I’ve always been a fan of character goods. I grew up with Hello Kitty, obsessed over Keropi in junior high, hoarded Tare Panda and Chococat goods and hunted for obscure Marron Cream products. My latest favourite though, is an obscure offering from San-X: Mixed Cats.

Mixed Cats features charming water colour illustrations of cats in amusing situations and cute outfits, and the title and slogan, “Mixed Cats: Cats Know Various Things” makes for an adorable and irresistable combination of cute art and humour.

Mixed Cats goods are pretty rare and hard to come by. You may find the occassional offering on eBay or import gift shops, but overall Mixed Cats is an under represented line. If you’re a collector, snap up any items you find – they’re few and far between.

Do you have a Mixed Cats collection, or know of a good place to find Mixed Cats goods? Do you collect any cat-related character goods? Share your links and pictures.

Want some kitty icons for your website or profile? We’ll you’re in the right place. This Abnormal Love of Cats exclusive set of  Purri Kitten icons is free for use on your blog, website, profile or signature. Right click to save to your hard drive and then upload to your own image host (please don’t direct link – it eats up my bandwidth and the location of these images may change.)

A link back to http://abnormalloveofcats.com/ is appreciated but not required. Please do not edit, redistribute, resell or use for commercial purposes.

Want more colours or patterns? Post your suggestions here! If you’ve used these icons on your site leave me a link so I can visit. 

ncmarksman25 recently adopted Dark, a rescue cat and surprisingly, also an artist. ncmarksman25 says:

We recently adopted our wonderful cat named Dark… he was rescued from a house fire in North Carolina and was in need of a new home.. so we answered his call! Dark is a very loving cat and my wife and I are very happy to have him in our home… if it wasn’t for our rescue Dark would have most likely been euthanized and wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our love and affection that we share with him… needless to say he’s doing great and very happy to be in a new home!

Just the other day my wife was painting a picture and Dark had stepped in the paint and jumped all over her canvas on our coffee table… he seemed to really enjoy it so we both thought why not have Dark paint on his own canvas’s and sell them on Ebay as a way to give back to the Humane Society and help other animals in need, and thats exactly what we did!

You can see Dark’s painting on eBay and 50% of the proceeds will be donated to the Humane Society of the United States, through eBay Giving Works.

I think this is a great idea to raise money for animals charities and have your rescued cat involved in saving other cats.

What are your creative ideas for helping animal welfare organizations?

If you’re not familiar with Simon’s Cat, watch below. Simon Tofield, the creator of Simon’s Cat, wonderfully captures the essence and personality of his feline friend. I think anyone who lives with a cat will be able to relate to the wonderfully animated situations.

Watch the other Simon’s Cat shorts here: http://youtube.com/user/simonscat