Semi-Handmade Scratching Post for Loooong Cats

Does your cat like scratching on vertical surfaces? Cats like to be able to stretch out fully when they scratch. Scratching is a basic need for cats, and the best way to keep your cats from scratching your furniture is to provide an alternative! There are a few types of materials used scratching surfaces and trial and error will determine what types your cat will use-our two resident rescue cats enjoy cardboard and carpet and will not scratch sisal. We have one really tall, long kitty who LOVES scratching the sides of chairs and even the corners of walls. He likes the cardboard scratching posts we have for him but they haven’t quite stopped him from scratching the walls. He reaches higher than any standalone scratching post I’ve ever seen. Only big (and expensive!) cat trees look like they’d really let him stretch as high as he likes to.  We’ve been thinking about making our own for a while now, and we’re still considering putting together a long cardboard one for them, but my fiancé came up with this design for a vertical carpeted scratching post made from an old board,  a refill for a carpeted scratching post, and some nails. You could probably easily use ordinary carpet for this if you could find the right size or were willing to cut it up.  It’s really simple, anyone could make one!

We found a long flat board in our basement left behind by a previous tenant. My fiancé tells me it is probably a 1 by 6 board. For the scratching surface, we got one of the refills for this scratching post at petco: http://www.petco.com/product/112680/Petmate-Lean-On-Me-Fashion-Scratch-Post.aspx It’s great for this purpose because it’s meant to go over both sides of that A-shaped holder so it’s LONG (A little over 3 feet). It has Velcro straps which we wrapped around the board. If you bought your own carpeting, you could easily customize the size and be able to wrap the sides and back of the board as well-I think we’ll do this next time.

We secured the carpet to the board with some short nails (short enough to lay flat in the front and not catch on kitty nails, but still not stick out the back).  If you’re willing (or your landlord wouldn’t mind) you could easily nail the board to a wall near one of your cat’s favorite scratching spots. The walls in our apartment don’t do well with nails (they tend to crumble) and we didn’t want to put nails into the front of the moulding where we wanted to place the scratching post (our cats favorite scratching corner!), so we put screw hooks in the back of the moulding and attached the board with string and rubber bands to make it easier to wrap tightly. We put one string at the top and bottom. You could always trim the board to the length of the carpeted part of the scratching post.

The hooks we used

The string on one side of the board

 The rubber band on the other side

Our long cat loves his new scratching post, and our shorter cat-who has always been very happy with the cardboard scratching posts-loves it too.

Above is one of our cats using the new scratching post, and to the right here's our looooong cat using the scratching post. Sorry for the low quality, but he just wouldn't cooperate when I was trying to get pictures but I managed to catch him on my phone! You can see even though he's not stretched all the way he reaches close to the top!

My cats seem pretty happy with their handmade toys. I’ve also made them a stuffed catnip sock and my fiancé made them a box to play in with 2 doors and toys hanging down inside. (Of course we can't resist buying them presents sometimes-they have lots of toys!) Has anyone else tried making their own scratching post or cat furniture? What about cat or dog toys?  I’d love to hear about it. If you try this method out, I’d love to know if your cat likes it too!

One of our favorite toys-a fleece rope on a stick

Copyright 2011. See more at Voyage of the Hyperspace Hippo

Adventures in Crafting-Chai Bath Bombs

Hello readers! I made some fizzing chai bath bombs before the holidays and never got around to blogging about them, but they came out pretty well! I found the basic recipe for these in a book called Melt and Pour Soapmaking by Marie Browning that I borrowed from the library. It’s a pretty useful book, not just recipes but also some basic advice on how to make hand-milled soap, bath bombs, bubble bath, and other things too. I won’t reprint the actual recipe here as I don’t want to step on any toes-but there are tons of basic bath bomb recipes online that could give you the right proportions, or you could see if your library has this book!

In general, though, all the bath bomb recipes I’ve seen have a few things in common-citric acid and baking soda. These are what create the fizz when wet! Many recipes include some kind of salt (either purchase sea salt, bath salts, or simple epsom salts which was what I used) and some add cornstarch. Then they add something to give the bath bombs a scent-usually essential oils. Some also include food coloring or other colors. I chose not to use essential oils as they are generally toxic to cats (I have two, and they both lick water out of the bathtub) and I have heard that some people with sensitive skin react to some types. I also didn’t add any colors. The recipe I chose used simple spices for both scent and coloring. I was able to get all the ingredients I needed (including a tiny spritz bottle) from a local natural/health food store that has a bulk section so I was able to make up little baggies with just the amounts I needed. Obviously the epsom salt, baking soda, and spices can also be purchased at drug stores and grocery stores, but you might have more trouble finding the citric acid there.

First all the powdered ingredients are combined together and mixed. This particular recipe calls for citric acid, baking soda, and cornstarch. I didn’t use all the spices called for in the recipe-I only included cardamom, cinnamon and clove (all powdered)-I wasn’t able to find star anise, so again I left it out. mmm, spices!

Next you spritz the powdered ingredients VERY sparingly-enough to make them stick without activating the fizzing reaction. This is where I made the main modification to this recipe. I thought that it would add to the scent and color to use chai tea instead of water or witch hazel for the spritzing liquid. I made tea from a delicious loose leaf chai that I had on hand from a local tea store, and spritzed the bath bombs with that. To the left, you can see the spritz bottle I used and the tea I made. It smelled sooo good.

You have to be very careful not to let it get too wet-in my first batch the powder started sticking together before the mixture seemed damp to me and the ones in that batch ended up fizzing and expanding in the molds-not good! The second batch I stopped spritzing sooner, and it still packed into the molds nicely and held together when dry. Below you can see how the damp mixture looked before packing it into the molds

I found an ice cube tray to use for the mold. You have to pack the mixture down very tightly into the molds, I found that I could fit a lot more in there than it looked like at first! Most recipes say to let them dry in the molds for a few hours and then let them continue hardening on a cookie sheet overnight before using or wrapping to give away (some say a week).

It’s been a couple of months since I made them and the ones I have left have lost some of their scent, so my advice would be to use them as soon as possible! I still think they’d make a great gift, you just couldn’t make them too far ahead of time. I do wonder if adding the vanilla fragrance oil would’ve held the scent longer or made no difference.

Making homemade beauty products seems like a lot of fun to me. I’ve found a few recipes for body lotion and I’m planning to combine a few and try that out next! :o) Have you tried crafting soap or beauty products? Any good websites or books to recommend? Please comment and let me know what you think!

Copyright 2011. See more at Voyage of the Hyperspace Hippo