Rugrat Rodeos: Kitty Craft

Hoarding is the Cat's meow...

I cant help but wonder, what life would be like without, packets of tiny pompoms, pipe cleaners, scraps of ribbon, random feathers and balloon sticks?

She-Who-Still-Worships-Pink broke The Six Million Dollar Kitten’s favourite toy this week and she was distraught - far more so than the kitten, April.

But mummy-fix-it, pulled out a hollow plastic stick, that had previously held a balloon, and within seconds the Cat’s wand was longer, stronger and swishier than ever.

You may consider yourself a hoarder, you may even have saved the sticks that hold non-helium balloons. But I bet you haven’t thought of saving those annoying ribbon loops that you clip out of the shoulder seams of your new sweaters though - eh?

Didn’t think so.

One of the easiest fastest and most gratifying projects we took on this school holiday was making cat wands.
Pinkster had a play date with another cat owner and, following on from our successful fix of the broken wand, the girls spent hours designing and making new wands.

The filles and felines were united in their mutual delight.

Cat toys from scraps of everything

With our many, many trips to Bunnings hardware lately (three of those just on the picket gate procrastination project) and Pinkster's enduring balloon fetish, we have many many sticks saved up.

We also have a take-out container full of ribbon scraps, many clipped from the shoulders of new sweaters.
There’s another container of random items like feathers, odd beads and a small tub of googly eyes - another full of pompoms.

Here are some of the tips ideas the girls came up with making wands with ribbons - wands with insects attached to the end of twisted pipe cleaners - and combinations of both.

Everything holds together better (and neater) if you can get it all into one end of the balloon stick. Wooden skewers are good for stuffing it all down the chute then plug it up with glue.

Two pompoms either stitched or glued well together with either googly eyes or two smaller pompoms make great little insects. Stitching makes a more durable toy and you only need run the needle and thread through the centre of the pompoms and back. If you want to add legs you can glue or just these in between pompoms. (see below)

Apply a blob of glue onto the end of a pipe cleaner and thread it into one end of a balloon stick - once that's dry wrap it evenly around a pencil to make 'the twist'. Making a small loop in the other end of the pipe cleaner (I use jeweller's pliers) gives you something to sew your bugs onto.
Another bouncy bug style uses a length of shirring elastic. (see below) Shirring elastic is safest because it breaks more easily which is what you want with any cat toy that may get wrapped around their necks. (ideally don't make them too long for that reason; maximum 15cms)

bouncing bug on shirring elastic with ribbon legs

As an aside; I have to say I'm really loving store bought pompoms; there's just so much you can make with/from them, like Pinkster's microscopic cat from this post.

We have however been making our own adorable pompoms: if you missed the PomPom Pups in tea-cups post click here