Sustainability is our mission! PUPCYCLE is all about upcycling donated t-shirts and paper bags from grocery stores with minimal scrap!
How did you start this idea? Well, it was definitely a combination of things! I am currently a Masters student in Industrial Design at Georgia Tech and there was this class called Make10 that I was super excited about taking. You can choose any idea you want, build it, and actually sell 10 handmade pieces of your idea at our end of the year showcase. I had just secured a summer internship at PetSmart at the time, so I thought, why not do a dog toy?! I grew up with animals all my life and seeing how much of a "super chewer" my dog and other dogs were, constantly having to pay more money to replace their toys, or even risk being bitten while playing with them, were huge problem areas I wanted to solve. While trying to brainstorm some ideas, my friend came up to me and said she actually makes her own dog toys sometimes out of her own t-shirts...and the rest was history! I have accumulated so many t-shirts over the years being in athletics and thought it was such a great idea, because who doesn't have old t-shirts laying around that they don't ever wear?! With many many many YouTube videos and tutorials later and learning different types of braiding techniques, I felt like I was in girl scouts again! But I enjoyed every second of it. After I cut up about 20 of my own t-shirts and nailed down the perfect braiding technique, I got down to business. I reached out to my friends within my church and at school asking for any t-shirts they were willing to donate for my project and after one week I accumulated 40 t-shirts (that would otherwise be thrown away or collecting dust in a drawer)! Each and every dog toy is made from a donated t-shirt with a story attached to it. How did they get it? Where did they wear it? Why don't they wear it anymore? People hold onto t-shirts because it holds a special type of memory to it, so why not keep that story and share it with others? The handle design is 3-D printed and created so that you no longer have to worry about getting slobber all over your hands or losing your grip, since this is especially made for YOU and not the dog! Your package is also specially made from leftover t-shirt strands and paper bags from grocery stores you can find at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. The entire design is all about using the ENTIRE t-shirt with only about 10% waste! Talk about sustainability! You get both a braided tug toy with a handle AND a chew toy, completely made out of the entire t-shirt (where YouTube videos only show using the bottom half). And then once the tug toy braid gets chewed up/dirty (it can be thrown in the washer!) or you can order a new braid and attach it to the handle or braid one yourself while still keeping the cute handle! Hope you and your pups enjoy my dog toys as much as I had making them! :)
