...all the small things

I was doing the rounds of some of my favourite blogs on Sunday morning, when I came across Ann Wood's latest tutorial for a miniature wood stove - made out of cardboard (loo roll tube and an egg box) and other crafty bits and pieces - and fell head over heels in love. It shot straight to the top of my "To do" list like a rocket and everything else (breakfast, laundry, conversing with family, etc.) paled into insignificance. I had to set to work immediately and make one of my own!

As luck would have it, I'd put an egg box in the recycling bin a day or two before, so I didn't even have to turf any eggs out to get my hands on one. Ann's tutorials are always clear and easy to follow, so after a couple of hours (and a few silly mistakes, like accidentally cutting up the piece set aside for the legs and having to cobble it back together using spare parts) I ended up with this:

Ann's instructions were to let the glue dry thoroughly before painting - "Or you will be sad!" So I decided to make a little Dutch Oven style pot to sit on top of the finished stove. I was in the Making Zone by this point, so I reached for the moulded inlay from a chocolate box I'd saved "just in case", cut off one of the pot-shaped pieces, sprayed the outside with the speckled grey stone-effect spray-paint I'd bought from Aldi "just in case", added a little garden-wire handle with a painted masking tape grip, and filled it with some hearty baked beans (air-drying clay, painted and gloss varnished in situ). A (cocktail stick) wooden spoon to stir them with was the finishing touch.

This is the finished stove - painted with a couple of coats of acrylic paint (Payne's Grey), highlights picked out with a soft 4B pencil. It is simply too cute for words, and every home should have one.