🎁A gift guide with one thing on it we made ourselves
Cat gifts for cat lovers
We print trading cards of people’s cats, so we are not a neutral party and will not pretend to be. That is one item below. The rest is what we would actually buy, including the free ones and the ones we think you should skip.
The whole trick, in one line
A cat person does not want a gift about cats. They want a gift about their cat.
Every good present on this page follows from that, and every bad one ignores it. The mug with the cartoon tabby is a gift about cats. A photograph of the animal asleep on their laundry, printed properly and framed, is a gift about their cat. One of those gets used until it chips. The other gets a genuine thank you and lives in a cupboard.
A trading card of their actual cat
This is the thing we make. You photograph a cat in our app, the card writes itself from the photo (name, type, attacks, the lot), and then you can have ten of them printed and posted to you.
Spicy 👑
HP 120
Detects rival cat scent on your hand. Immediately regrets letting you exist.
You touched another cat. You KNEW the rules. Full consequences apply.
Cry baby 2
HP 120
Emits a cry so pitiful that all nearby humans drop everything and panic.
Has been crying since Tuesday. No one knows why. He won't say.
Pebbles
HP 120
Stares into your soul at 4am until you fill the bowl. No exceptions.
Flops onto your lap mid-bite and refuses to move. You cannot eat now. Only Pebbles eats.
Three real cards, of three cats somebody stopped for on their way somewhere else.
How to give one
- Take a photo of the cat.Theirs, on your next visit. Or the one that lives outside their building, which is a funnier gift and works just as well.
- Let the card write itself.Name, breed, chonk level, two attacks and a piece of nonsense about its personality. You can rewrite any of it if you know the cat better than a photo does.
- Order the pack.Pick your ten cards, pay once with postage included, and they turn up in an envelope you can hand over.
The honest catch: the cards are printed from cats you have found, so this is a gift you have to do a small amount of work for. That is also why it lands. Somebody went and photographed their cat on purpose.
Free on iPhone and Android. Prices are in Canadian dollars, or US dollars if you are in the States.
Gifts for the cat, which are really gifts for the person
- A wand toy a human has to hold. The point is fifteen minutes of somebody’s attention. Battery-powered toys skip the only part that mattered.
- Catnip bought this year. Most catnip in a cupboard is old and does nothing, and its owner has quietly concluded their cat is immune. Fresh catnip is a small miracle to witness.
- A window shelf. The best gift on this list per dollar. Cats watch the street the way people watch television, and almost nobody thinks to buy one.
- A cardboard scratcher, replaced. Everyone owns one. Nobody replaces it until it is shredded past use. Turning up with a new one is oddly thoughtful.
- A very large plain box. Yes, really. Wrap something else in it if you need the gift to look like a gift.
Gifts that cost nothing and land hardest
- Print a photo they already have. Their cat is on their phone four hundred times and on a wall zero times. A cheap frame finishes it.
- Find a street cat and name it after them. The first person to find a cat in our app names it permanently. Naming one after your friend costs a walk. See the cats people have already found.
- Take them on a cat walk. Whole neighbourhoods put their cats in the window for an afternoon, and there are more of these than anybody realises. Here is every one we can find.
- Give to the people trapping and neutering in their town. In their name, with the receipt in the card. Local groups, not the big national ones, feel this immediately.
Things to skip
- Anything that says “crazy cat lady”. It is a joke about them, bought for them, and they have received it four times.
- A calendar of cats that are not their cat. Twelve strangers on the wall of somebody who has a favourite cat already.
- A toy subscription box. Twelve months of things their cat ignores, plus the guilt of cancelling something you gave them.
- A surprise DNA kit. Fun in theory. In practice you have handed somebody a swab, a deadline and a small worry about results.
- A pet, as a surprise. Obvious, and it still happens every December.
The questions people ask us
- What do you get a cat person who already has everything?
- Something about their cat, not about cats. They own the mug, the socks and the tote bag. What almost nobody gives them is an object with their own animal on it, made properly, which is why a printed card of their cat lands so much harder than another generic one.
- Are printed trading cards of a cat a real gift, or a novelty?
- They are 2.5 by 3.5 inch cards on card stock, printed at 300 DPI, the same size as every trading card you have ever held. A pack of ten arrives in the post. People put one on the fridge and give the rest away, which is the part we did not predict.
- Can I get a card of someone else’s cat?
- You need a photo you took yourself. Take one next time you visit, and the card is made from that photo. You cannot pull a card of a cat you have never met, which is deliberate: every card belongs to whoever actually found the animal.
- What is a good cat gift under $30?
- A random pack of ten printed cards is $29 with shipping included. Off our own list: a wand toy that a person has to hold, a bag of catnip bought this year rather than three years ago, and a printed photograph of their cat in a cheap frame.
- What do you give someone whose cat has died?
- Something with that cat in it, and no occasion attached to it. A printed photograph, or a card of them, given quietly in February rather than wrapped up at Christmas. Say the cat’s name when you give it.
Start with a photo
The app is free, the cards cost money only if you want them on paper, and the cat does not have to be yours. Find one, name it, print it.