't have purchased either one of these on a review alone since I already have a laundry basket full of cat toys, which I very much need to go through and clean out, but I am thrilled by both of these. If you are in the market for cat toys, you can't go wrong with either of these.

Former Foster Friday - Lion

About a month ago I was in Boston dropping my friend off at the airport. Since I had been given an invitation prior to come down and see where Lion lives (I was told I would not get to see my cowardly Lion) I contacted Lion's mom to let her know I would be in town and basically invited myself over to see him.

that light was red... good thing I was busy taking this photo
 or I might have hit that guy running the red.

I just want to say two things about Boston.. thankgoodness for GPS, and even the GPS can not save you from Logan Airport. 

Lion circa 2013

my first 'glimpse' of Lion thanks to my phone and Toffee

You aren't here to take back my brother are you??  ~Harris

Okay good, whatcha bring me?

I did bring Lion and his siblings some gifts which were much appreciated. The social members of the family did come out and try to distract me from kittennapping Lion and bringing him back home with me.

oooh, I want that.. 

Gotcha

Harris was happy to pose for me.

Wendy wishes I would go away.
Lion's red mouse hung out with her to comfort her from my presence

Hello Lion (I still didn't get to see him, this was my phone around the corner)

I did see this much of him.

Laurie lives with five absolutely beautiful cats and I was a little sad that not all of my photos came out, too many were a little blurry.  But if you want to get to know them better you can keep up with them on her blog A Proper Bostonian

A few new to me products that I tried

I have had quite a few products stack up at the house that I wanted to blog about, today we have non-sponsored right-off-the-shelf items I thought looked interesting that I wanted to talk about.

First up is Simply Nourish Casserole cat food. Simply Nourish is a PetSmart brand of food.

I am not 100% sure where this product came from. It might have been a giveaway at BlogPaws or it might have been something I found donated to the shelter. Either way I am not sure why I brought it home, as something that lists 'pasta' as a selling point for cat food.. well lets just say I had a skeptical even before I went to open up the container.

This is what the food looks like in the bowl. Something to point out about this food is that each can comes with its own plastic cover. You can see it in that first photo. Nice that it comes with a cover, but kind of wasteful if this is all you feed.. or even if you use it regularly.

Yes, I have been sitting on this for a while. I took the photos and they sat on my phone since the end of June.  That is Katie eating it and Mimi trying to figure out what mom is doing.

Three minutes of eating later, and this is the end result. All of the pasta was left behind - well I am assuming that was all of it. The peas were as well - except that half pea in the middle there.. but I'm sure that was on accident.

It really does boggle the mind that people see an obligate carnivore and think "yes, this needs peas and pasta!!" Yes, I know there are cats out there who love peas and who love pasta, but they are weird* and we shouldn't indulge their eccentricities any more than they force us to.

I had three cans of this, and the other two went to the shelter so someone else could pick up the pasta that the cats will spit out and throw it away (or maybe someone who has a weird* cat found it and they ate the whole thing)

*I mean that in the best possible way, cause what makes you different makes you special!

Yes, Mimi is bit bigger now.

The second product is Cat's Pride Fresh & Light 100% Recycled Paper scoopable litter. I found this one at my local store that was going out of business so I bought it at a discount.  I am always looking for alternatives to the plain unscented scoopable litters I favor for the simple fact that clay for the litter is generally strip mined. I don't buy into biodegradable litters because most litter goes into a landfill where most things don't degrade no matter how degradable they are, and sadly because of the fear of toxoplasmosis most litter isn't compostable. Yes, you can compost litter and yes, you can get litter to biodegrade, but in general these things aren't going to happen.

I was kind of excited to try this litter because unlike other alternative litters, this one actually looked like the litter we are all used to. The pellets were small and sand like, which feeds into the cat's natural instincts of digging and burying their waste in sand - being desert creatures and all that.

However, what got me was the smell. This is a scented product, and at first I couldn't figure out what the smell reminded me of. My husband said industrial cleaner, but after hanging out with the scent for a while (once I poured it into the litter box there was no getting away from it) I came up with almond extract. I went and read reviews on Amazon to see what other people were saying and a couple of people mentioned it being cherry scented. Regardless of what the scent actually was, it was overpowering. My foster litter boxes are contained with in a larger constructed box so generally the scent doesn't waft up from in there despite there being a lot of air flow options (the back is wide open) but this stuff filled the room.

I assumed the scent would dissipate and left it down for the kittens. The next morning the smell hit me as I walked in the room. When I went to scoop I found that box just as I had left it and the deposits of all five kittens were all left in the box that contained the unscented litter. That night, same thing. On the third day I gave up and covered the litter with some of the unscented stuff hoping to cut the smell. That was the trick and they started using the box, but still for the most part avoided it. It was pretty obvious since one box had two to three times the action. At that point I gave up on the litter. I can mix lower quality litter in the tub I keep in the kitten room to house litter (when I bring it home I dump it all in there, makes for easier refill of the boxes) and use it up that way, but this stuff I decided to bring to the shelter and let someone else have a go at it.

It has a lot going for it. The look and feel of the particles, it clumped impressively compared to other alternative litters, and the fact that it is made out of paper and is flushable, but that smell is a great big ol no thanks from me and the kittens.

So sadly two fails for us, but I won't stop looking for new products that will work for us. Your mileage may vary.. your cat might like pasta and/or you might like the scent of the litter..