Summer Pet Parasol / Recycled Shade Canopy

Have you ever noticed your cat sometimes ignores the nice, cool shade and instead snoozes in the hottest patch of sunshine they can find? Mine certainly does.

Meet Misty—a professional sunbather with a gloriously fluffy double coat and an uncanny ability to nap through a UK heatwave. Rather than constantly relocating her to the shade, I decided to bring the shade to her.

The result? A lightweight, foldable pet parasol made from recycled cat food pouches. It keeps the sun off, gives empty packaging a second life, and—hopefully—earns a little approval from its toughest customer. After all, if it's made from her favourite food packets, surely it's got to be worth sitting under... Right?

This project is a walkthrough of how I designed and made a foldable garden parasol to protect a pet from the intense summer sun during the heat wave Europe is currently facing!

Materials:

1. 12 Cat/dog food packets (empty and washed).
2. Sheet of A4 scrap paper
3. 18 wooden lollipop sticks
4. 1 bamboo cane
5. PLA 3D printing filament
6. Hot glue gun sticks
7. Sellotape

Equipment:

1. Scissors
2. 3D printer
3. Hot glue gun
4. Iron + ironing board

Before I started designing, I set out some basic requirements and how I hoped to achieve them:

1. Provides shade for 1 cat or similar size of animal:
2. A canopy with an approximate diameter of 40 cm should provide enough shade to comfortably cover Misty while she's lying down, without making the parasol unnecessarily large or difficult to store.
3. Reflects heat:
4. The silver aluminium outer surface of the cat food pouches reflects a significant proportion of the Sun's radiant heat, helping to keep the canopy cooler and reduce the amount of heat reaching Misty.
5. Cat-friendly:
6. Using materials that Misty recognises and associates with her favourite food will encourage her to use the parasol. The open design also allows her to come and go freely without feeling enclosed.
7. Portable:
8. The parasol is designed to be as compact as possible, folding down into a small package for easy storage. After all, UK sunshine is never guaranteed!
9. Lightweight:
10. Using lightweight, low-density materials for both the frame and canopy will make the parasol easy to carry, reposition around the garden, and transport if needed.
11. Inexpensive:
12. The project will be made almost entirely from materials I already have at home, including empty cat food pouches, meaning little or no additional cost is required.
13. Easy to use:
14. A simple opening and folding mechanism with as few moving parts as possible will allow the parasol to be set up or packed away in just a few seconds.
15. Reusable:
16. The parasol will be built from durable, waterproof materials that can withstand repeated folding, outdoor use and the occasional British downpour without becoming damaged.
17. Made from recycled materials:
18. The canopy will be constructed from clean, empty cat food pouches, giving waste packaging a useful second life. Reusing these materials reduces landfill waste while taking advantage of their lightweight, waterproof and reflective aluminium properties.

Pet food pouches are an excellent canopy material because their laminated aluminium construction is lightweight, waterproof, highly resistant to light transmission and naturally reflective, helping to keep the shelter cooler while giving waste packaging a useful second life.

Could I find a way to recycle Misty's cat food pouches to make her a useful summer parasol?

Benefits of pet food pouches:

Most pet food pouches are made from multiple laminated layers, typically including:

1. An outer plastic layer (for durability and printing).
2. A thin aluminium foil layer (acts as a barrier to light, oxygen and moisture).
3. One or more inner plastic layers (food-safe and heat-sealable).

This construction gives them some useful properties:

1. Excellent light barrier. The aluminium layer blocks virtually all visible light and UV from passing directly through the material.
2. Reflects radiant heat. The shiny aluminium reflects a significant proportion of incoming solar radiation, helping the canopy itself heat up less than a dark fabric would.
3. Waterproof. They are designed to keep food dry and fresh, so rain isn't an issue.
4. Lightweight. Much lighter than metal sheet or plywood.
5. Tear-resistant. The laminated layers are tougher than ordinary plastic film.
6. Easy to clean. Since they originally contained food, they can be washed and reused.

The downside is that the material doesn't breathe, so you wouldn't want to enclose the sides of the shelter—an open parasol is ideal because air can circulate underneath.

Misty's specific favourite cat food pouches have a black plastic outside and a shiny aluminium inside.

A black surface absorbs more of the UV that reaches it instead of reflecting or scattering it. The UV energy is then converted into a tiny amount of heat.

This has two practical advantages:

1. It reduces UV reflected back towards the occupant.
2. It reduces glare, making the shaded area more comfortable.

Therefore I would want to use the cat food packets inside-out, with the silver reflective inside on the top, and the black outside on the underneath.

...And I could try to incorporate other recycled materials such as lollipop sticks in the frame as well, to reduce environmental impact!

PLA is lightweight and strong, and 3D printing can be used to produce mechanisms that fit together accurately. I left a small amount of extra room to allow for expansion of the PLA and small inaccuracies in the printing process, and used a print-in-place mechanism I designed.

To make the frame as quick as possible to print and use minimal PLA (as I would need minimal supports) I decided to use lollipop sticks in between PLA connectors, and glue the parts of the mechanism together using a hot glue gun. Another benefit of this is that the lollipop sticks would also be recycled, and hot glue sticks well to wood and PLA anyway.

