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cat, cat toys, DIY cat toys, kitten, pet
It’s become almost a rule now that Alfie prefers to play with his simple & cheap toys than with the more fancy ones I bought from the cat shop. What is it about cinema tickets, straws or aluminium foil balls that makes them so interesting? I don’t know and honestly… I don’t care. (mental note, Oana: remember this next time you’re in the cat shop and you consider buying that 30 euros electric running mouse toy!!)
Anyway, here are a few of the DIY toys me and my boyfriend made for Alfie, hope they’ll give you some recession-friendly ideas to entertain your cat.
Cardboard boxes – good for hiding. Make them more interesting by sticking straws & dangling toys on them or cutting some holes in the sides
Straws – they came in handy when Alfie was teething and he still loves them
Aluminium foil balls – why pay for mice and plastic balls when you can make your own? I tied one to a piece of string so i can play with him while sitting on the sofa
Crunchy paper – cinema tickets, paper bags, shredded paper (I have loads from my GlossyBoxes) you name it… he loves it
Clothes on the drying rack – he likes to hide in the “jungle”
Plush toys – brought some of my childhood toys and he became best friends with this guy
Raincoat – he’s going crazy for the crunchy noise
Toilet paper – he loves fighting with paper & napkins
Bags – there’s something about bags (small ones, big supermarket ones, paper ones, …) that just makes him super excited
Have you got a DIY cat toy idea? Please leave it in the comments section.
A purrfect cat 
my 3 monsters go bananas for boxes, plastic bags and paper balls too… i spend a little fortune on cool toys for them, and in the end they collect dust in the corners, and my kitties play all days with my hair elastics. true story 🙂
🙂 i know! so strange. but nevertheless, i still end up buying Alfie all kind of gadgets. i can’t help myself in the cat shop…
Lol, yes, the toilet paper is the most attractive thing ever, we’ve seen and regretted that one… Generally, it’s amusing to see what kind of ideas they’ll come up with, but we tend to give them stuff bought in the stores (or at the vet’s, because they’ve been so very good and traumatised 🙂 ). There’s something to say about the favourite mouse thing they’ve got. Every now and then, a ball, but especially a toy mouse is bought that become THE FAVOURITE MOUSE (no really, with capitalisation). This is the toy that gets carried around and played with to insanity (will have to post on that, I think…). And then it gets lost somewhere (three cats? not at all unusual…) and when you find it again, they go all crazy over it again.
Mind you, two days ago, Baby Choc discovered (I dread to think where…) an old, rotting applecore. I actually thought she had a dead half mumified mouse the moment I saw it, and was relieved to see she didn’t. She played with it, as did the other ones, for hours without pausing. Only after two days straight were we able to remove the squelchy, gruesome, sticky applecore from where they have left it last. But we couldn’t break their little kitty hearts. 🙂
A few extra ideas of toys are –
Yarn – brilliant, unless the cat tries to eat it!
Fresh sand – no matter how hard we try to stop them, fresh sand equals play
Fruit seeds – any stones from fruit turn into batty-balls, just watch out for the teeth
Plastic bottle caps – turns into a hockey puck and you never get it back!
Pens – another one you never get back!
Empty Toilet Rolls – easier to clean up after than a whole toilet roll, and you get to enjoy the roll, but just as fun!
Balled up Tissues – usually stolen from pockets
Any dangling, pretty bits of clothing – bat-bat!
I totally recognize what you say about playing to insanity with a certain toy, then ignoring it for a while, then going crazy for it again. Sometimes I think he creates this crazy stories in his imagination about certain toys…
Thanks for the toy ideas. I’m a bit reluctant towards sand and seeds (he tries to eat everything, including alluminium foil and make up), but I’ll definitely try the empty toilet rolls & balled up tissues. 🙂
We completely get the ‘eat everything’ problem! Makes you want to empty every room of everything sometimes! And hope it’s enough!
With the fruit stones, try something really big like a mango stone – I don’t think a cat could possibly actually eat that. My apologies if somehow your cat does figure it out… Impossible is not in the cat vocabulary! The amount of things we thought were cat-safe and weren’t! Paperwork for one… What’s so interesting about eating paper?! Good luck with the toilet rolls and the tissues though – big success with us! 😀
C.
Alfie loves paper! And he also goes ABSOLUTELY CRAZY for the plastic window in envelopes. He eats it then he throws out 😦 So I now always hide all the envelopes to avoid the “lovely” activity of puke-carpet-cleaning.
Okay so my husband (one4luck) here on wordpress told me I had to check this out and yes he was right. I have to tell you this, I took out a Burda pattern for a sundress over the weekend and of course our cat Oliver sat right in the middle of it after poking it repeatedly. I gave him the extra pieces to do whatever pleased him. So what you said about crunchy paper, I think Ollie is in full agreement!
Thanks for dropping by :”) Oliver was just guarding it, he was keeping it safe for when you needed it. :”) They really go crazy for paper, dont they?
Yes he really does. Michael got some really good shots of him the other day while taking pics for my Mailart Part two blog. As if his ego needed any more press.
The same way a girl can’t have too many bags, cats can never have enough press 🙂
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Love your cat! I was planning on creating the cardboard home for my cat as explained in this article https://www.animalwised.com/diy-cat-toys-easy-and-made-with-household-materials-2395.html
and was wondering if I could combine it with your straw creation, in the sense that, is it ok to make a place for them to rest also their play area. Thanks!