DIY Cat Tent

Fitzi and I decided to work together to make a DIY Cat Tent for our kitties! With materials found around the house, we made a DIY Cat Tent for our new kitty Fina and my other cat, Charles. They loved it so much that the DIY Cat Tent wasn’t even finished and Fina was trying it out. While absolutely adorable, you know how hard it is to make a project with an extremely playful cat inside of them? They have needles in their feet! My absolutely wonderful boyfriend Fitzi at the youtube channel @Fitzaey collaborated with me capturing this easy guide for a little DIY Cat Tent.

The model: Fina!

As you have seen, we recently adopted a sweet little girl, Fina (FEE-nah). She is youthful, playful and endlessly curious. She especially wants to know what I am doing and what’s outside of the window. This is why all the recent project photos with her in them. Fina has a lot of energy and is a small cat. Her paperwork said that she’s 2 years old but under 6lbs! Fina is also incredibly photogenic and will happily pose. Charles is less than thrilled at her kitten-like antics (read: hyperactivity) but it’s been nice to have another fuzzy friend to keep him more active as he ages. Welcome Home Fina!

Materials for DIY Cat Tent

• 1+ Minature Tiger/Puma/Lion or similar
• 2 wire hangers
• Medium/Large unisex t-shirt
• Cardboard Base – appropriately cat-sized
• Ducttape
•  4+ Safety Pins
• Wire Cutters and pliers

Instructions to make the DIY Cat Tent

1. Take the wire cutters and cut off the hook of the wire hanger. Bend the hangers into a more tent-like appearance.
2. Poke a hole into all four corners of the cardboard base between 1/2″ to 1″ from each edge.
3. Take the unbent wire hangers and put them in each hole crossing each other to make an X shape over the center of the cardboard base.
4. On each corner take the pliers and bend about 1″ of the wire hangers 90 degrees towards the center of the cardboard base. Ducttape the bent wire into place.
5. Ducttape the apex of the tent to hold the crossed wires in place.
6. Place the whole framed structure inside of the T-Shirt with the neck hole of the shirt centered on one of the sides.
7. Fold the bottom of the shirt to the bottom of the cardboard base and pin with the safety pins.
8. Fold the sleeves to the underside of the cardboard base and also pin with safety pins.

Finished!

Video tutorial on the DIY Cat Tent

Trial and Error with DIY Cat Tent

• Make sure the Base is Big Enough – The base was a bit of cardboard I had from my DIY  MarbleTile Coasters Project. Fina is a pretty small cat and Charles is mostly Norwegian Forest Cat (not officially, he was a rescue, but he looks like it and it sounds fancy when filling out paperwork) so he’s a big breed of cat. Unfortunately, the base is too small for him to feel comfortable.
• Use a Medium Shirt – We just used what was on hand which was a large unisex t-shirt. While we did make it fold up to fit, there is a lot of excess fabric we had to contend with.
• Double up on the base – Fina enjoyed playing with the DIY Cat Tent before it was finished as I as pinning the shirt on so the bottom got bent and beat up quite a bit. It would’ve been better if we doubled up on the base to make it stiffer.

Thank you very much for watching this DIY Cat Tent instructional video! Please check out Fitzi’s Youtube channel @Fitzaey and tell me if you want more videos at saturatelife@gmail.com.