DIY Catcus Scratching Post

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CatsLoveNutrish #CollectiveBias

Oh cats! I have had many a cat in my lifetime! There was Nickel (because my dog was named Penny! HA), Nala (yes, from the Lion King movie – does that tell you my age?), Mooshi (I was reading the Diary of Anne Frank) and 4 years ago, we bought our kids kittens for Christmas. These cats have been true treasures to our kids and real members of our family.

We love to splurge on our cat, Fluffy! My daughter is absolutely obsessed with cactus right now, so we decided that making a Cactus Cat Scratching Post seemed like a great idea! It turned out so cute, you are going to want to make one too!

While we were at Walmart, picking up our supplies, I also picked up another spurge for Fluffy, Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® Indoor Complete Chicken with Lentils & Salmon Recipe. Can you imagine how yummy a Cat Food would be that was created by Rachael Ray? Yes, only real, wholesome ingredient here. What I feed my cat is so important to me because she is a valued member of our family too! Just like my kiddos are!

My cat is very picky when it comes to her food and honestly, so am I! Nutrish Indoor Complete contains a delicious blend of superfood ingredients (including extra vitamins, minerals and taurine) to completely nourish our indoor cats (1 year or older). Nutrish Indoor Complete offers a complete and balanced diet for our furry loved ones! Farm raised chicken is always the #1 ingredient, along with salmon. This premium cat food helps with the issues of weight, digestion and immunity.

Did you know that a portion of the proceeds of every purchase of Nutrish Indoor Complete goes to help forgotten pets, pets that don’t have someone to love them well. The proceeds go to things like medical supplies, food and treatments to help pets in need, through the Rachael Ray Foundation and Rachael’s Rescue. Up till December 2016, Rachael’s Rescue has donated 17.5 million dollars to pets in need (wowza!!).

Does your sweet cat want to try Nutrish Indoor Complete? Grab a $2 off coupon here (for use at any retailer)!

DIY Cactus Cat Scratching Post Tutorial

Supplies You Need:

Hot Glue Gun

LOTS OF HOT GLUE (i would just go ahead and buy the big bag! Don’t be like me and have to go back to the store 4 times! )

18 x 18 inch wood base

4 Spools of 1/4 inch Sisal Rope (I had to go back to the store for this too! )

3- 3.5 inch foam balls

2 3 inch wye joints

1 3 inch flushing (for the base)

2 3 inch 45 degree angles

1 2 ft. section of 3 inch abs pipe

1 3 inch coupling

Rocks to fill up your base

screws

Green Paint

Flowers for the cactus

How to Build your Cactus Cat Scratching Post

Screw your 3 inch flushing to the middle of your base.

Next, you will build your cactus. You really can do what ever you would like to do here. You can follow my example or make whatever shape looks good to you!

Start with the bottom section of your cactus and wrap your sisal rope around the base and work your way down to the bottom of the pipe. Try to get the rope as close as you can to each row, it will look much cleaner when you are done. This will take some practice and time…but your cat is worth it! You will get the hang of it, but it does take time to get this process done. Continue all the way down to finish covering the flushing with rope. I also glued more sisal to the base so Fluffy has some on the bottom to scratch too.

Next, you will start wrapping the rope up to the top of your Cactus scratching post. As you can see, I missed a few spots. I filled some in later with little strips of rope and I also added paint to cover some of the areas of pipe that were showing.

After you have gotten up to the tops of the pipes, crumple up some card stock paper to fill in the pipe a bit, then hot glue your foam balls into place. Continue wrapping your rope around the balls in a circle and hot glue the end down. This is what your finished product should look similar to! You can glue on extra strips of rope in places that the pipe shows.

Next, paint your cactus however you want to! I wanted to have a little of the sisal rope showing through, so I added some water to my paint and did a very light brushing. I love the way it turned out!