This
week on Trash to Treasure Thursday I show you how to turn a simple
toilet paper tube into a cute cat condo for the cats in your
dollhouse. I have been meaning to post this project since the
beginning of the channel and just never got around to it.
This
was one of those projects that came up because I was in a panic
several years ago about what to make for a swap on one of my Yahoo
groups. I had signed up for a cat/ pet themed swap and a bunch of
people signed up. This was not one of the groups that put a limit on
the number of people in a swap and I remember there were at least 20
people in this one and most seemed to sign up at the last minute.
This meant I needed to come up with a project that could be made up
quickly in large numbers, it had to be cheap but be something that
would have enough value for the swap, I wanted it to be light weight
(for shipping reasons) and I wanted it to be different enough that
chances are there wouldn't be several others made by other people in
the return box. I always have the little wooden circles on hand (they
are just so handy) and at that time all 4 kids were living at home so
there was no shortage of toilet paper tubes, and I even had the
carpet on hand because I had just finished carpeting my Brookfield
and so the idea was born. I did have to do a bit of experimenting to
get the project the way I wanted but it really did come together
quickly and got rave reviews when the swaps were received.
Now
one of you readers/ viewers can tell me if this project would work
for the “Littlest Pet Shop” characters, I don't have any of those
so I was not able to test any of them.
I
have found that t.p. tubes do tend to be slightly different in size
sometimes. I'm not sure if it is a brand thing or if they have
changed over the years but it used to be that the 1 ½” round piece
fit perfectly in the tube after the carpet was added. Not any more, I
find I have to add a small strip of the carpet fabric to the edge of
the circle to get a tight fit.
The
disk I added at the bottom is because of the same change in tube
size, I didn't used to do this but the last few times I have made
these the base has become needed to keep the bottom in place.
You
could probably make a 2 level condo too, just make it tall enough to
punch out 2 circles and add another circle piece to the middle. I by
putting this on a larger base and adding some dowels (covered in
either “carpet” or twine) you could build a pretty impressive cat
condo for the most spoiled cat in the dollhouse.
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