Easy Homemade Gifts

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Hand Towel Kitten

This sweet little kitten is a lovely homemade gift to make for the cat lovers in your family. It's easy to do - all you basically need is a small hand towel and some decorations.

Copyright © 1999-2008 Susan Spatone All rights reserved. Published with permission from CraftAtHome.com

What You Will Need:

Hand Towel
Novelty eyes or buttons
2 white pompoms (1/2 inch)
1 gray pompom (1/2 inch)
1 red pompom (1/2 inch)
Button or charm
Scrap ribbon pieces
Elastic Band
Hot glue

Hand Towel Kitten
Craft Project Instructions:
Lay the hand towel out flat and fold it lengthwise, bringing each end to the center, but leaving about a half an inch gap at the center line. Roll the unfolded sides to the center of the towel, as shown.

Fold your roll in half and wrap an elastic band around to hold your kitten together (see photo below, right). Gently pull the top two ends (one at a time) up, while pushing the center of the towel down ... very gently or you will have to start all over again. This makes the kitten's ears. Keep referring to the photos to help you with this process.

Wiggle the towel sections until you have a shape that looks like the finished kitten shown above. To make kitty's nose, glue together two white pompoms and one gray pompom. Squash them together with the glue so you have a shape that looks like a kitten nose.

To make kitty's whiskers, use a four inch length of ribbon (larger if your towel is oversized). Cut the ribbon from each end to the center, several cuts, keeping about a half of an inch of ribbon uncut in the centre. Glue the uncut center part of the ribbon to the kitten's face (refer to photo for placement). You could also use a heavy thread instead of the ribbon for this.

To make kitty's tongue, cut a little of the fluff off of a red pompom, first on one side of the pompom and then on the opposite side of the pompom. You will end up with a pompom that is flat on two sides. You could also cut a piece of felt for this, instead of using the pompom, but the pompom is much fluffier.

Glue the nose directly on top of the whiskers that you created with ribbon and glue your tongue just under the nose, but touching the underside of the nose pompoms.

Glue novelty eyes or buttons for kitty's eyes, tie a bow around kitty's neck and after you have tied the bow, remove the elastic band (the ribbon will now hold your kitty together).

Tie a little charm around the neck ribbon. I used a plastic button and looped a small piece of pink cord through the button and wrapped around the neck ribbon.This is not necessary, but I prefer that kitty's ears have a small piece of matching ribbon wrapped around them. Simply tie a piece of ribbon around the bottom of the ears at the top of the head and tuck the ends of the ribbon inside the centre roll. This looks nicer and helps to hold kitty, in it's original shape. This will be necessary, if children will be playing with kitty (but remember, small children should not be given toys with small parts).

If desired, glue a small piece of matching ribbon in place for a tail. That's it, you're all done!