It’s such a wonderful thing that more and more people are taking the time to craft eco-friendly pet toys with their kids. Considering the crazy costs involved with buying pet toys, people generally have no option other than to create their own eco-friendly pet toys. The prices of nearly everything have skyrocketed over the past few years and in all honesty, many great pet parents simply cannot afford to spend the same hundreds of dollars a year they have in the past. It makes sense for people to experiment with crafting eco-friendly pet toys with kids.
Every parent wants to find new and innovative ways to spend quality time with their kids. There is no better way that to help their children learn more about saving the planet by crafting eco-friendly pet toys with your kids. Teaching children to look at things that they would normally discard in a different light will help to keep tons of items out of landfills. Repurposing items that were destined for the trash barrel is a great way to teach the children about caring for and respecting the environment. Crafting eco-friendly pet toys with your children is a great educational experience.
Tuff Tugging Toy
Gather the following items:
- Old clothing made of durable fabric
- Different colored fabric paint
- Paintbrushes with natural hair brushes
- Lots of newspapers
- Cup of water
- Paper towels
The Crafting Process
- Find a work area that will be big enough for you and your children to comfortably craft the tugging toy. Completely cover the area with thick layers of newspapers. This will protect the finish of the table.
- Lay the old clothing out on the table, and cut three strips of fabric that are about three or four inches wide by one and a half feet long. The strips needn’t be exactly the same sizes. You’re making a pet toy, not a prom dress.
- Put the remaining fabric away for creating other pet toys and lay the three strips out on top of the newspapers. Be sure that all of the children can reach the strips.
- Open up the fabric paints (eco-friendly and non-toxic) and give each child a paintbrush. Encourage them to be as creative as they’d like by painting pictures, shapes, etc. all over the fabric. Be sure to allow the paint to completely dry.
- Flip the strips of fabric over and let the children decorate that side. Once the painting is completed, let the paint dry and clean the paintbrushes in the cup of water. Dry them with paper towels to preserve them for future use.
- Make double knots in the ends of each piece of fabric. Then lay two strips vertically, with about six inches between them. Place the remaining strip on top of the others in a horizontal position. Double knot the vertical strips to the horizontal one.
You see, crafting eco-friendly pet toys with your children is a fun and inexpensive way to make your dog happy. Now that the project is complete, you can bring your dog out into the yard to test his new tug toy. Of course, the pooch should only be loose if the yard has a secure pet fence or invisible fence that doesn’t restrict the view.
Throw the tug toy and your dog will gladly run after it. You can also use it to play tug of war, if the dog’s temperament and breed allow. Bring the whole family outside to play. You are all bound to have a blast.
Our puppy seems to love everything especially things that are not his actual toys! So he loves old t-shirt with knots in the middle and a water bottle lid off are his two favourite things at the moment!
We don’t have pets so fortunately we don’t have to worry about buying or making pet toys 🙂
I would never think to make our own dog toys. But ours are pretty low maintenance x
my girls love making toys for our cats!
I remember my sister in law playing with her little one like this – different shapes, different texture and colours. Very good and creative idea!
Great idea to get children to make toys for pets – as you say, toys can be quite an expense!
What a great idea! I wonder if Sal would like it if I made her a toy or two. x
Thank you for the great tip! I think our dogs will love their new toy 🙂
My girls would love to make a toy for our dog 🙂 Thank you for the tutorial x
What a great idea! My mum has a young dog so will be showing her this post as im sure she will find it really useful! x
Such a great idea! x
I’ve never thought of making any toys for our pets, perhaps I should!
As usual full kudos to you for your creativity, such a great frugal idea x
What a great idea! Will have to get making one for my in laws dog!
Our cats are pedigree british shorthairs (rescue ones) and as such they are so lazy! just sleep all day so I often miss having pets that play with things! x
Some great ideas. Our cat is so lazy and just lies and people watches out the windows!
All my two need is an old football, once they have it, they are busy and happy casing it around.
What a clever idea !
Its a great idea but my cats turn their nose up at toys lol