This is Midnight. When I was in the 5th grade my neighbor's barn cat had kittens and Midnight was the runt of the litter. She's been my baby ever since and recently I've been missing her a lot. Currently she lives at my parent's house with other cats and many people. She was recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and allergies. :( She hasn't been feeling too good and I wish our landlady was legit with us keeping a cat because I feel like she really needs to be babied.
I suppose having a human baby IS a thousand times better- but animals have a way of finding their own little niche in your heart that really can't be filled any other way.
So- as I'm thinking about Midnight I wanted to write a post for a pet-friendly craft.
DIY catnip mouse!
...like most of my posts recently- this is an old craft. (...I apologize for the horrible quality in pictures.)
This is a super simple project that really doesn't take much explanation. One day Brandon and I were at the store looking in the pet aisle and I found a big bag of dried catnip. After comparing the bag to the smaller more expensive catnip toys- I splurged on the bag with the hopes of creating something for my kitty at some point in the future.
The bag lay forgotten in the back of our spice cabinet. (...looked pretty suspcious- but we were newlyweds and living on the edge. haha) And one night Midnight and I were playing with a piece of string and I suddenly had an impulse to create something! Rummaging through my box of fabric scraps I found a few pieces I liked. I cut out two tear-drop shaped pieces of green and white striped fabric, and four smaller tear-drop shaped pieces of orange plaid fabric. I sewed the drops together right-sides in and turned them right-sides out so eventually I had a mouse-like shaped pocket.
I took a piece of embroidery floss and tied a knot in the end before sewing it to the rear of my "mouse". Then I took a piece of paper and funneled the catnip in before sewing the whole things shut and stitching on a pink nose and little blue eye.
In my mind- the mouse was a little more three-dimensional... but I didn't really plan appropriately for that. It was kind of scrappy- but for a kitty toy that totally worked. Also, the flat shape ended up being for the better because Midnight reacts to catnip in a "let me rub my face in this like I'm a sloppy drunk" rather than a "I'm going to play with this like an actual toy". So the less the mouse moved around and the more it just lay flat on the ground the better (and safer) for my poor drugged-up kitty. haha
This picture doesn't do the whole situation justice- but man she loved that thing! She literally had it for over a year- and would rub on it until the very end. (I think it got lost in our last move. sad.) Eventually she did start to play with it a little more and she'd fling it up into the air and chase it as it slid across our kitchen floor.
Not my best sewing effort. But it was fast and lends itself to tons of inspiration. You could literally sew just about any kind of shape/animal/ etc... and so long as you stuff it with fresh dried catnip your feline friend will love it. :)
Happy Sewing!
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