Can I make a little extra cash making cat toys?
Being a stay home mom I’m trying to find a way to bring in a little extra cash. I’m very creative and was thinking about making cat toys. Things like play sticks with fun safe things hanging off the end like fabric/rope, and fish shaped stuffed fabric with a bell in it and fabric shaped mice stuffed with filling and a bell so it adds some fun to it and putting ribbon or rope as the tail. What do you think? Thanks for reading. Take care!
Do you have a resident feline? If so your best bet is try anything you make on it first. If your feline likes it it’s most likely others well. Also I think your beat bet would be anything with catnip in it. As any cat lover would tell ya felines go nuts over it. Just remember to lock it in air tight container though (both toys you make and any loose catnip) or your resident feline won’t stay out of it. Catnip can be purchased anywhere you buy your pet supplies. Or if you can’t find it there for some reason ask a vet I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t find one of their offices who knew where to buy catnip.
March 16th, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Sounds like a good idea, although I doubt they would sell for much in comparison to the supply cost and time invested.
If you go ahead, sell them on a site you own or in an Etsy shop, since Etsy tends to get higher handmade prices. You could try a local craft show, but the booth rent might be too high to recover on sales. The best local way I can think of would be at a Farmers Market that allows crafts, since I doubt cat toys would already be there and most booth fees at farmers market run at about $10-25, while only lasting 2-8 hours so you wouldn’t be gone long from the kids.
You might also try adding in dog toys or other sewn animal accessories, like cat/dog beds, clothes, collar covers, and coolers.
Since you would need lots of random craft pieces to spice up the designs, you could try eBay group lots or (even better) Listia in the crafts category they sell "overstuffed" flat rate boxes with random crafting accessories for really cheap. (you buy/earn credits to pay so stuff can even be free!) Try estate sales for fabrics and ribbons, since many estate sales are of deceased elderly women that had sewing supplies and large selections of notions and textiles. You could also use DAMAGED vintage linens with embroidery or cross stitch designs (so you wouldn’t have to embroider it) and sew them into cat toys for an antique flair, although I beg you to only use vintage linens where a piece has been damaged or rusted, since a part of the linen is normally fine and you don’t need much for a cat toy. Another fabric idea is to buy plus size plain colored tshirts from thrift stores on the colored tag "dollar days" and cut out the toys from the fabric part of the tshirt where there’s no hem, collar, or sleeves. Some garage sale/thrift store/estate sale pillows also are filled with a material that could be used for stuffing, since stuffing isn’t cheap at Jo-Ann fabrics at least. Also check out Craigs List for cheap supplies.
If really wanted to go further, you could make a "brand" out of it and promote your animal products through social media, which is free of course. Twitter, Facebook, and even a blog are great ways to push owning a "designer" handmade cat toy. Speaking of custom, you could even embroidery the name of the cat in a "custom order" cat toy/bed/collar for extra money.
Hope this helped! Links are under…
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March 16th, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Do you have a resident feline? If so your best bet is try anything you make on it first. If your feline likes it it’s most likely others well. Also I think your beat bet would be anything with catnip in it. As any cat lover would tell ya felines go nuts over it. Just remember to lock it in air tight container though (both toys you make and any loose catnip) or your resident feline won’t stay out of it. Catnip can be purchased anywhere you buy your pet supplies. Or if you can’t find it there for some reason ask a vet I’d be very surprised if you couldn’t find one of their offices who knew where to buy catnip.
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March 16th, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Sounds like a good idea if you have the time. I would suggest coming up with a way to make them look high end and if you have any local grooming shops, veterinarians or small business pet stores; look to partner up. Create some kind of packaging that is on the flashy side and maybe even spike them with cat nip to insure the feline attraction. This could help with word of mouth. "Man your cat sure likes that toy." Yeah I bought it on a whim at so and so and he/she won’t put it down" kind of response. Also if you are just looking to earn some extra cash at home and have time you might look here:
http://preferredpublishers.go2cloud.org/SHEk
I started recently and all is going well. It isn’t breaking me away from my full time job, but the extra funds help out. Let me know if you start selling these online.
Thanks!
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