For the Kitties

About two weeks ago, I took a good look at the house and realized the ends of the walls and inside the exposed door frames needed some filler, sanding and paint to really finish them off. Because who wants to live with the raw-wood look? Not the peeps in my little house!

So, I got to it. The ends of the walls that are exposed on the back of the house now look complete:

I'd love to show off the finished door frames, but I completely forgot I was working on them until just a little while ago!

At least the filler is in. And, I'm sure after two weeks, it's totally dry. 😋 I also discovered in my stash of not-yet-used pieces from the kit the framing for these doors that I forgot I even had! Whoops. I'll get to sanding, painting and finishing all of that. Someday. The problem is I keep distracting myself with other cool projects!!

This is what Sunday looked like at my kitchen table:

With that, I made a number of cool things! Today, I share the KITTY TREE that I made for the many felines roaming about the house! It started with a cap from an almond milk carton and a piece of a pencil I cut down:

You can see I used the Quick Grip glue. It stuck better on the cap than did Gorilla Glue! I know. I was shocked, too. I did end up sanding the cap, though, after the Gorilla Glue fail. I'm sure that helped with the adhesion although I have no real doubt that the Quick Grip glue would have worked anyway because the sanding didn't make the cap very rough.

I'm sure I waited longer than I needed to let this dry by letting it sit for a couple of hours, but I wanted to be sure it securely held as I wrapped twine (shout out to Cindy for finding her stash-o-twine as I didn't have any!) around the pole:

A kitty's gotta scratch.

I separated the twine down to just one strand which made it look more realistic for the size of the kitties. I don't have lions in there, you know. I smeared the pencil with Tacky Glue, wound and pushed together the twine before letting it dry for just a few minutes. How long did it need? I have no idea. But, I was impatient because I was excited to finish this.

Later, I took some precision scissors and cut the twine strays away to neaten it up before creating the kitty bed. I'd show you more of this process, but it could not have been more, "Let's try this to see if it somehow works!" To start, I cut a hole in my piece of fabric to fit just over the pole:

From there, I cut the fabric a little closer to the circumference of the cap while still allowing plenty of extra because I didn't measure anything. Or, really think it through.

And, yes, that means I ruined my first piece of fabric because I cut the hole too big. And, I had limited fabric. You'd think I'd measure something. But, nope. I reserve that effort for when it really matters.

Then, I folded the fabric up and over inside the cap in any way that it would go in and look good. It was kind of like wrapping a gift that isn't square and you're all, "Um, how about this. Yeah, that works. Sort of. But, it does. Not really. But, enough." When I realized what I was doing would work, I started squirting glue on the inside wall of the cap to get the fabric to stick quickly before it came off and I had to actually think about what I was doing. As this glue is particularly sticky, I utilized my little wood stick to help keep my fingers from being part of the creation:

That stick also did a bang-up job of pushing the fabric closer to where I wanted it to go.

Next, I wrapped a little piece of fabric over a little piece of fluff filling stuff, and I stuck it in the bed thing before the glue oozing from the sides project dried:

I didn't have to work that fast to utilize the glue, but, hey. It was there.

By the way, I got glue all over my hands. And, guess what? Quick Grip glue will eat off your nail polish:

I do not see that warning on the label.

Next, I covered a little piece of balsa scrap to create the base. I cut a small hole in the fabric where the pole would go so it stuck directly to wood. Then, while the pole sat in a little puddle of the Quick Grip, I gave it some stability by leaning another glue bottle against it. This kept the pole straight without having something also sit in the puddle of glue at the base:

This is something I actually thought through.
Like I said: I do it when it matters.

And, while that dried, I took a little pom pom and cut it down to a more appropriate size just by trimming around it until I was satisfied:

Snip-snip here! Snip-snip there! Crap, that's totally lopsided!
Snip-snip! Not anymore! Snip-snip-snip!

Finally, I threaded some decorative twine through a large needle to create the string from which this hangs. A little glue on the end of the twine secures it to the ball where it pulls through the center. And, I put a little glue on the twine where it comes through the fabric to secure it there, too.

Here's the outcome!

How crazy-cute is that?!

Meanwhile, at the top of the landing behind this creation, another kitty hangs out in a lovely kitty bed all to herself:

The bed is the top of a crocheted box I found at an antique store. I used my same, precision ha-ha method of randomly folding some fabric around a piece of fluff and stuffing it where I want it. Totally works.

So, the kitties are very well taken care of around the house! Next? We'll check out the growing library!