Smarty Cat Food Bowl Made From An Old Book

Upcycled Cat Bowl: Smarty Cat Food Bowl

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

Friends, I am here to tell you, if you are a lost pet, you want to end up at our house. We have the most spoiled rotten pets on the planet! You have likely seen various pictures of our dog, cat and rabbits, but recently we got adopted again by a new cat. I made the cutest smarty cat food bowl for him, but first, some back story. Here is a pic of our new guy…

Our neighbors moved and left behind a rabbit that we adopted last year, but they also left a cat. The new neighbors feed and took care of him until they moved recently and then they left him behind too! When I saw him hanging out at the end of our driveway I called to him, expecting him to run away as most stray cats do, but he ran to me crying, a complete bag of bones. Of course I fed him and that was all she wrote, I’m not sure you could scare him away at this point! My husband gave me a stern, “that cat is not coming in the house, we have enough pets” declaration, but two days later I caught him slipping back in the house with a bowl of milk he had fed the cat, I knew he wouldn’t take long. Now we have this going on…

LOL, so much for not coming inside.

I started the new boy on Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® Indoor Complete Chicken with Lentils & Salmon Recipe. My guys love this delicious food and I feel good using it. Rachael Ray is a favorite of mine and her love of pets has always been something I adored about her, we are kindred spirits (well, except for the cooking part, does that still count?). We want to be smart and feed our spoiled pets well, the fact that chicken is always the #1 ingredient, plus real salmon makes Nutrish Indoor Complete an easy choice for us. Not to mention the indoor aspect helps address weight and digestion issues, which is a big deal…have you seen our hefty cat? This delish food is for cats 1 year or older and both our friends are over 2 years. If you want to try some for your King or Queen of the jungle here is a coupon for you…YAY!!! You get $2 off Nutrish Indoor Complete, it lasts until the end of 2017 and you can use it twice. Let me know if you like it!

You can get this food at your grocery store, or if you are like me and addicted to Amazon you can order it online and have it shipped straight to you, can I get an amen on that!? Especially when you have new mouths to feed showing up on your doorstep unexpectedly!

In case you haven’t noticed the new cat looks EXACTLY the opposite of our old cat named Boo. This little distinction lead us to name him Oob…Boo backwards. So Boo & Oob have had to learn to like each other and share, it’s been a slow but steady process. I’d been wanting to make a cute food bowl for Boo since I made one for our dog Gigi. Good thing I was slow getting to the project since now it needs to be for TWO cats. So many bowls are ugly and boring but don’t need to be. I mean, you have to look at them all the time and they are part of your home décor!

Old books hold a special place in my heart and while I hate to damage them this project called for a fun repurpose of a free book I came across at our local library. They have a “free” bookshelf where I often find treasures. You should see if your library has the same thing.

I started off by making sure the book was large enough to hold the cat bowl I had AND that the bowl had a lip on it in order for it to sit nicely inside the book.

Trace the bottom of the bowl onto the book cover, you will want to make your hole slightly larger than the bowl so it fits in easily. With a large drill bit, drill a hole in the book, inside the circle area you will be cutting out, this allows your saw blade to slide in where you need it.

With a jigsaw or scroll saw cut a hole in the book. You will want a nice sharp, thin blade for this. Always use extra caution when using a saw, safety glasses are recommended. The process is slow and will take multiple passes to get the hole just right. I had to sort of shave the hole down in spots until it was perfect for the bowl. I also used a clamp to keep the book held together as I sawed.

The book got prepped by painting over the existing title with black paint, now you can’t even tell there was writing on the spine! This is something to consider when choosing a book, get a color you can cover up easily. I used my cutting machine to cut out a new “title” for the cat’s book. I figured The Tail of Boo & Oob sounded fitting, plus it fit nicely on the book spine!

I made a stencil, cut out of contact paper, placed it on the spine and gently painted it with white paint. A little touch up with the black paint made the letters pop and look perfect.

For the feet I used four wooden balls with a flat edge, they got painted the same white to match the lettering. I glued them on the four corner of the bottom of the book and put heavy weight on top of the book until the glue was completely dry. We obviously have a black and white theme going on.

The final touch was slipping the bowl into the book hole and filling with some Nutrish Indoor Complete.

Now if all our furry friends can just learn to get along that would be great! They all have a cute place to eat so surely that helps right? One other thing I’d like to mention for any other stray animal lovers out there…Another reason I’m a Rachael Ray fan is because of her foundation that supports Rachael’s Rescue, a program for forgotten pets, just like our two cats and dog we rescued.  A portion of proceeds from each sale of Nutrish is donated to The Rachael Ray Foundation, which helps animals in need through Rachael’s Rescue. Through December 2016, Rachael’s Rescue has donated more than $17.5 million dollars to pet charities and other organizations that do good for animals. Any product that is good and contributes to good is a win in my book. Don’t forget to grab your coupon and try some Nutrish for your furry friend. Would you please share this idea for other animal lovers to enjoy? Thank a bunch!

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