the craft table.

After successfully giving my mum a wooden creature with a drawer—questionable in the context of “decluttering”—I decided to attempt something more practical. A travel mug felt like a safer option. Functional. Contained. Harder to argue with. The plan was straightforward: take a standard stainless steel travel mug and personalise it using the laser. Simple. Except “simple” becomes relative quite quickly. For my husband’s mug, I went with something a bit more personal—orchi

There is a particular challenge in buying gifts for someone who is actively trying to own less. My mum is one of those people. Thoughtful, practical… and increasingly resistant to “things.” So naturally, I made her a thing. the brief (ignored) The goal was simple: something useful, not too large, and ideally not destined for a cupboard. What I ended up making is… a wooden creature with a drawer. In my defence, it did start with good intentions. The design is actuall

There’s always that moment before Christmas where you think “I could buy something… or I could make something.” This year, I chose chaos. the brief (self-imposed, obviously) My brother has a new couch. Which, in adult terms, means: no drinks on the armrest,no balancing mugs on questionable surfaces, and … coasters are now required. So instead of buying a perfectly reasonable set, I decided to design and laser-cut a custom coaster set. Because why make life easy. Each pi

There’s something deeply satisfying about taking a perfectly innocent piece of wood… and burning a hippo into it. Enter: my newest obsession—the xTool S1 laser cutter. I’d love to say I approached this new machine calmly and methodically, but the reality was closer to equal parts excitement, curiosity, and “what happens if I just try this?” energy. The good news is: the S1 is surprisingly forgiving. The better news is: it turns out I really like setting things on fire (in