Being the first event for the Rose Scholars spring semester, I thought it was pretty fitting that I spent it repurposing something old and worn into something new and useful. I love dogs and animals, so when I found out that Rose Scholars was having an event for making toys for SPCA shelter animals, I immediately signed up. The GRF hosting the event taught us how to make two different types of toys by ripping old t-shirts into even sized strips and then braiding all the strips together. I thought it would be pretty easy but right from the get-go, I struggled with ripping the fabric. Free Cornell shirts surprisingly made pretty good bases for pet toys, while my old pajama shirts not so much. My fingers hurt at the end but the fruits of my labor could be seen in the two dog and cat toys I made. Next time I find myself a surplus of old t-shirts, I now know how to repurpose them.

At the event, the GRF taught us how to make two types of toys, one for dogs and another one for cats.  She said she learned how to make these toys on Youtube, which is the holy grail of DIYs.  It was quite therapeutic to rip the t-shirts into strips for the toys, though most of us struggled to get nice strips.  While my friends were struggling to rip the shirt, I was breezing through my old Cornell t-shirt.  Who knew Cornell shirts make great toys for adorable pups and cats?

It’s a great concept of creating something useful out of something that has been sitting at the bottom of the closets.  Instead of heading to Petco to buy a toy for your pets, it’d be a fun activity to DIY them with friends or family.  Make something for your furry friends!

I really enjoyed making toys for cats and dogs in local shelters and how we can make two or even three toys from one shirt that we don’t wear anymore. Although it was hard to tear the shirt due to the different fabric, it allowed me to de-stress and not think about the upcoming work. The sound of the fabric ripping and creating a curl was very satisfying to hear and see, which made the event even more soothing. I am glad that this event serves for a good cause for the animals and how it also helped me as well. I really enjoy the crafts that we make in the Rose Scholar events and hope we continue to have more.

At the Make Toys for Rescues event last week, I used old shirts to make toys for cats and dogs at a local shelter. I’m glad that it was simple, so I can easily make toys like this on my own. I have a lot of old shirts back at home, so I look forward to doing this at home, either for shelters in my area or for my friends’ pets.

One thing that I wasn’t able to figure out was what kinds of shirts are easiest to work with. The person sitting next to me was working with a shirt that seemed to be of a similar material to my own shirt, but every time they cut or ripped it, a huge amount of cloth debris spewed out. I’m glad my own shirt was easy to work with.

Overall, it was super fun, and I really hope I remember this event when I go home for the summer and have lots of old shirts to work with.

Last week I was able to help in making toys for dogs and cats at the animal shelter. I had no idea we could make toys with t-shirts. it was a very creative idea and I had a lot of fun. Designating certain parts of the t-shirt for certain types of toys was efficient and very smart. I was very happy to know that they would go to wonderful animals that need them. I never had a pet and my family decided to get one for my little sister after I came to Cornell; however, I more have grown attached to our dog so much and having her made me appreciate pets so much more. I see the impact they can have on someone’s life and am so thankful for having the opportunity to have a pet. I was glad to be able to do this and help a bit in keeping the animals at the shelter happy. Hopefully soon they can find a home and get more toys to play with!

On Saturday January 26th, I took part in the dog and cat toy-making session. I brought in some old t-shirts in order to make the toys. The dog toys were harder to make than the cat toys as they required more steps and effort. This is probably because dogs are more aggressive than cats when playing. The cat toys were simple t-shirt balls. I took part in this service even though I personally don’t have any pets because I love both cats and dogs and the idea of them playing with the toys I made put a smile on my face. There are many animals out there that need love and shelter that unfortunately do not, which is tragic. I hope with the toys I made, some owner plays happily with their dog/cat.

This activity was really useful and meaningful in that we could turn something old into a product that is useful. When I first saw the event description, I wasn’t sure how old t-shirts can turn into pet toys, but after learning from our SA and other students, the process was simple. I enjoyed making dog toys out of two simple materials (old t-shirt and scissors). I tried to make these toys to look like the ones that my friends buy for their own dogs. I am happy to contribute these handmade toys to Ithaca humane society where many animals need love and care. I wish we had more supplies to make toys for other animals at the humane society.  I hope rose scholars event include more activities that we could contribute to the Ithaca community in the future.

I really enjoyed making toys for dogs and cats and how we learned to utilize the whole T-shirt for the toys. The braided dog toy was a lot of fun, and I could see the similarity of my end product to some actual dog toys I’ve seen before. I ended up making one large one using my grey t-shirt and my friend’s black t-shirt, and also a small one with some of the scraps for a smaller dog. I’m excited for the dogs to play with them! For the cat toys, we were supposed to tie small strands of fabric together at the center with another strand of fabric. I thought that maybe tying them down the center in a few directions would make all the strands of fabric stick out in random directions more and make the toy more fun. I hope the cats like what I made!

I’m super glad I went to this event because I not only got to make toys for dogs and cats, but I also made a good use out of shirts that weren’t being worn.

When I went to go make dog and cat toys this past weekend I was not all that surprised that, like myself, not many people had spare tee-shirts with them. Personally I don’t bring extra clothes that I don’t use to school because I have to travel across the country. When everyone came back from searching for shirts, most of them seemed to grab t-shirts that they may have been willing to cut up, but were still in use. In that observation, I realized a problem. It seemed like the main goal of turning t-shirts into toys was to save money for shelters that the toys were donated to, so they wouldn’t have to buy new toys. While the project did succeed at helping the shelters it seemed to have an unintended consequence of additional cost to students who may now have to replace those cut up t-shirts. It also didn’t seem like the best use of the t-shirts because while we used a good deal of them, there was still a large amount of each shirt that remained unused. It seemed like a secondary goal of this project was sustainability, but that wasn’t really accomplished. In fact, it seemed like there was actually more waste created since the t-shirts were previously in use. I wish that the event could have happened latter in the semester. I think it would have had a greater impact with less waste and cost.