While I’m sad that the Kickstarter project failed for Picky Mat, I know the product works and I know it solves a real problem: cats who complain when they eat their dry food and suddenly see the bottom of the dish and consider their dish empty. Picky Mat solves this by removing the discouragement and in some cases retrains the cat to eat more of their food even after the mat is removed. All that being said, I didn’t want that work to go to waste, so here is a quick tutorial in making your own DIY Picky Mat.

Items Needed

• 3M Scotch Self-Sealing 4×6 laminating pouches (Amazon add-on $3, Walmart in-store $5.50)
• 4″ x 6″ photo print of the Picky Mat image, right-click Save Image As (Walgreens and Walmart in-store for less than $0.30)
• Scissors

Steps

Get the image printed at home or at a local photo kiosk (Walgreens, RiteAid, CVS, Walmart) for a few cents. The image is a perfect 300DPI image for a 4″x6″ photo. The self-sealing pouches come in a 5-pack, so don’t worry if you make a mistake. First and foremost however, you need to use the scissors to cut down the photo to fit in the bottom of your cat food dish. You actually want it slightly smaller, because once in the pouch you need some space for the two-sides of the pouch to seal together.

Once you have cut down the photo to size, follow the instructions to slip it into the pouch. One important change: The image should face the bottom (thinner plastic) of the pouch. The reason is I called 3M and found out that the top is made of polyester, while the bottom is made of polypropylene (which is food-safe).

Once sealed in the pouch, cut around the photo, leaving a little space of clear plastic all the way around so it stays stuck together.

Congratulations!

You now have your own Picky Mat! It is not near as fancy, inexpensive, or durable as I would have produced with the Kickstarter funding, but it most definitely will do the job for you and your cat.

PS

If you want to use one of the other images taken (needs to be cropped to the the size of the photo you print, 300 DPI), I have the full set as a Flickr set.