Maybe I'll just institute a BYO Antihistamine policy at my house. Or: Look What I Made!

There are about five people who come over to my house on a semi-regular basis. That is to say that I have about five friends who do not feel the need to make me get up from the couch, walk to the door, and open it when they knock on it. They knock and enter. That is comfortable friendship and I appreciate it.
I also have a cat. My cat is awesome and pretty and totally chilled out and everybody loves her, except for when they don't because 3/5 of my friends are allergic to cats. That's kind of a large percentage, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. I haven't done any research. I'm only an internet statistician--the kind that don't need research or fair sample subjects to come up with their findings.
And Kiki will lay just about anywhere, too. Her favorite spot is a stack of boxes that I had sitting next to my couch, one day. I intended to move them but she just loves them so much that I left them there and now it's kind of her area. She's also more than happy to lounge in the sunbeams wherever they may be--usually all over a dark-colored chair or a stack of recently washed and folded towels.
I can tell that she's just teaching me a lesson about putting your laundry away right after folding it. Right now she's laying in an open window, next to a 1980's Reader's Digest collection of stories that are all written in German. Siamese, they are so smart.
So, yeah, she lays everywhere and gets her hair everywhere and it's not so much a problem for me because I don't have an allergy and also I keep a lint roller next to the front door. But it is a problem for my friends and I thought that if I could create a nice place for Kiki to hang out--a bed of sorts, then I could deep clean the rest of my furniture and then my friends wouldn't have such itchy, watery eyes. That's just a theory, though.

So I looked at Walmart and, here's the thing, I don't have a legitimately styled home or anything but I do not want some huge pillow covered with acrylic fur in a cheetah print on my floor. And that hideous wreck was the best that they could offer. Other options included, like, little scenes of kitties scampering with balls of yarn. Not even. remotely. adorable. Not only were they hideous but they started at over $20 and I'm in no position to drop down twenty bucks on something that I totally hate. So I did what any girl with a ten dollar bill and a day off would do. I made my own. First, I looked online for DIY projects and I didn't like any of them except for this one (which I know she would love but I don't have the patience for as I know it would be easily destroyed) or this one (that is completely bad-ass but probably not worth the effort since I wouldn't guarantee that she'd actually use it). So I made up my own. Here's how it went down.

Genesis and I walked down to Java John's. Java John's is a coffee shop in town where they roast their own beans and what to places like that have for sale on the cheap? That's right, leftover coffee sacks. So we went and picked one out. The one that we really liked what a lighter shade and it had hot-pink stamps and blue markings all over it and it was from Brazil. But it was so stiff that Genesis thought that Kiki would not like to lay on it very much.
This one is still cool, though, and there's handwriting on the back of it and it's much more soft. Well, as soft as you can reasonably expect burlap to be.
Kiki loves to lay on stacks of laundry so what better thing to fill her new bed with than all the clothes that are too junky and holey to take to the thrift store? That's right. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle, bitch.

And if you're looking at that pile of laundry and thinking, "those look a lot like my pajamas", then I should tell you, Steven, you're probably not going to get those pants back.

I took the laundry and folded it up and, in neat little stacks, I stuffed it into an old pillowcase that I had laying around. Then I quickly stitched up that pillowcase just so that I wouldn't have to worry about the contents falling out as I was assembling this thing.
See? Also I should mention that it was at this point that Kiki was aware of what I was creating for her and was overwhelmed with gratification that she couldn't stop rubbing her face all over me. It is difficult to sew with a kitty all up in your face. It was funny, though, and I wanted to get documentation of it but that just adds a whole 'nother level of difficulty. Suffice it to say that I bled a little during this process. And I may or may not have stabbed my cat. I really don't know.

Then I cut off the top of the bag (because it was 1/2 sewn shut and apparently had only been half opened by some sort of hatchety device). And I was all, like, crap it's going to totally unravel if we mess with it. And I have a cat! What do I do? I decided to worry about it later. In the mean time, I stuffed that little package of old laundry down into the bottom of the bag. And there it is.
See? 69 net kilos of discarded laundry. Oh, and also I solved the problem of the unraveling by folding it all up before I folded it all up and tacked it with...
Decorative buttons! These do not serve an actual button-y purpose but I suppose that if I had means/ patience/ ambition to do so, I could do something like that. Unfortunately I'm fresh out of those things. I just have the buttons. I considered not putting them on but I'm glad that I did because Kiki likes rubbing her face on them. Cats are weird.
This picture is blurry because she was expressing her gratitude with such ferocity.
And there it is. Finished product, it really only took about an hour to do and it cost me $7. Five dollars for the bag and two dollars for the buttons. I also spent $1.50 on a needle and thread but I needed that to hem my work pants, anyway so I didn't count it into the cost.
Also, I should mention that Kiki hates her new bed. This is the closest I came to getting her to try it at all. I know, she'll come around but in the mean time, she'll stay right here.
Maybe I'll just institute a BYO Antihistamine policy at my house. Wa-waaaa.