DIY: Holiday Round-Up Of Gift Ideas

December 20, 2008

DIY: Holiday Round-Up Of Gift Ideas

Here’s the collection of DIY projects I’ve written about recently that would make good, inexpensive presents this year when money is tight for so many.

PetProject hopes all of you are enjoying the season, that you & yours are healthy & happy, and that the coming year is filled with joy.

On with the projects!

Cat Toys:

Dog Toys:

Pet Beds:

Nest Bed
Bed From A Sweater (including my version)
Bed From A Suitcase
Knitted & Felted Bed
Hooded Pet Bed

Dog Sweater:

Small, No-Sew Sweater From A Sock

December 19, 2008December 20, 2008

Shout Out To Stephan Reiter

mannheim-bridge-copy

PetProject says a big “Thank You!” to Stephan Reiter for his super useful & splendiferous plugin Scissors for WordPress.

I’m not an expert on this stuff, so I’ll describe it in my non-tech way. WordPress lets you resize images after you upload them, but Scissors goes further. It lets you crop images, and when you resize them, it creates a copy of the file at the new, smaller size, which means your page loads faster. Ordinarily you’d have to do all that in Photoshop, etc, and then upload the photo again.

Scissors does this by going back to the original image to get the best quality so it looks good at the larger size.

Not to mention Stephan was responsive and nice about suggestions on making the resizing function integrate so well with the WordPress editor. And he’s doing this for free. Cool!

Here is his blog. Some of the projects he’s worked on. And papers he’s published.

And to make this unexpectedly pet-related, here’s Stephan’s cat, Bruno, overwhelmed with excitement about the Scissors plugin.

bruno

December 18, 2008January 23, 2010

“Goth” Pierced Kittens Rescued From Home

I don’t even know what to say about this story—the mind just reels. This started when a man in one state noticed kittens in another state with piercings in their ears, neck, & tail were being sold as “goth” kittens on eBay. This compassionate man drove to Pennsylvania, saw the kittens at the woman’s home, and then called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Luzerne County.

Humane officers and state police found three kittens with piercings, an adult cat, and a dog who also had pierced ears. I hope authorities look into the welfare of the child living there. Other than swearing, I’m pretty much speechless. I do not understand how anyone would think this was ok.

The ad also ran on a pets classified ad site. It looks like she docked their tails too.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania only rates average when it comes to their state laws concerning animal protection. How does your state rate?

December 18, 2008

Friday Fun: Bailey The Unknown Reindeer

It’s snowing here at PetProject, so this seems like a good Friday Fun video for today. This is awesome video of Bailey the Dalmation bounding through the snow! Our dog Saffron apparently got her fill of cold & snow as a stray on the Yakima Reservation. She prefers snuggling on the couch.

December 17, 2008December 20, 2008

DIY: Small Dog Sweater From A Sock

socksweater-recopy Eegads, how cute is this?! And inexpensive! Follow this quick & easy tutorial and you’ll have a sock sweater for your little dog in no time.

You’ll need: 1 sock, a pair of scissors, and a willing pup. You might want to hem the places where you cut, so it doesn’t unravel, but even that’s simple. (via CuteOverload)