Hey there,

I'm Cat, a Scottish animal loving, craft addict who lives in Edinburgh with her rockstar, web-genius fiancé, Tom Waddington. Together we unknowingly started the #1 independent craft-sharing website Cut Out + Keep as students, and today, we get to explore the world while making websites from coffee shops, meeting & interviewing our heroes, crafting for celebrities, playing sparkly instruments, petting kitties and collecting squished pennies.

Cut Out + Keep began as my craft blog while I was studying at university in Scotland. After sharing hundreds of my own tutorials, Tom (who has been described as the "Best. Boyfriend. Ever" and the "next Mark Zuckerberg" by Company Magazine) got fed up of watching me tirelessly type steps in to Wordpress and decided to build a customised project adder so that I could quickly add and organise my projects. Realising we'd created something useful and unique, we decided to turn my little blog in to a community where everyone could make and share ideas. It was a success and by the time I graduated, the site had become my full-time job, hosting thousands of projects for making every type of craft imaginable and inspiring millions of crafters around the world.

As the site continued to grow, Tom was finally able to quite his day job in London to work on making CO+K the best craft site ever. To celebrate escaping the cubicle, we set off on our most ambitious adventures to road-trip across America and visit every state. We spent 6 months travelling from coast to coast, while working in diners, sleeping in theme motels and watching drive-in movies, and after returning to the UK, Laurence King offered us a deal to turn our adventure in to a craft book, with a project to make inspired by every state.

When I'm not writing the book, I'm also the editor of Snippets, an online magazine featuring our favourite indie musicians, artists, fashion designers & crafters. Together with a team of talented writers & contributors, we've produced nearly 30 issues featuring everyone from Placebo and Evanescence to Harley Quinn and Emily Strange as cover stars. As well as getting to interview my real and fictional heroes, I get to craft for them as the Crafter To The Stars, making personalised accessories such as a cat fascinator for Audrey Kitching and "the world's first animated gif necklace" for Lauren Out Loud.

With so much work to single-handedly handle, my email was starting to become a full-time job in itself but rather than hiring interns, Tom built an awesome email organization app called Chase-Up. Instead of spending hours answering email every morning, I can empty my inbox in just a few minutes and we've regained free time to mastermind new projects including Look At My Room, a room-sharing inspiration website and fBlog, the blogging platform I'm currently writing on. I never dreamed that I would have to run my own business when I was younger, so learning all the necessary skills and how to get organized has been really important. Wishing I had known what I know now, I've started writing how-to guides to help out my fellow crafters and bloggers.