So my folks had a wooden wine box they offered me a while back, and I took it with the intention of someday making something functional out of it. After six months of it sitting around on the floor, I got inspired Saturday morning to do something real with it. I'd planned on just going to the hardware store and buying turned legs to screw on, but I got lost and couldn't find a hardware store. I did, however, pass the thrift store on the way home, so I stopped in to see if there was a cheap piece of furniture in there that I could just saw the legs off of, keeping my contributions to the waste stream to a minimum. I found a perfect round side table, with long, very simply fastened legs that I didn't even have to saw off.











I'm giving the leftover tabletop and glass piece to my friend Tina, who is an artist and can doubtless make something wonderful out of them.


















My next step is to successfully find a hardware store and buy some small hinges for the lid, so that it can be a functional storage piece as well as an auxiliary kitchen prep table.

This morning I discovered the 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse contest at Extreme Craft:










It is a call for precisely what I made: some sort of refuse, creatively repurposed to fulfil some need, want, or desire. The contest wasn't just furniture, but "paper and book arts, jewelry, clothing, home and personal accessories, furniture, art, and miscellanea for possible publication" in a coffee table-type book There appeared to be at least 1500 entries when I uploaded mine. The competition's not too stiff, and if I'd known I was going to be doing it competitively before the last day to do submit, I probably would have put forth my best effort with the hinges and maybe some tung oil, as opposed to making it piece. Even if it doesn't win anything, I have now jumpstarted my decision to enter design competitions and push myself creatively.