What the heck.....

....is this? a trivet? what? Well, it's a nifty little item that I custom-requested from one of the best Etsy artists ever - dottyral. She was so great in pulling together my brain-child. A very fun project.

So here's what it really is. Let's start with the "brain-child." I have forever had an issue with the storage of my pins and brooches - they are awkward shapes, I don't like having them on top of each other to get all scratched, and it seemed like the pinbacks were getting duller and duller. And I wanted something attractive, too, for display of my pins so I would more easily access them and choose to wear them.



Then, last week, I came across these oh-so-cute pincushions in Dotty's shop, and I got an inspiration! You see, Dotty often makes an extra cushion for her pincushions just like the classic "strawberry" on top of the "tomato" that I am sure you are all familiar with. Here, it's the cherry on the cupcake. These smaller cushions are filled with a corundum sand called "emery" that serves to sharpen pins and needles.


Ah-hah, I thought - I need an emery cushion large enough to hold all my brooches! But how do you make a big cushion that won't be all sloppy and heavy? So, I contacted Dotty, and we came up with this idea of a slotted pad, to keep the emery to a minimum, and Dotty figured out how to fill and sew the slots together, creating the pad you see at the top of the page.



When it arrived today, I hopped over to Michael's to get a frame on sale, stapled the emery pad into the frame, and voila - the perfect display for all my pins, with the added bonus of a sharpened pinback every time I put the piece away after wearing.




So you decide: isn't this the greatest idea? I am sure Dotty would make one for you, too. Etsy artists are the greatest - thanks, Dotty!