DIY Cat Scratcher from Upcycled Corrugated Cardboard Boxes

This tutorial was originally posted on Crafting a Green World.

This upcycled cardboard cat scratcher is a great way to use up all your corrugated cardboard boxes. Cats love it, and it's a useful donation to your local animal shelter.

There comes a time in every person's life when they find themselves simply awash with cardboard. Maybe you just finished unpacking from your latest move. Maybe you went a little too ham on the most recent gift-giving holiday. Maybe your Girl Scout troop sold 2,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies and now you have 250 empty cookie cases to show for it.

Whatever the situation that has left you with too much corrugated cardboard, I have the perfect solution: an upcycled cardboard cat scratcher!

Cats LOVE this style of cat scratcher, and it's a great one to make for them because it's eco-friendly on both ends: use upcycled cardboard to make it, and recycle it when you're done with it. Make a few of these cat scratchers and tuck them around your space so your cat never has an excuse to sharpen their claws on your furniture. If you don't have cats, make these cat scratchers anyway and donate them to your local animal shelter. My local animal shelter specifically requests this style, and my Girl Scout troop enjoys making and donating them.

This cat scratcher is an improved version of the two types that I made back in 2020. In the years since, I've refined my style to what my own cats and the animal shelter prefer, and redesigned the scratcher to be sturdier and more easily recyclable. My own cats do still really like that round one from the 2020 tutorial, and that's a great style if you've got a lot of room to devote to a nice, big cat scratcher. This version here, though, has a more inconspicuous profile, transports better, and my local animal shelter says it works better in their cat enclosures.

To make this upcycled cardboard cat scratcher, you will need:

• lots of corrugated cardboard. If you're using Girl Scout cookie cases, you'll need about five per cat scratcher. Otherwise, prepare to cut up more cardboard than you thought you'd need--this cat scratcher uses a LOT!
• measuring and cutting tools. At the minimum, you need a ruler and a pair of sturdy scissors. The work will go quicker with a quilting ruler, self-healing cutting mat, and craft knife.
• hot glue gun and hot glue. You're not going to use much, but this is still an essential component.

Step 1: Cut the bottom off of a box.

Choose a cardboard box whose area at the bottom has the dimensions that you're looking for in a cat scratcher.

Measure 2" up from the bottom of the box all the way around, then cut. Reserve the rest of the box for Step 2.

The bottom of this box will be the base for your cat scratcher.

If necessary, reinforce the bottom box flaps with hot glue.

Step 2: Cut corrugated cardboard into strips.

Flatten and/or disassemble a corrugated cardboard box, then examine it to see which way to cut. You want to cut across the corrugations, not parallel to them. When you cut, the cut edge of the box should show a cross-section of the corrugations--that's what the kitties love to dig their claws into!

Use a ruler and craft knife to cut a 2" wide strip down the cardboard, then repeat until you've cut up the entire box. Recycle or repurpose any leftover cardboard.

Measure the length of your box bottom, and cut the cardboard strips to this length. Recycle/repurpose any end pieces that don't reach the correct length.

Continue cutting cardboard into strips until you have enough strips to completely fill the box bottom. If you're making these from Girl Scout cookie cases, it takes about five cases, including the one you cut the box bottom from, to make this cat scratcher.

Step 3: Insert strips into the box bottom, gluing as you go.

After you've got enough strips, dump them all out of the box bottom and set up the hot glue gun. Lightly glue the strips together as you reinsert them.

This is my biggest improvement over the 2020 version of this cat scratcher; when the strips weren't glued together, I found that occasionally my cats would snag their claws into one and pull it out of the box! THIS cat scratcher keeps all its strips nice and snug inside for ultimate cat scratching perfection.

Step 4 (optional): Glue the cat scratcher to the base.

If you want to make the cat scratcher REALLY sturdy, then after all the strips are glued together, carefully pry the whole thing out of the box bottom, then use hot glue to lightly glue it back in. This will keep even the most enthusiastic cat from pulling the entire cat scratcher out of its base.

Either way, the added beauty of this corrugated cardboard cat scratcher is that it's DOUBLE-SIDED! When a cat has worn one side of the scratcher down, carefully pry it out of the base (the hot glue should peel away fairly easily, if you weren't too enthusiastic when you glued it), flip it over, and reinsert it, re-gluing it as necessary.

