Let's make cat collars and save a ton of money!

We have 4 cats and because they are indoor/outdoor cats in the country (we live on about 90 wooded acres with no real near neighbors- bliss!) we put break-away collars on them just in case one of them wanders off and gets lost. Hopefully, someone would find him or her and know that the cat has a home and is loved and would call us. We try to keep our phone number on them at all times, too, but because they lose these collars at an alarming rate, we don't buy tags, I make them with the label maker and stick them around the ring. Knock on wood, only one cat has ever wandered off, Murphy- he was gone for the longest 5.5 days of my life and showed up one night, skinny and hungry and almost as happy to see me as I was to see him. Poor baby, I really think he was up a tree, he was so thin. And he had laryngitis before he got lost, so he couldn't even call me for help, I couldn't hear him anywhere!

See all these bells? Each bell represents a collar that was bought, worn and lost. Each collar = $3 at WalMart. This is about $120 worth of cat collars. (I take the bells off because I think it would make me insane to have a bell around my neck all the time and I don't want to torture my cats.) I'm getting tired of buying new collars all the time! Rarely, but occasionally, we will find a collar in the yard or the woods. Once it's gone, it's usually gone forever. Parker has already lost her first one, it's probably buried under the falling leaves somewhere.

So I started looking for the hardware to make our own. Heck, making a collar is no big deal if you have the hardware! Plus, I can use the clasps for my crafts, too.

So I found the hardware by using Google and the whole set- nylon break-away clasp, nylon adjuster, ring and a big bell- comes to 66¢ each and that INCLUDES the shipping! Wonderful! And the service was really quick, too. This company,Creative Designworks, LLC is great to deal with. They also sell the narrow webbing if you choose to not sew your own straps. Since I'm trying to save money, I'll be making my own but I did order some webbing to use in my crafts, it's pretty reasonable and comes in a lot of colors.

So, if you have about 10 minutes, let's make a cat collar!

Cut a strip of fabric about 15" long and 1.5" wide. Fold it in half the long way with the wrong sides together, press. Open it up and iron both long edges into the middle. Press again and stitch down both long edges.

Put one end of the strap through the little adjuster and using your zipper foot, stitch it down to the center bar.

With the raw side of the just stitched edge facing up, feed the end through the male end of the clasp, coming up from underneath. (It has a curve to it, to hug the cat's neck.) Bring it back to the adjuster and go up the closest end of the adjuster, over the bar and back down through the other opening.

Feed the end through the metal ring and then through the opening on the clasp, going through it from the top to the bottom (pay attention to that curve in the clasp again.) Adjust for fit to your cat or compare it to a store-bought collar. Sew it in place like you did the other one, one or two rows, your choice. A dot or two of Fray Check is a good idea on your sewn edges. If you forgot to put the ring on, don't panic! The rings that came in my "kit" were split rings like you get on a keychain, so it can be added on later. And the bell can be added later, too, if you choose to use one. And you're done, wasn't that ridiculously fast and easy?

I put the bell on just for the photo and because it looked so pretty. The bells you get from the kit company are silver though, and a bit bigger.

Nosey Parker is having fun chewing on her new collar. Sorry about the muzzy photo, too, she was sooo active and fast.

Here she is in her Halloween collar, it's candy corn. Gosh, I could make her a new collar every day if I wanted to. I don't, but I could! lol

Let me know if you sew some collars, I want to see them!