I have a fun project for you humans this week — one that your cats will definitely want to supervise! It’s time to get creative and put together some simple, homemade cat toys. But just because something is simple, it does not have to be small.
You can make a cardboard box playground for your cats! There are some handy tips for putting one together on page 9 of the current PetCo PurinaPurr! As you can see, my human is just getting started. I will give her — and you some additional tips.
Accessorize your boxes with crinkly packing paper and colorful tissue paper!
Make sure you have the right size boxes! I don’t think this white one will work.
Also make sure you have enough materials on hand. In addition to boxes, and hopefully some crinkly paper, you will need strong scissors or even better, a good box cutter, and some duct tape to hold everything together securely. As you can see, my human does not have anywhere near enough duct tape. I am going to send her over to the hardware store right now!
If you don’t have enough boxes right now, there are other things you can make too! Friskies has a “DIY Homemade Cat Toys” Pinterest board with lots of crafty ideas that you can put together without spending any money — you just use items you already have around the house! I bet a lot of kitties’ favorite will be “The Partymaker” — it uses an empty Temptations bag which, of course, means that you ate all the Temptations! This toy will give you good exercise so you can work off the treats.
Now here is some incentive for you kitties to get your human working on this: send me a photo of you playing with the toy your human made and I will randomly pick one of you to receive 5 PetCo coupons, each one good for a free can of Friskies (US residents only)! Plus I will paw-pick one other photo to submit to Purina for possible inclusion in the Summer issue of PurinaPurr!
It does not matter how you get the photo to me. You can post it on my Facebook page, upload it onto Twitter or Pinterest and leave me the link in the comments below, or you can email it to me at sparkle AT sparklecat DOT com! You have until Friday, March 29 to enter — I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Note: coupons are supplied by the Purina/ Friskies humans. I’m not being compensated for this post by them… although offers of fried chicken would be gladly accepted.
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
The male human took one look and said NO WAY. Hrmpf. He has NO sense of aesthetics.
Thanks for your patience as our mom was scarce while prepping for passover. We think it should be called pass-OUT cuz she sez she’s never been more tired in her life (3 whole days of cooking – oy!).
We just posted a photo on your Facebook page. 🙂
Oh Wow! Mommy makes us toys all the time! Mes going to has to gets hers take some pictures of them.
Kisses
Nellie
The Friskies Pinterest board has some great ideas! Right up our cheap…er…frugal mom’s alley 😀 Have fun with your box fort, Sparkle!
Pip, Smidgen, MInnie, Hollie
So many great ideas!
We love our boxes, however, we have to get our human to help us bling them up.
Just showed your post to my human. Her reaction: “What?! Just a week to create the toys??!!”
Hopeless, really!
I’m eager to see the pics of everyone though 😉
Purrs
I like the box idea!! Tommy bought a new printer and some pots and pans (why the pots and pans, I’m not quite sure!) Gonna make sure we get the boxes–and the “partymaker”…
Noir
Oh I wonder if we can motivate Mom? 😛
Dang, I hope I didn’t miss boxing day!
Sherpa, as you know, likes teeny, tiny boxes for his less than teeny, tiny self.
I will see if the publicist can get her act together.
I doubt it.
Hopefully we will have new kids this weekend and she will be busy with GOATS which if you ask me are more important than cats
No offense
Yeah! So fun!
Have a delicious weekend!
There are never enough boxes 🙂
TW is thinking she can do the milk jug ring one. Looks like we’re the only one so far who’s looked at anything but the box thingy your human is making you. Actually TW had bought some material about 2 years ago to make those catnip knots that you showed. I’m still waiting.
See! We told the humans NOT to “recycle” all those boxes. Did they listen? NO. Bad humans!
We are looking forward to seeing all the entries, though! 🙂
Hugs,
Sammy and Moosey
We love boxes too and you are always so smart about EVERYTHING, beautiful Sparkle=we know you guys will have lots of fun in your new bed/condo/fort!…Happy weekend, sweet friends…xoxo…Calle, Halle, Sukki
Sparkle you have such excellent ideas!!! Thanks for the info and I’ll see what I can get Mom to do for me.
hugs madi your BFFF
Sparkle you are so creative! Our cats love boxes. Glendacorra has a very small box and it is her favorite place to sleep.
we like the boxes you got there. our mom made us our condo – though the only ones that play in them are the kittens…we use them for snoozing…..
ah-ha – we found a pic of a kitten in the condos: http://randomfelines.blogspot.com/2013/02/monday-already.html
Fried chicken, eh? Regular or extra crispy? (I had a Siamese cat who would eat only extra crispy!)
We are rather miffed that yesterday was paper recycle day and all the boxes are gone. We’ll have to wait for more to come in before mom can build us a pawsome playground. We’ll see if she’s not all paws and can make us a toy. We just happen to have an empty Temptations pouch; though, we would have been happy to empty a new one for her. Thanks for passing on info for things she can do for us for a change. Purrs and hugs, Lily Olivia, Misty May, Mauricio, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Josette
Waffles LOVE playing in his cardboard fortress.
Although he keeps inviting me, I prefer to take advantage of an uninterrupted meal.
; ) If Glogirly can get it together and take a photo of him in his fort, she’ll send it to you!
xo, Katie
My kitties loves boxes with different things inside them.
Oh I love the toys you have shown us here! *looks over shoulder* Mom? You looking?
Boxes are just so much fun and that idea looks even more fun.. Hugs GJ xx
We love boxes so if we can make toys out of them, all the better. We’ll get the mom working on that stat!!
Oh that looks like such fun. We don’t have any boxes at the moment. But we will see what we can do. What a fun project.
Have a great day.
Love empty boxes – especially when they have crinkly paper in them…..Mom tosses a few Temptations treats in for me to “find”…..who needs to spend a lot of money on toys when empty boxes will do just FINE?! 😛
Kitty Hugs, Sammy
We may not be able to enter your contest Sparkle but Mum is quite taken with the idea of giving us a box like yours – of course as she’s always full of ideas and makes lists of what she needs but actually getting round to doing it is another thing!
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx