Crafting With Cats ~ Part V ~ How We Made A Kitty Observatory ~ Cativity Centre

Welcome to

Supurr Greetings Pawesome Pals

Thanks fur joining fur us fur Part V of our Crafting with Cats segment.  Mew know we have so much fun making all this stuff, and we hope mew enjoy seeing it and/or making it too! MOL

If mew'd like to see our previous CWC posts click here and see how we made Merlin's Wizard Hat. And if mew missed out on how to make our Supurr Hero's cape, click here. And fur the Magical Kitty lantern click here, plus the amazing Pom Pom Hammock click here.

**Purrlease Note**

All Crafting with Cats ideas and creations are of our own design and we share them fur purrrsonal/home use only.

Copyright ©BionicBasil 

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This week we're making this!

The Observatory Cativity Centre

So mew can really be the centre of your own universe! MOL

What We Used:

Timber and wood screws

Saw

Drill

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Fabric + wadding + lining 

Cord to hang planets, stars & hammock bed

Spheres for planets & sun

Non-toxic paint for planets

Glitter fur the sun & stars - gold & silver

Non-toxic glue

Paint - if mew want to paint it. [We used white gloss]

 Ribbon or trim

Optional flooring, we used some surplus laminate flooring

Optional cat/s fur snoopervising and general assistance


Are mew ready? Of course mew are...

Furstly let's make the cube  

We used 2" x 1" timber 

Mew will need 16 x identical lengths, ours are 20" 

Take four pieces of your timber and screw together to make the bottom square. Repeat fur the upper square. Attach the four uprights and then flip offur to attach the remanding square and mew should have something like this below.  

Next take your remaining 4 identical lengths to make the top pyramid. Mew will need to cut the ends at an angle so it sits flush on top of the cube and that the top joins together properly, see arrows.

Now mew can attach the pyramid to the cube, as mew can see we pre-drilled holes in the bottom of the pyramid, as Dad said that made it easier to attach.  

Now it should look like this below.

Wow that was easy and supurr quick too! MOL  But seriously take your time putting it together, remember measure twice and cut once.

So now we move on to the really fun part; decorating.

We painted ours in white gloss as the P.A. insisted it needed to white, but mew guys can paint it any colour mew like.

Aftur the furst coat of undercoat, Dad drilled the holes to hang the planets and stars from the pyramid, how many is entirely up to mew; we put 4 in each and also a single hole in the uprights to hang the hammock from, see arrows.

Finish the painting and it should look like this

[We must apologize fur the skewiff photo, we think the P.A. had a bottle of wine in the craft room with her... nuff said! MOL]

Now while that dries let's move on to your own purrsonal planetarium, we made 

10 x planets

6 x stars

1 x sun

We were incredibly lucky to find some paper mache spheres with a pre-made hole in at our local craft shop, but in hindsight mew could plastic Catmass baubles and repaint them.

We painted our spheres to kind of match the planets in our solar system, all went swimmingly well until the P.A. started to paint the earth, until see realized she'd painted it upside down! [Oops, too much wine! MOL] So we have an extra planet in our system called Catopia, it's only just been discovered through copious amounts of wine drinking. In fact its a miracle as no telescope was required whatsoeffur.

We did actually use a Catmass bauble fur the sun as we needed something bigger than the rest, we just cut the neck off it so it doesn't look like a bauble.  We applied a non-toxic glue and covered it with gold glitter.  Oh it's so shiny and twinkly!

Once your planets are dry mew can attach the cord.  We used white cord, and applied hot glue into the holes and stuffed the cord in with a straw.  Please make sure that if mew use the type of cord we did that mew put sellotape on the end to seal it tight, otherwise mew will neffur be able to push it through the holes on the frame.

Next we were also furry lucky to find some pre-cut 1" wooden stars on Amazon, we attached two together with a length of cord sandwiched between them and once dry covered them in the non-toxic glue and dipped them into silver glitter. 

Now let's move onto the bed.  We used some silver silk dupion that the P.A. had left offur from some curtains she made.  Cut your fabric 20" square and as silk isn't the most robust of fabrics we cut 2 x lining fabric squares to add extra strength.

We sandwiched a piece of wadding between the layers and stitched the wrong-sides together [inside out], leaving one edge open enough to turn right-side facing out.  Hand-stitch the last few inches and your hammock is ready.  Unfortunately at this point we think the P.A. had one glass too many and forgot to take some pics of construction - we have severely reprimanded her fur this and have since locked the wine away!

Get some more of the cord and attach it to the underside corners bed, we used hot glue fur this.

Attach the suns cord with hot glue under the top centre, then the planets and stars by poking cord through the holes in the pyramid and adjust lengths to suit and tie off, we did put a little bit of glue on the knots fur added security.

Attach hammock to the uprights and tie off.

Finally as some screws were still visible we added a 1" wide grosgrain ribbon trim top and bottom.  And if mew wanted a solid base like ours mew can add that too, but if mew don't want to, it wurks just fine without. 

So now mew should have something that looks like this:

How cool is that? Epically cool

What we really love about this pawesome cativity centre is that if mew get bored of planets, mew could hang:

 Fish = The Aquarium

Mice = The Nest

 Bees =  The Hive

Spiders = The Web 

Butterflies = The Cocoon

Tabbies of Troute Towne look away now

Burds = The Aviary

Or a combo of all the above

etc, etc....

and mew can remove the bed fur washing or even replace it if wears out. There are so many ways to dress this purrticular item and it'll last fur ages, fur future kitty generations too.

Smooch was furst to get his booty in it and as mew can see he wasn't going to share with anypurrdy not even me, and mew can see how miffed I was below! MOL

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And that furriends furry sadly brings us to the end of our fifth Crafting With Cats post, we do hope mew liked it and feel free to post your pawesome crafty pics and ideas on our Facebook page at:

Bionic Basil & The B Team @Facebook

And if there's anything mew'd like us to make, leave a comment and we'll do our best.  

We'll be back on the morrow with our supurr Sunday Selfies!

Bestest crafty purrs

Basil & Co xox

Disclaimer:

We at BionicBasil HQ are not responsible or liable fur any injuries to person/s and/or cat/s, crafting addictions, glue on cats, paper cuts, misplaced pins and needles, cats stealing your supplies, broken scissors, cat fur stuck on your projects, or your project not turning out as planned.  By using this information you hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless BionicBasil and staff from and against any and all claims for personal injuries or damages of any kind arising from use of any Crafting With Cats posts we may share.

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