Sunday, September 14, 2008

Cat Accessories And My Fall Contest For Cat Lovers

Sometimes all things fit perfectly together. I haven't posted in a few weeks so it's about time. I've been wanting to show our - with the help of curb finds - self constructed cat furniture for a while.

I still have to present our new cat Pepe, who showed up in our neighbour's garden last March out of nowhere. Not exactly a curb find, but a good find after all. He is the sweetest! I have a new great curb found gift to give away - and it happens to be a lovely booklet for cat lovers. A new season is coming up... So it's the perfect moment for a new guessing contest!

I'm keeping it simple this time: all you have to do is guess the number of scratching poles my BF used in his latest construction (second picture). Next - as usual - go to my Etsy shop and describe what you like. And as before there will be two winners. First prize is any item from my shop up to $10, provided it ships as a flat envelope.


Second prize this lovely booklet with the story of Tobermory and bloggers will be featured. It's unused, so you can still use it as a gift if you like.


Does that sound like fun to you? I sure hope so. You can enter your comments until: THIS CONTEST IS NOW OPEN UNTIL I HAVE ENOUGH RESPONSES TO MAKE A REASONABLE DRAW!!. Make sure I can contact you through your blog or message board account.

Now let me show you our stuff. I don't know if they sell exactly the same constructions in the US, but with mondialization it wouldn't surprise me. These fun play sleeping and scratching constructions are a must for every cat lover, but they are expensive. As it turns out sometimes they are not very strong and fall apart quickly. And people throw the pieces on the street. All we have to do is reconstruct them with the help of some old planks for a strong basis and really strong screws and bolts (the only things we bought). The fun is our structure often changes when we find new additions for it. Cats love that. They also love to get stuff from the street. They hate shop smell. It doesn't tell them anything.


This is the situation about two years ago. That's my fat Cézar on top. A few months ago we found a complete and hardly used piece. At home we soon found out why it was thrown out. Every time a cat jumped from it, it fell over.

So the BF integrated it in the existing piece and now we have this fantastic cat castle.

To make a passage from the balcony to the garden we simply connected two old ceiling beams and made little 'chicken steps' from scrap wood.


Any man (read burglar) trying to reach the balcony this way would immediately break through the connection but for our Pepe here it's strong enough!

Of course I never bought a litter box in my life. As you can read in The Cat Carrier, they come in numbers and so I even had an old one to give away. With one upstairs and one downstairs in great condition we are well provided, but I still see them regularly in the trash. Sometimes I'm tempted when I see one in a fancy colour, but it's not even worth the trouble.

I do own one cat carrier that I bought, because I wanted this model, a top loader for my difficult outdoor cats and it's easily attached to the luggage carrier of my bicycle. But I have two of these wicker carriers (and had and used up more in the past) that were nicely 'handed' for free to me by my neighbours.

One warning: do not bring stuff home from the street that has been used by other cats when you have kittens that haven't been vaccinated yet and clean all plastic items with bleach. Even though you can bring cat's disease with you from anywhere, you can't be too careful!

To end here's a little help for the contest: one of the poles is hidden behind the monkey and you can't see the top plateau. Have fun!

15 comments:

Deb said...

Hi Astrid.....wow, that's quite a kittie high-rise...bet they love it! Pepe is adorable too. :) You have the best luck curbside...that terracotta jug is beautiful!

Hugs,
Debbie

Tabby said...

That is a wonderful place for kitties! And I must say, your tips/comments about cats are so true: Definitely cats will be much more interested in something that has come from the outside world than in something new from a shop, plus the excellent tip not to use anything that unvaccinated cats have used until it's been disinfected.

Cats-Rockin-Crochet said...

Sorry I haven't left a comment yet.
I've been so busy with those rag bags, I've got 3 bags on the go and a lovely little baby jacket. I'm getting ready for the market this Sunday.

Anonymous said...

hello Astrid and Michel,
you have a new cat !!
just for take some news about you, y'm going in your blog for that.
here every body is ok gros bisous et à +
the dude

Anonymous said...

PEPE looks awesome!

Hybrid Hopes said...

Ha. I just read about this today. I'm gonna add your blog to my "blogroll" so I don't miss any more posts.

Yay kitties! and Yay reusing!

Le-Chat said...

Appreciate that, Hybrid Hopes. Love your blogger profile picture :D

Hybrid Hopes said...

I'm going to guess that you had 7 pieces integrated into that one cat playground.

I love the flowers in your shop, but I don't need to win one, or more precisely, you don't need to send one all the way to Portland :)

I wish I could claim that I made my profile picture, but I can't. I don't know who made it, but they are awesome.

By the way, I'm h_pets360 on the getcrafty.com forums.

Le-Chat said...

Got ya, Hybrid. Don't worry about the postage, I'll (probably) have to ship to the US anyway.

tisme said...

My guess is nine, just like in nine lives for cats! Now I will go check out your etsy site and come back with that part of your giveaway.
Tammy

tisme said...

I checked out your etsy shop! I loved your hot pads. And your pincushion was so cute. I collect pincushions, so that would be my pick.Although I did like the old jewelry too. Hmm it would be harder picking as I liked a lot of your stuff.
Tammy

Sherryknit said...

Hi
I came from hgtv. thought I would check your site out. Very Nice. Your cats seem to be very happy with their high rise. My guess is 9 pieces. I am kinda new to blogging.

Anonymous said...

hello i see your cat Pepito !!

a bientot bises la Dude

Anonymous said...

Hoi Chatje,

Eindelijk gevonden!!! Heel interesant en echt heel groen! Mooie dingen en geen kool voetdruk (?). Ik vind mijn bloemen nog mooi. Bedankt!!!

Neem de telefoon maar op!!!!

Groetjes aan de BF en katten!

tRAcY

Le-Chat said...

Hey Tracy, good to see you! It took me a while to figure out what you meant with 'kool voetdruk', but of course it's carbon footprint. Eh, we say CO2-voetafdruk. I do hope mine is tiny. Never mind, keep that Dutch sharp, girl. Wat vind je van Pepe? Knuffels terug aan jouw drie schatjes.

xxx
Astrid