It's Caturday! Let's talk homemade cat toys!
Holly Tse is living proof that absolutely anyone can take their passion for crafting and turn it into a viable business with little money upfront. It doesn’t matter what you love to do, if you have creativity (which all crafters have in abundance), you can make anything work. She turned a love of playing with her cat and her passion for the environment into a book called, “Make Your Own Cat Toys: Saving the Planet One Cat Toy at a Time”. She created over 50 eco-friendly cat toy “recipes” and self-published the book by herself in her spare time. She used a low cost print-on-demand publisher, taught herself how to use the publishing software and visited Flickr for inspirational cat photos in order to illustrate 114 images for the book in a month.
The end result looks amazing and has received high compliments from a publishing industry professional who has worked on NY Times bestsellers. The book was also featured in The Daily Cat, an online weekly that is nationally syndicated to CBS, FOX and NBC websites.
What really inspires her is hearing how much people enjoy the book. It makes them smile, it gives them something enjoyable to do and they have fun bonding with their pets by playing with the toys they make. As well, she hopes to inspire others to be more eco-friendly and to show them that it’s fun to be green. You can save the environment and also save money too.
For less than the cost of a couple of fancy cat toys, you get 52 eco-friendly cat toy ideas that are fast, fun and easy to make. That’s a new toy each week for a year!
To create the toys, you creatively reuse stuff you have around the home such as packaging, old clothing, and crafting materials.
The book is cute, witty, and fun to read. It’s a great product for crafters who love cats, have friends with cats or are concerned about the environment.
If you would like more information, please feel free to visit her website for the book at:
www.MakeYourOwnCatToys.com
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Custom Closets For Organizing Crafts, Hobbies, and Projects
Custom Closets For Organizing Crafts, Hobbies, and Projects! by Ronald.Eapen
Anyone who enjoys crafts or hobbies knows the frustration of having to dig through everything to find what you need only to have to fight for a spot to work after the search. Many people stuff all of their items into a traditional closet and find it hard to use because they can't see what they have. Custom closets designed specifically for your craft is exactly what you need. Everything is kept neat and tidy while still allowing you to see exactly what you have so there is more time to be creative and less time spent hunting.
Divided Shelving
Laminate sheets, paper, bristol board, wood, and many other items are difficult to store because of their size and shape. You want to be able to see the types and colors you have, but they need to be protected so they don't get bent or ruined. Divided cupboards in custom closes are the perfect solution. Vertical is best for larger sheets. A sliding door works to hide these cabinets when you aren't using them.
Horizontal shelving is ideal for scrapbooking papers, stickers, and other small items. If you are concerned about having them fall out, consider having them installed at a thirty-degree angle and use shallow wire baskets. These are also great for yarns and other oddly shaped items.
Drawers
Smaller items such as pens, pencils, paints, and paintbrushes as well as supplies often pose a challenge for organizational systems. Having a series of small drawers is helpful for these kinds of items. You can fill them with spools, wooden shapes, die cuts and other items and keep everything separated. When you are ready to use them, you can pull the entire drawer out. For larger drawers, be sure to have moveable dividers.
Specialty drawers such as pull out workspaces are a convenient necessity for custom closets. They are great for holding your supplies while you're working, or have them on the end of a countertop to make it easy to work with larger projects.
Containers
Plastic dividable containers are the hobbyist's best friend unless you don't have enough space to stack them up. Make sure to include a number of shelves that fit your various containers perfectly. Adding doors onto each will help you to hide the mass of containers when you're finished. For supplies that are just too nice to hide away, custom closets can have glass sliding doors to keep out the dust.
For ribbon and rolls of paper, custom closets can have an area with lengths of dowel to feed them onto. If you keep the paper towards the work surface, you can inlay a measuring stick and use it to measure out what you need or use the edge of the countertop to tear it off. Have holes routed in the top to sink cups into. You can keep pencils, scissors, paperclips, and other small items in them while keeping them out of the way. For wreaths and other hangable items, use pegboard as a backboard for the unit. It doesn't matter if you have a huge space for a closet in Chicago or a small space in a New York apartment, the only rule with these types of storage spaces is to design them specifically for your items and habits.
Anyone who enjoys crafts or hobbies knows the frustration of having to dig through everything to find what you need only to have to fight for a spot to work after the search. Many people stuff all of their items into a traditional closet and find it hard to use because they can't see what they have. Custom closets designed specifically for your craft is exactly what you need. Everything is kept neat and tidy while still allowing you to see exactly what you have so there is more time to be creative and less time spent hunting.
Divided Shelving
Laminate sheets, paper, bristol board, wood, and many other items are difficult to store because of their size and shape. You want to be able to see the types and colors you have, but they need to be protected so they don't get bent or ruined. Divided cupboards in custom closes are the perfect solution. Vertical is best for larger sheets. A sliding door works to hide these cabinets when you aren't using them.
Horizontal shelving is ideal for scrapbooking papers, stickers, and other small items. If you are concerned about having them fall out, consider having them installed at a thirty-degree angle and use shallow wire baskets. These are also great for yarns and other oddly shaped items.
Drawers
Smaller items such as pens, pencils, paints, and paintbrushes as well as supplies often pose a challenge for organizational systems. Having a series of small drawers is helpful for these kinds of items. You can fill them with spools, wooden shapes, die cuts and other items and keep everything separated. When you are ready to use them, you can pull the entire drawer out. For larger drawers, be sure to have moveable dividers.
Specialty drawers such as pull out workspaces are a convenient necessity for custom closets. They are great for holding your supplies while you're working, or have them on the end of a countertop to make it easy to work with larger projects.
Containers
Plastic dividable containers are the hobbyist's best friend unless you don't have enough space to stack them up. Make sure to include a number of shelves that fit your various containers perfectly. Adding doors onto each will help you to hide the mass of containers when you're finished. For supplies that are just too nice to hide away, custom closets can have glass sliding doors to keep out the dust.
For ribbon and rolls of paper, custom closets can have an area with lengths of dowel to feed them onto. If you keep the paper towards the work surface, you can inlay a measuring stick and use it to measure out what you need or use the edge of the countertop to tear it off. Have holes routed in the top to sink cups into. You can keep pencils, scissors, paperclips, and other small items in them while keeping them out of the way. For wreaths and other hangable items, use pegboard as a backboard for the unit. It doesn't matter if you have a huge space for a closet in Chicago or a small space in a New York apartment, the only rule with these types of storage spaces is to design them specifically for your items and habits.
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