Make Your Own Cat Toys: Saving The Planet One Cat Toy At A Time [Paperback]

Holly Tse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 2008

If you have ever purchased a fancy cat toy only to find Kitty preferred the bag it came in, this book is for you. Make Your Own Cat Toys shows you how to create new toys from old stuff in minutes. These eco-friendly toys are fast, fun and easy to make so that you spend less time crafting and more time playing. Highlights of this cheeky and lighthearted book include: * Over 50 toy ideas to suit the different ways that cats love to play, a new toy for each week of the year * 25 toys that can be made in 60 seconds or less with no special skills required * Ideal for new kittens with boundless energy * A "Lazy Cat" play category for cats with a relaxed approach to playtime * Beautifully illustrated, it's a purrfect gift for cat lovers * Plus, plenty of green tips and eco-friendly ideas for you and your pet Have a blast and save the planet at the same time. Reducing your cat's carbon paw print has never been this much fun

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Eco-friendly toys that are fast, fun and easy to make. Best of all cats love them."

If you have ever purchased a fancy cat toy only to find Kitty preferred the bag it came in, this book is for you. Make Your Own Cat Toys shows you how to create new toys from old stuff in minutes.

Fun, lighthearted and humorous, this book features over 50 toy ideas that are purrfect for cats and kittens who love to play, chase, swat, wrestle, stalk or simply laze around. The toys are so simple and easy to make that over half of them can be made in two minutes or less. With this many toy ideas, even the most finicky felines will find a few new favorites.

Plus the book is filled with green tips and eco-friendly ideas for you and your pet. Reducing your cat's carbon paw print has never been this much fun!

About the Author

Holly Tse lives in Northern California with her husband and Furball. She is a lifelong environmentalist and has been promoting green causes since she was seven years old and wrote the government to ask what they were doing to stop acid rain. She is also an ardent cat lover and has spent hundreds of hours playing with cats. She is somewhat abashed to admit this number is probably closer to 2000 hours or 83 full days of her life. Make Your Own Cat Toys is her first self-published book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 134 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (November 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1440462461
• ISBN-13: 978-1440462467
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #629,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Holly Tse is the author of "Make Your Own Cat Toys", a book that features eco-friendly cat toys that are fast, fun and easy to make. The book was featured in The Daily Cat, an online weekly that's nationally syndicated to ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC websites. Her blog, "Green Little Cat", is the only blog that is dedicated exclusively to greener living ideas for cats and cat lovers.

Holly lives in Northern California with her husband and 8 year old cat, Furball. She is a lifelong environmentalist and has been promoting green causes since she was seven years old and wrote the government to ask what they were doing to stop acid rain.

She is also an ardent cat lover and has spent hundreds of hours playing with cats. She is somewhat abashed to admit this number is probably closer to 2000 hours or 83 full days of her life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is a horrible book., November 8, 2009

By 

Zombie Force (CA, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Make Your Own Cat Toys: Saving The Planet One Cat Toy At A Time (Paperback)

This is an extremely disappointing book. I assumed it would be filled with interesting and fun ideas for cat toys that you can make out of household items, craftsy stuff, and trash. Beware: it's NOT. Almost the ENTIRE book is filled with single trash items you can give your cat without any modification, things that are extremely obvious (unless you for some reason NEVER KNEW that a cat would enjoy hanging out in a cardboard box or shopping bag).

Here's a sampling of descriptions of "make your own toys" in this book. About half of the projects are as follows...and by projects I mean items of trash that the author spends at least an entire page, and often two pages, describing:
"Schrodinger's Box" - give your cat a box.
"Classic Shopping Bag" - give your cat a shopping bag.
"Tape Ball" - give your cat a ball of tape.
"Juice Pull" - give your cat a juice pull.
"Juicy Hoop" - give your cat the seal ring around a bottle of juice.
"Madcap" - give your cat the cap off a bottle.
"Unwrap This!" - give your cat the tissue paper from a gift.
"Ping Pong Pinball" - give your cat a ping pong ball.
"Nuts 'n Bolts" - give your cat a metal nut (severe choking/hospitalization hazard, NOT recommended)
"Classic Ball of Yarn" - give your cat a ball of yarn.
"Penned Up Energy" - give your cat a pen cap.

So let me make it clear, again, what this book is filled with: one- and two-page sheets of instructions and materials for giving your cat single items of trash. That to me seems like a huge, huge, HUGELY hypocritical waste of paper on Holly Tse's part. Throughout the book she advocates recycling and conserving. She could have conserved a LOT of paper by telling cat owners in a simple sentence: "Give your cat a cardboard box to play in," and maybe just filled one page with many of these suggestions, instead of wasting two sheets of valuable paper on each item, every description page as inane as the one before it. Sounds like a big fat moneymaking scheme to me: write about the trash items that are small enough for cats to play with. Look how many gullible reviewers fell for it.

And, to be fair, I gave the promising ideas a fighting chance. For example, the "Lazy Wrestle Sausage" seemed like a good idea (sock filled with plastic bag and catnip, tied to a string). My cat played with it for two seconds, then lost interest. I dragged it around the house, dangled it in front of him, hid it under a couch, hid it around corners the way he loves to play...no response. My cat's the sort of fellow who drags his toys (even the large ones) around the house and deposits them at my feet when he wants playtime, then gets frisky for an hour (which I gladly oblige to). And even HE was bored to death by the suggestions in Make Your Own Cat Toys and quickly went looking for his old favorites. Really, you don't need to buy this awful book to be aware of one very simple fact that should probably have been already made clear by your cats' behavior: cats will play with anything, including/particularly trash items, if YOU are interactively playing with them. You don't have to buy a fancy cat toy. You REALLY don't have to buy this book. Save a lot of paper by not doing so.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun book!, February 16, 2009

By 

Lydie Thomas "Lydie" (alameda, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Make Your Own Cat Toys: Saving The Planet One Cat Toy At A Time (Paperback)

Length:: 1:05 Mins

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent gift for cat lovers!, January 14, 2009

By 

N. Bruckner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Make Your Own Cat Toys: Saving The Planet One Cat Toy At A Time (Paperback)

I never thought a cat toy book would be a page-turner, but this one is. It's got witty writing, cute illustrations, insightful quotes, and fun ideas for making a kitty some great new playthings. The toys are innovative but super easy and quick to assemble. I like the eco-friendly angle too - you make the toys with stuff you already have lying around the house, like cardboard boxes, old clothing and CDs. And I love how the author uses her own cat's perspective to rate the cat toys. This is an excellent gift for cat-loving friends and relatives.