There are plenty of great ideas here for making them toys. I will add a couple more that my cats have loved much bettter than any toy that was bought.

• Carton roll of toilet paper
• Carton roll from electrical adhesive tapes
• Get a stick and attach an elastic string to it. At the end of the string attach something else - like a cork, a rolled sock etc. Personally I don’t use plastics for toys, but I also don’t stop them from playing with one that accidentaly fell on the floor. When they are done playing with it, I just make it desapear.

Remember that:

• they don’t have the same color palette we do. I don’t know the official terms but we see with 3 colors, they have 2, so bright colors are not of importance to them
• the time you spend playing with them, is bonding time.
• don’t be rough or attack them (in the sense to take them by surprise sudenly). We are a giant to them size-wise. Even tho they see us as equals, we need to ackgnledge that they are much smaller creatures. If you don’t respect them they will start attacking you out of the blue, and a vicious circle will be established.

When your cat gets it good let them stalk off with it don’t play tug of war.

I haven’t bought a cat toy in decades other than a laser. We did get gifted running wheel.

As for lasers. Get a rechargeable one so you don’t have to buy batteries. Get one with good buttons that won’t fail.