DIY Catnip Toy

Cats are sleepy heads but they also enjoy playing which ultimately is a nice workout. We (the human parents, hehe) can add to their play time by adding enjoyable toys. And although there is many good ones on the market, it's so fun to make our own and add lots of love to the process.

For this project, you will need the following:
1) fabric
2) thick thread
3) needle with large needle hole
4) organic catnip
5) feathers or anything fluffy (optional)

I decided to go with this black and white leopard fabric with the hot pink thread.

Once you have all the supplies, you can begin:

Steps
1) Cut the fabric to the shape you like. You can use a fabric chalk to draw the shape on the fabric then cut it out. I decided to do free hand a heart shape. As you can see it's not a perfect heart shape but It doesn't have to be puuurfect, just have fun!

2) Start stitching around your shape with your thick, colored thread. As you can see i folded the fabric as to have part of the heart already sealed and have less stitching to do!

3) At the end of stitching, leave just a big enough opening to fill the toy with the organic catnip.

4) Once the shape is filled. Complete the stitching. Close the shape.

Then you are done! Step 5 is optional...

5) On both ends, leave the thread long to add feathers at the end. I thought it would make the toy more appealing to Miss Missey if I added feathers. You can add any other accessory if you don't have feathers or don't like them. You can even cut our an accessory from the fabric you used for the actual toy. Just anything that dangles will probably appeal to your cat.

Here is the final toy. Hope you enjoyed making it as much as I did and hope your cat enjoys playing with it as much as Miss Missey.

Missey was so into it, I had a hard time taking a focused photograph. She was highly animated. She was throwing it up super high in the air and throwing it every which way! I love watching her play :)