The model for this tutorial is Dill, one of the three-week-old kittens plus mama cat (also in some pics) that I'm currently fostering for my local animal shelter. I'll keep them safe and happy here with me until the kittens weigh at least two pounds and are at least eight weeks old, and then I'll bring everyone back to be speutered and adopted. Kittens this young don't do well in a shelter setting, and foster families are crucial to their survival, well-being, and proper socialization. If you've got space in your living area and your heart, please reach out to your local shelter and ask about their foster programs

This is one of my all-time favorite upcycling projects. It's a nearly-waste-free way to turn trash into treasure, it fills an incredibly useful niche in cat gear that you'd otherwise have to buy new, and it's a simple, cheap donation project that directly benefits the most innocent creatures in your local community.

I challenge you (and me!) to make every unwanted corrugated cardboard box that comes into our lives into a cat scratcher for use or donation.

The Foster Kittens are Four Weeks Old, and Quarantine Guidelines Exist for a Reason

Beautiful Sage, shedding ringworm spores all over my couch...

Remember how last week I joked that we'd definitely ended the kittens' ringworm quarantine a week early and wouldn't we be sad/regret it if it turned out they actually had ringworm?

Hahaha yeah, you can see where I'm going with this...

family portrait on the kids' bathroom floor wearing the clothes I changed out of as soon as I left like a good cat foster mom

The animal shelter 100% told us to watch the cats for ringworm, and Dr. Google 100% told me that the ringworm incubation period is three weeks. But the two-week infection disease quarantine already feels soooo long, and we were so bored sitting on the kids' bathroom floor and changing into new clothes multiple times a day, and at four weeks old kittens are so cute and rambunctious and it's so fun to let them chase a ribbon across the living room floor and watch them wrestle on the couch and Ginger was going absolutely stir-crazy locked into a single small room with a bunch of kids.

And I mean, come on. I know the interweb SAYS the ringworm incubation period is three weeks, but that can't be right, on account of three weeks is boring and feels too long. I'm sure two weeks is perfectly fine!

So after the two-week infection disease quarantine was up, we had a lovely few days playing together all over the house. 

We got to celebrate Easter together:

I did remember to wash the quilt on hot, but I should probably soak that basket, too.

Ginger FINALLY got a break from the kids:

Yep, that's the desk I work at for half the day, every day.

The babies got more room to hunt and fight:

Why, yes, those ARE our couch cushions. You know, the ones where we rest our literal heads!

All over the kid, who's of course hanging out on my bed.

For Christ's sake yes that's my literal face. Just don't even talk to me anymore I'm too stupid to listen to words.

And we got to do tons and tons of my favorite activity, which is hanging out on the couch:

SO many couch cushions to wash in hot water and dry on high and then hang out on the clothesline in the sun just to be sure.

It was actually while we were hanging out on the couch, the kittens wrestling and chasing each other and crawling all over every possible surface that could ever possibly be contaminated, that I spotted this suspicious spot on my awesome little buddy Sage's arm:

Bare patch of fur with white-ish powder on it, the better to shed all over everything.

I swear, my lot in life is to never have a single moment of peace. I consulted with the animal shelter's foster program director the next morning to arrange to bring everyone in for a Wood's lamp test, and she told me that if they tested positive, it would be perfectly fine to return them. No foster family jumps with joy or anything at the idea of the pretty intense ringworm treatment, quarantine, and cleaning regimen, but there are foster families who are reasonably comfortable with it.

I'm not necessarily UNcomfortable with it, but considering that 1) the entire household is definitely exposed and most of our crap is definitely contaminated so I was already about to have to spend the next 48 hours doing nothing but cleaning, 2) within 72 hours we were about to have visitors who also probably didn't want to be exposed to ringworm, and 3) we are going to England soon and really, really, really do not want to have ringworm there, either, I decided that this wasn't the time to learn how to administer ringworm treatment to four foster kittens and one foster cat.

So the litter tested positive via Wood's lamp, my teenager and I said goodbye, I cried, and right now they're with a way more responsible family than us, getting their nice twice-weekly dips and twice-daily topical ointments and once-daily oral medicine and recovering from ringworm in plenty of time to be adopted right on schedule, and I'm still compulsively bleaching all the things that can be bleached and washing on hot all the things that can be washed on hot and looking suspiciously at things that can't have either and buying every tea tree oil bath and body product I can find while feeling a lot of random itches like the true hypochondriac I am.

And both kids have ALREADY been asking when we can get more foster kittens.

Just... after England, guys. Let's just not cause an international fungal incident and then we can spend the rest of our summer up to our itchy ears in kittens.

