My home is playing guest to a little buddy named Blue Jeans. He is the sweetest little bean...As you can see, he parties hard. But his claws! Yikes! I saw a cool cat scratch pad at Trader Joe's and whipped together a replica. Cut your cardboard into strips. Start to curl them.
Tightly as you can, wind the cardboard strips up and use some scotch tape to keep it tight.
Tape your next strip right where the last one ended.
Keep rockin until it's the size you want it. I then tied a bunch of yarn around it, very very tightly. It was for aesthetics, but Jeanie likes to curl around the pad and scratch the yarn too. We stuck his feather toy in the top, for when we're too tired to play with him.
Unfortunately, that's the only part he understands. He doesn't quite get the whole concept of the scratching...But I'm going to whip up a bunch of these and give them to all my cat owner friends, because dang, are they cute and easy.
Pictured here: Not interested.