Craft for Your Local Shelters Day: DIY Cat Toys Using Dollar Store Materials!

I'm the least crafty person you're likely to ever meet. While I love to wander the aisles at Michaels and imagine all the possibilities on those shelves, it's just not happening. Have you ever seen those cute bunny rabbits made just by folding a washcloth a certain way? I tried that once...the results would have frightened small children.

Today is National Craft for Your Local Shelters Day, a day to use your creative skills to give back to your local shelter by making something: toys, beds, blankets, collars, "adopt me" bandanas. I googled "DIY cat toys" and found a few ideas that even *I* could handle, so off to the Dollar Store I went where I picked up two items: a package of pipe cleaners and a package of feathers.

Here's what I came up with:

1) Spring toy: Simply wrap a pipe cleaner around a pen or pencil to create a spring shape. You could also make a double spring by wrapping a second pipe cleaner between the coils of the first.

2) Aluminum foil toy: Who needs to buy balls when kitties love batting around balls made from rolled up pieces of aluminum foil! Doesn't it look like a fish skeleton when you secure a piece of pipe cleaner inside?

3) Wine cork toy: Please tell me I'm not the only one with a jar full of wine corks in my kitchen? The designs on some are so pretty I just can't bear to toss them out, but they can be repurposed into a cat toy! I cut a pipe cleaner into three pieces, then made holes on both sides of the wine cork with a push pin just big enough to push in the pipe cleaner pieces and feathers. Pieces of rick rack would work nicely too. This toy gives kitty something to sink their claws into, bat, drag, and toss around.

4) Ring toy: Cats love milk rings, but I always worry that with too much chewing a piece could get swallowed. A pipe cleaner curled up into a circle a few times is much sturdier, and you can curl in the ends to make sure it doesn't come undone.

How easy was that??? In no time at all I'll have a basket full of toys to bring to the shelter...and all I spent was $2!!! Each of these toys can be placed in the communal cat areas, inside cages, or even tied to the outsides of cages to be batted around.

A word of caution when using pipe cleaners: Always fold in the ends to remove the sharp edges of the wire!

Have you ever made any DIY cat toys for your kitty or shelter? Tell us about them!