Peoples, our Mama is a hoarder. Not quite a hoarder. Almost a hoarder. Anyway, she keeps all these things because she thinks she’ll use (“upcycle”) them one day but the thing is that she DOES use them so she’s kind of justified in her hoarding.

Mama used to have bookshelves made of bricks and laminate shelves. She seriously moved with boxes of bricks. When she moved to our house she ditched the bricks but kept the shelves.

And we get the benefit!

Mama took one of the shelves and covered it on both sides with a carpet scrap. (She used spray adhesive and it didn’t work so fantastically, so then she used E6000 which is her go-to glue for things needing more holding power than Elmers.) That would have been good enough for us, but then she bought rope and wrapped it around the board a few times and glued it down.

Yay fun scratcher for us. Mama put catnip on it the other night and now it’s our favorite thing ever. Besides food and boxes and chicken treats and squirrel-watching.

Love, Skates

Hi hoomans, Skates here. Did you know that our Mama spends way too much time on Pinterest? She does. And then she makes things!! Mama has made a whole bunch of things for us kittelach!! We don’t use all of them (yet?) but we decided to share them with you.

Today, Mama spent a lot of time and chicken treats trying to teach me to use the cat hammock she made. There are a lot of ideas for different ways to make cat hammocks! Mama was looking at cat hammock ideas at the same time as she was looking at PVC and copper pipe ideas for other things, and she decided to design her own combining lots of ideas instead of copying one idea exactly. Mama took 5/8 inch dowels and 1/2 inch copper pipe fittings (we never took math, but even we know that 5/8 > 1/2. We don’t really understand why 5/8 inch dowels are the right size, but they are) and made a frame. Then she rummaged through her fabric (this was really fun for us) to find something sturdier than quilting cotton and in a piece big enough to fit one of us curled up. She sewed up the ends of the fabric to make a pocket for the dowels to go through, and then used stinky strong glue to hold everything together.

our hammock! and some mess in our living room!

Like I said, we’re not sure we like the hammock yet. Mama picked me up and put me on the hammock and then gave me chicken treats!! Then I got off and got back on, and Mama gave me more chicken treats! Then Mama put away the treats and I got on the hammock again and Mama got up to get the treats and I got off the hammock before she had a chance to give me more treats. Then Mama said something about spoiling my appetite.

I’m going to see what I can do about getting more chicken treats from Mama.

Love, Skates