If you follow my Lovely things Pinterest board you might have seen this pin and my comment to it. Ever since pinning that button trivet I’ve been wanting one. Lotta A pointed out that I could make one by using a cheese board from the local supermarket but although I’ve been keeping an eye out I haven’t seen one. Until I went to my mom’s place a couple of weeks ago. There, under a bunch of stuff in a drawer I was organizing, it was! It had seen better days so I sanded it down. First coarse sandpaper and then finer. Like so. I’m sure there are more scientific ways to figure out the spacing of the holes for my button but I’m no mathematician so I just eyeballed the middle, marked that with a pencil and used stickers to mark where the holes could go. I moved the stickers around a little until I got a good feeling about it. After marking the middle of each sticker with an awl through to the wood I drilled the holes. I only had this super long drill bit but a normal one will do too obviously. I finished off by sanding the holes using sandpaper wrapped around my finger. Done. To seal I used some countertop oil. I did a couple of coats, letting each coat sink into the wood and after a while I wiped off any still greasy areas. Tada! A button trivet ready to be used! Love it! Edit: If you want a ready made one check them out at Snug.
Cute as a Button
Here’s an easy, fairly quick and good looking craft that you can do if you’re like me and want to do something with your hands while you’re watching TV. I used a thin paper back book which I got from the local charity shop but you can use a small magazine too like Jennifer does. She’s kind enough to share the instructions while I was just folding away selfishly. You can also find a ton of folding book ideas on Pinterest, some more advanced than others. I know from prior experience her on the blog that there are book lovers out there that probably think this is sacrelige but I think it's a neat craft so please spare me the comments that books belong in a book case, should never be recycled or tampered with in any way even if they're never read. Thanks.
Folded Book
Anne came over on Saturday for dinner and much needed conversation. I made dinner where both the starter and main course happened to have Asian influences but realized I didn’t have any nice chop sticks. I’ve been to China god knows how many times but can’t set the table with three sets of chop sticks because I’ve used them all as paint stirrers… I did have these that where left over from previous take out dinners though. I figured I could swap out those little sleeves around the chop sticks with something prettier so I took inventory of my craft papers and found these three contenders that would go with the polka dot napkins I wanted to use. I went for the triangles and it was just a matter of cutting the paper to double the width, snipping off a corner and gluing the side and bottom shut. The polka dot napkins are by Marimekko by the way. I got them at the Marimekko store here in Stockholm as a surprise thank you gift for signing up for their news letter. And there they are my spruced up chop sticks. Chop chop!
Chop Chop