Four Little Rascals and Their Mama: Our Foster Kittens are Three Weeks Old!

Dill and Fennel

 Welp, they're definitely messier than they were a week ago! I'm currently spending all my teaching money on puppy pee pads, wet kitten food, and wood pellet litter, but if a hobby doesn't take up all your time and even more of your money, then what kind of hobby even is it?

selfie with Sage

Dill and the teenager

The babies really woke up this week. I miss their wobbly little uncertain steps, but watching them play fight and chase each other is also incredibly cute. They're still nursing regularly, but they've all gotten the hang of their wet kitten food by now, and they and Ginger are easily going through three cans a day on top of Ginger's dry food (that I've also seen a kitten or two snack on). It's so different from every other litter we've ever had, that we've always had to bribe with pureed baked chicken to start putting on weight!

doing our best to make Sage an ipad baby

picture of two mamas!

Even Sage, who I suspect isn't quite the same age as his siblings, FINALLY started chowing down by the end of the week--little dude put on over two ounces in two days!

Sage FINALLY eating his nice wet food!

We're done with quarantine, and although I'm still not giving the kittens any freedom (and Ginger keeps getting herself put back in kitten jail for essentially beelining straight to my dwarf pomegranate, mouth already open for munching, as soon as we let her out), it's nice to be able to bring them out of their room to hang out with us, rather than having to chill out on the floor of the cramped kids' bathroom whenever we want to visit them.

Sage not enjoying his field trip into the outside world

family portrait on my lap

We're probably not technically done with ringworm quarantine, but we're done with changing clothes every time we touch the kittens, so I guess that's us done with ringworm quarantine! If I have to admit in a few weeks that we all have ringworm, feel free to shame me. I'll deserve it.

Clove, Dill, and Fennel

My favorite kitten is still a kitten who's sleeping and purring on my lap, so I like most to snatch one up just as they're all settling down for a nap so it can come and snooze on me instead. I also really like Zooming with my college student from the kitten room; essentially we just spend an hour with me holding kitten after kitten up to the camera, and her squealing at them in such a high pitch that her computer's microphone can't even pick it up. She's coming home for a visit in a few days to watch her sister perform in our town's Trashion/Refashion Show, and I think she'll be hard-pressed to divide her days between the kittens and her dog!

Clove is my snooze buddy

Now that everyone's over the hump of possible illnesses and all the babies are gaining weight, all we really have to do with them is love them, feed them, socialize them, and clean up after them. This is the part where they work their way into my heart and I get so attached to them that I cry for days when we finally have to bring them back to the shelter so their forever families can come adopt them.

Dill is my other best snoozer

I should probably take more pictures of what their bathroom looks like every single morning and just look at that when I miss them...

Four Little Kittens and Their Mama: Our Foster Litter is Two Weeks Old!

Dill

Welp, I couldn't actually get a hole in my head, so I did the next most unreasonable thing: I picked up the phone even when my caller ID clearly stated that the call was from our local animal shelter's foster program.

And then I did the NEXT most unreasonable thing, which is agree to take four two-week-old kittens along with their mother.

Welcome, Ginger, Clove, Dill, Fennel, and Sage!

Clove and Fennel

Ginger and family, with Dill in the foreground

All we know about them is that they were removed from unsanitary conditions in a hoarding situation. We're not even sure if Ginger is the kittens' biological mother; apparently, there were three mother cats and a lot of kittens all found in the same area, so the shelter workers estimated ages, grouped the kittens accordingly, and offered each set to a mother. Ginger accepted this set of four who were thought to be about two weeks old, so now she's their mama, they're her babies, and they're all here with us!

Dill

Clove

I've assured Ginger numerous times since then, though, that if she's missing any babies, they're with the other mama cats in other homes and having just as nice a time as she and these kittens are with us. I don't want her to worry.

Sage getting weighed, with Ginger growling at Jones on the other side of the door

Ginger and family

Kittens with their mama are a lot easier than kittens without, and for the first few days, they were a LOT lot easier. The mama takes care of all of their input and output, and it's only in the last couple of days that we've really had to think a ton about litter boxes and kitten food. They're definitely starting to get a lot messier now, but I don't think they'll ever be as messy (I hope!) as that litter of six four-week-old kittens last summer. How we managed without just burning the house down behind us, I do not know.