I designed the mechanism using Autodesk's Tinkercad (a 3D design and modelling software) because I love its easy-to-use, quick-and-simple nature, making it ideal for projects like this! Above is a screenshot of the frame design in Tinkercad, and the file to print is attached below. See and edit the Tinkercad file here: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/kzBAkoYfWeZ-cat-parasol-final?sharecode=wVWg5g3orPvv_cnsosNUe92K8EFzgFpFn0cB2Wkt1pM

1. For all 6 connectors, hot glue gun on 3 lollipop sticks (1st picture).
2. Hot glue gun the handle onto the bottom of one of the circular connectors (2nd picture).
3. Slot a circular connector onto the bamboo stick.
4. Add some extra hot glue into the inside of the circular connector (which goes up and down the bamboo cane) to reduce the diameter of the hole (I designed the hole a bit bigger than needed so it would fit on larger diameter bamboo canes than the one I used).
5. Hot glue gun the other end of the "B" lollipop sticks to each of the hinged connectors on the circular connector. Make sure the "A" lollipop stick points towards the top of the parasol, and the "C" lollipop stick points towards the handle.
6. Slot the second circular connector onto the bamboo stick, above the first one (which has the handle attached) and facing in the same direction.
7. Hot glue gun the "A" lollipop stick into each of the hinged connectors on the circular connector (third picture).
8. Stick the upper circular connector to the top of the bamboo cane using the hot glue gun.

Now you should be able to move the handle up and down to open and close the frame!

Firstly I collected some empty cat food pouches.

Then I washed and dried them.

I cut off the bottom of each packet (second picture), then the right hand side (third picture), and double-checked they were all clean inside.

Then, I ironed each packet to flatten down the seam connecting the front and the back of the packets, using a low heat (I didn't want to accidentally melt any packets!). Be careful here, as the black packets absorb a lot of heat and can be very hot to touch when the iron is removed!

I then positioned 6 flattened packets in a 6-pointed star shape (5th picture), and sellotaped the seams together. I tried various other glues but found Sellotape seemed to be strongest, so I went with that. It also has the benefit of being waterproof and commonly available.

I then ironed this shape again, placing a piece of clean white paper between the iron and the packets to prevent the Sellotape from melting.

Next, stick (with Sellotape) some more packets around the outside of the star to make a more circular shape (6th picture). I only needed 4 packets but you may need more if you wish to make a larger parasol.

Repeat the step above by ironing them down once more, using the piece of clean white paper between the iron and the packets.

Now you should have a flat, roughly circular cover that will fit over the parasol frame.

1. In my excitement, I kept opening and closing the frame, until suddenly it broke (video above). I noticed the frame was not always opening straight, and that the 3D printed circular connectors allowed the lollipop sticks to bend out at awkward angles. As I proceeded to open/close the frame, the pressure on these connections would then increase as they were unable to move, until they snapped. To be a durable design I had to fix this, so I decided to print some circular disks—2 for each connector—and hot glue gun them on (second picture). This made the frame much stronger because the 6 spokes were not able to bend in awkward directions (they had to open straight).
2. To attach the frame and parasol cover, you will need to iron creases into the cover. Do this by first folding it in half and ironing along the seam. Then repeat this twice more, making sure all the folds are approximately evenly spaced apart.
3. Then repeat the step above but fold in the opposite direction, in between the folds you have already made. This will result in 12 alternating concentric "up" and "down" folds. When you make a new fold, you may find it helpful to re-iron the other folds afterwards to ensure they stay well-defined.
4. It should now be easy to fold the parasol cover into a crimped 6-pronged star shape (third picture) and insert the frame into this.
5. Sellotape the frame to the cover while the parasol is in a partially-open position (not fully open, not fully closed).
6. Measure it up on your pet, to determine the height to which you want to cut the bamboo cane. Remember to leave about 5 cm on the end to push it into the ground.

You can now practice opening and closing the parasol slowly to check it works together! If a 3D printed connection breaks, you can try using a pyrography pen with a large tip to melt the connections back together.

To wrap it all up, I think this project was a success. Not only did I end up with a lightweight, foldable parasol for Misty, but I also found a fun way to turn something normally thrown away into something genuinely useful. I hope you have enjoyed reading this Instructable as much as I have enjoyed creating it!

What went well:

I'm really pleased with how the recycled cat food pouches performed. Their aluminium lining turned out to be lightweight, waterproof, reflective and surprisingly durable, making them an excellent material for the canopy. The folding mechanism also worked well once I strengthened the frame, and the finished parasol met all of my original design requirements.

What I would change:

If I was starting again, I would combine more of the mechanism as it is printed, meaning less glue would be required afterwards to stick it all together. Even if this required more PLA and took slightly longer to print, I think the finished product would look slightly better.

My favourite part:

Definitely watching Misty inspect—and eventually sit beneath—something made from her own food pouches. There's something very satisfying about seeing a recycled project actually being used by its intended customer... especially when that customer is notoriously difficult to impress!

My least favourite part:

Discovering that repeatedly opening and closing the frame eventually caused it to snap! Thankfully, this turned into a useful engineering lesson, and reinforcing the joints made the design much stronger.

What I learnt:

Sometimes the best materials are the ones we'd normally throw away. I also learnt that prototyping, testing and improving a design is just as important as the original idea—and that no matter how carefully you design something for a cat, they'll still decide whether or not to use it on their own terms! 🐱🌞