How to Make a Crinkly Dog Toy

I bought Tank some Frisbee’s for Christmas that are really floppy and rubbery. I bought Panzer a bed because up until now she was just sleeping on a nasty old blanket because she wasn't completely potty trained. She’s ready for a “big girl bed” now. Matthew (aka: the best puppy dad ever) was standing outside of Orschelin at 6am, by himself, on Black Friday to get her the bed for $6.

I was kind of stumped on what her other present should be until I caught her playing with an empty plastic soda bottle. She loved playing with it because I think she likes the noise.

I’ve seen those stuffed animal type toys with the Velcro opening to put the plastic bottle in the bottom. I looked all over the place but the cheapest ones I saw were $9 each. So, yea, I’m obviously not paying that much.

So here you have a crinkly plastic bottle dog toy tutorial.

What you need:
Plastic Bottle                                      Box of Fabric Scraps                        Optional: Velcro
Scissors                                             Needle and Thread

1^st: Pick out a fabric that is durable and is interesting to chew on. It needs to be big enough to loosely fit around the plastic bottle. For this I used a big square of grey fleece that I used for Panzer’s Tin Man Halloween costume. It has some stretch to it and it’s fuzzy but not too fuzzy. Cut it into a rectangle that can loosely fit around the bottle.

2^nd: Lay the rectangle out in front of you right side up, (fuzzy side up). Get your box of fabrics and cut out its face, or decorations, or whatever. You can give it “hair” too if you want. I’m using some of the strips of “mane” from Tank’s Cowardly Lion costume. I also gave my little guy eyes with pupils, a mustache, and a little mouth.

3^rd: Hand-sew to secure any small loose parts. Such as, the little mouth to the mustache and the pupils to the eyes.

4^th: Pin the bigger parts after you’ve hand sewn them together to the “face” of the “guy.” Sew them by hand or by machine to the “face.”

5^th: Sew the sides together (right sides together). If he/she has hair, make sure the hair is INSIDE the tube or else the hair will be sewn inside the tube and you will have to rip out all your stitches and do it again L.

6^th: Turn the tube inside out and put the bottle in its bottom. At this point you have several options. You can turn the edges down and put Velcro on it. That was you can switch out the bottle if you have an aggressive chewer. Or you can turn down the edges and hand-sew it if you like a cleaner seam. Panzer is not so aggressive a chewer and I am lazy so I just pinch the edges together and sew along the bottom.

There you go! Hope you enjoy it and if you make it send me pics!