Fennel

That litter did inspire some new innovations for this time, however. I started them right off with lots of small, shallow litter boxes to explore, and lots of these puppy pee pads laid down everywhere. They're really not too messy yet, but it is SO infinitely easier to toss a pee pad than it is to wipe pee off the floor.

Dill

Clove, Dill, Fennel, and Sage

And now that the kids' bathroom has its new shower and new flooring--all tile! No cracked linoleum!--it's a great place to tuck away the entire family. In the mornings when I come in to clean and sanitize, I shut Ginger and the kittens into the shower and she scrabbles at the shower door, outraged, while I pick things up, sweep and steam mop, and restock, lecturing her the entire time that if she just kept the room tidier, it wouldn't take me so long to clean. I'm pretty sure that every time she's in the litter box, she picks up a couple of paws-full of litter and flings it across the room.

Dill

Ginger and family

The family has to stay quarantined away from our family pets for two weeks before we can even think about letting them out into the rest of the house, and even then I'm not quite sure how we'll manage that--I don't trust four-week-old kittens to be out of sight of their litter box, and I can already tell that Ginger won't get along with our adult cats. So let me know if you've got tips! They're also under ringworm watch at the moment, as they were definitely exposed to it in the hoarder's house. Fortunately, none of them are showing symptoms, but it does mean that we also have to change into foster family-only clothes when we visit them and change immediately when we leave, so it'll be VERY nice when that additional annoyance is done. 

Dill

Ginger

It's such a treat to have kittens in the house again, though! These are by far the tiniest babies we've ever had, and when you look at them in relation to someone holding them, they're so unbelievably small that it looks like the perspective is off somehow. I am loving every second of giving them a safe place to grow and spend a few more precious weeks with their mama. 

Clove and Sage

Fennel

I sure wish Ginger would stop flinging her damp litter around the room, though!

Weeks 5 and 6 with the Foster Kittens: Happy Little Chonkies Find Their Forever Homes

Five baby kittens lived their best baby lives in our family, and in their last week with us, Syd sat them down for their official kitten portraits.

Here is Athena, the best and most superior of all kittens:

This is Socks, the bravest of cats, who wakes up from every nap and chooses violence anew:

This is Taboo, who spends much of his time staring directly into the soul of the human nearest him:

This is Jones, come to see what the fuss is and accidentally get a rainbow caught in his fur:

This is Anchovy who, bless him, never knows what's going on and always looks vaguely baffled and specifically startled:

This is Pickle, who doesn't always prefer pets from her humans but enjoys being the one who grooms them, instead:

Here's the hardworking photographer, who arranged this studio session to take marketing photos for the shelter and keepsakes for us (as well as to complete a step of the Girl Scout Ambassador Photographer badge!):

I love how her photos show all the sweetest, brightest personality traits of each of our babies:

We kept this litter until they were nine weeks old, and from the time they were seven weeks old on, every moment with them was just pure magic. They were old enough and responsible enough to have the run of the house, and they took advantage of it, claiming most of our giant bean bag for their tiny selves:

I do not know why kittens always feel the need to climb straight up to my shoulders and perch there precariously, but it is my favorite kitten thing:

The kittens were even here long enough to join in with some of our favorite Halloween traditions. Here they are helping me make ambrosia for our Edward Scissorhands family movie night:

So, we either kept this litter of fosters too long and I accidentally got attached, or I still have a lot of grief over Gracie that I haven't processed (or why not both?!?), because wow. I am BEREFT without these five messy, feisty, expensive, time-consuming, stressful foster kittens in my life and on my lap!

Like, spontaneously bursting into tears bereft. Listening to my secret Spotify playlist that's all sad songs about kids growing up too quickly bereft. Thank goodness that all the foster kittens were adopted within three days, and my absolute best darling, Athena, was adopted the same day, or I honestly do not know if I could have stopped myself from driving back to the shelter and adopting them for real bereft. 

The kids have been visibly as surprised at my reaction as I am, because I'm always the one coaching them through the foster returns, talking about the amazing families who will cherish each of our babies and how loved and lucky they're all going to be, etc. Now it's the kids who find themselves cheerfully theorizing that I bet right now Athena is eating wet cat food and purring while somebody pets her and watches her adoringly, or right now Anchovy is sitting there with his usual baffled expression on his face while someone coos at him and takes one hundred photos. 

Ugh, I don't even know, you guys. I might have to deep clean the kids' bathroom and then chase the high with another litter of foster kittens. It's seriously that bad.

• Four Weeks Old
• Five Weeks Old
• Six Weeks Old
• Seven Weeks Old