Colorful Clothespin Trivets

So Mr. Rob has been cooking up a storm, lately. He’s a big fan of skillet meals so he often brings the cast iron skillet over to the table and we can get more as needed and it stays hot. It’s pretty smart, really. When I cook I dirty up a bazillion pots and pans and he can get away with 1 most times but sometimes a whole, whopping 2.

Now I had always had the food left on the stove to stay warm when I cooked and that’s the way it’s always been in my family. You go back to the stove to get extras. But we’re eating at a table every single day so now we bring the food with us. We purchased 1 trivet at the grocery store because before now neither one of us has had any or really needed them.

The one we got is pretty awesome. It’s cast iron, it’s bright red and it has a chicken on it. Boom. It’s awesome. But it was also a good chunk of change. When Rob cooks his single skillet it hangs out on the chicken. But when I cook we still go back to the stove. Rather than spend a good $40 -60 on trivets I decided to use something I always have on hand anyway and repurpose them. And, you may have already guessed, that thing is wooden clothespins.

I use clothespins for everything. Putting my blinds up, closing up food in the pantry, closing up craft items in my office, pulling curtains back… they really get a lot of use. But my Miss Lucy loves eating them so if there is one within her reach, it’s a goner. Since a bag of 100 is less than a buck I pick a new bag up often. If you’re crafty you surely already have paint/stain and glue on hand so it should be a super inexpensive project!

P.S. Do NOT buy clothespins at craft stores. They are SUCH a ripoff! Grab a buck bag from Walmart instead!

Not into words, words, words? Check out this video tutorial, instead! Oh, and I decided to dye my pins in this updated version so I don’t have to worry about paint and hot pans!

For this project you will need:

• Clothespins (roughly 24 per trivet)
• Paint/stain
• Super strong glue (I use e6000)

***UPDATE – I never put my pans straight from the fire onto trivets so they have a bit of cooling time and I’m not worried about the heat. A pot right off of the burner would surely be bad news for the bottom of your pans. You can use a good quality sealer to help keep the paint off of your pans or you can use a high heat spray paint, but it seems those only come in white, black or red. Wood can always be stained and then sealed, also.

First up take apart roughly one bazillion clothespins. Okay, about 24 per trivet in truth :)

Now, I painted mine but I kind of wish I had stained them. Painting can be done after but staining of the pins should be done before moving on.

Play around with how you can put your pins together and still form a circle.

Carefully glue each pin together…

…in the shape that you worked out.

Once the glue has dried for any sets you might have made you can begin gluing those together to form the trivets.

Some, like this pattern you’ll just glue the pins right to one another.

Hit ’em with some paint and you’re good to go! Now, it’s a good thing to note that the more care you take with your trivets the better they will look in general. I was using my glue in an enclosed space (bad craft blogger!) and things started to get a bit wonky. But as usual I didn’t notice until after I was done that the fumes had been effecting me and my work got sloppier and sloppier. Be sure to use glue such as this, and anything that suggests proper ventilation according to package directions or brain cells be darned :)

In the end these guys are pretty fab and I’m excited about them and Rob likes that they look like colorful snowflakes. So I guess we’re all happy. Yay!