IKEA Hack Cat Cabinets

You cat owners out there know that stylish, affordable cat furniture is hard to find. If you have dogs and cats there are very few contraptions that keep dogs out of the litter and kitty food. 

Beavis hacked some really cool IKEA cabinets to create a kitty litter containment locker and a private dining room for our two cats. 

Pepper couldn't wait for her new groovy kitty condos

You'll need:

• IKEA PS lockers
• Heavy Duty Tin Snips
• Cat Door Kits
• A drill and a drill bit intended for drilling through metal

After assembling the cabinets Beavis traced out the hole for the cat doors using the template that came with the cat door kit. The cabinets came with shelves but we didn't use them. You could hang them on the wall for instant magnet boards.

Beavis had to drill a few pilot holes around the traced line in order to get the tin snips into the cabinet to cut out the door.

Mark where your screw holes need to go and drill through. Attach the door and fasten. Done!

Pepper makes her first "deposit'

We left the flap off the kitty litter cabinet to allow the cats some room to move since the litter pan took up most of the cabinet space.

More Crochet Love

I've been on a crochet kick lately. A crazy, abstract crochet kick with spirals. I have no idea of what these pieces will turn into but it is a great way to use up the little bits and pieces of leftover yarn from other projects.

  

The piece above is crocheted with leftover sock yarn. I just make random spirals, stitch them together and occasionally add lines of single crochet around them. I think this might look great attached to a felted bag or even glued to a canvas and hung up on my blank walls.

This second piece is made out of Berroco Comfort leftovers from a baby blanket I made a few months ago. Well, let's just say this piece started off with leftovers but I have since purchased other colors to add in. I hope I continue to be in the mood to work on this so it gets big enough to be a huge, swirly blanket on my couch.

My on and off again love affair with Crochet

My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was about 6 years old. She had me do yards and yards of crochet chains and when my stitches were even enough I learned how to take that stitch and connect it to others to make shapes.

Over the years I learned more and more crochet techniques from Grandma. I would ask her what the stitches were called and she always told me that she made it up. For awhile I thought my grandma invented crochet.

Crochet has always been one of those things that I would do on occasion. I would buy enough yarn for what I intended to make and if I ran out I just added other colors or headed back to the store. I never read patterns or calculated my gauge.

Now, I am at a point where I want to be able to follow patterns so I am slowly teaching myself what different crochet stitches are and how to read a pattern.

My first attempt is this blanket.

 

This is the Sunny Spread pattern and I love it!!!  You make these squares and then just sew them together. So far my plan is to make a 7x10 lap-sized blanket. 33 squares down, 36 to go.

Crafty, Crafty, Crafty

I've been super busy but also super crafty lately.

I've decided to add more bright colors to my home. A few weeks ago I looked around and noticed that everything seemed very brown and earthy with big chunks of red thrown in. To add some color I made new throw pillows for the couch.

I scored some pre-cut, discounted fabric at IKEA and went a little crazy. Both flower print pillows are simple envelope-style pillow cases. Just easy, straight seams. I made the pillow inserts from an old sheet that Lola (pictured above) tore up and a giant bag of cotton stuffing that a friend gave me.

The other two pillows were made from t-shirts that I never wore. My closet is full of t-shirts that either 1) Don't fit, 2) Fit weird, 3) or just end up at the back of the armoire and never get used.

The t-shirt pillows are the same envelope style as the flower pillows. I didn't even bother to hem the edges in the back. I figured they would end up covered in dog hair and in the washing machine every week.

As you can see, pillow covers made out of t-shirts come in handy when one's dogs tend to cuddle up with them.

Lola loves the pillows.