A Nice Cuppa.....

Breathe a sigh, Christmas and New Year are over.  Time to take stock and make plans with a nice cup of tea.

Can't do the cuppa without the kettle, matching our toasters of course. 

We wanted our kettles to be real so we took our measurements from my

RL Sunbeam Kettle.

Brushed stainless steel for grandson,

green for my modern kitchen.

What we made them from.

I'm so sorry I forgot to take photos for a tutorial as I went along with these kettles, they've been a work in progress for over a month as I worked out how to achieve each step, in between christmas shopping, christmas baking, christmas decorating, christmas parcel wrapping..........you get the picture!!  I wasn't altogether sure my idea would work till after I got the wire ring to stay stuck round the bottom of the main body to represent the ridge where the top part is joined to the element part of the lift off kettle.  After that hurdle the rest went easily.  Look at your own kettle or a photo of one that you like the shape of and you'll see it is just a sandwich of pieces stuck together.

I cut part of the bead off for the main body then cut two circles from the tongue depressor the same size as the cut off base of the bead.  Then sanded a slight bevel on the cut edge of the bead and the same on the edge of one of the wood circles and glued the two pieces together so the bevel edges made a slight depression for wire to sit in.  I used 5 minute epoxy glue for the wire and there's no way to get it to stay except to hold it in position till that glue sets!  Next I drilled a hole in the piece of dowel down the shaft for the spout of the kettle and cut that tiny piece away from the dowel on an angle so it would tilt upward when glued on to the bead.  The hole in the top of the bead was filled with a plaster type filler and a tiny hole drilled to insert the pin for the knob of the lid.  The 'lid' position was marked by placing the bead upright on the table and placing a pencil on a book or something horizontally positioned so the bead can be turned round against the pencil and make an even mark all round the top where the edge of the lid would show, then a slight depression was filed using the pencil mark as a guide.  Two holes were drilled into the bead and a wire handle was bent and glued in, once again using epoxy glue. 

For the electric base, drill a hole in the centre of the other wood circle and use that as a guide to drill a matching hole in the bottom wood circle of the kettle so when the top is put on the base the two circles will match one another.  Glue a short length of toothpick into the hole in the base for the 'electric plug' bit that goes into the kettle.  Next, round off the top edge of the base and the bottom edge of the kettle.  Turn the base over and add 3 tiny slices of toothpick for feet, sand so it will sit firmly.  Black thread and card make the electric cord.  Then paint in your chosen colour scheme.