My Handmade Coconut Shell Tea Cup

They say "Life is like a cup of Tea .. It's all in how you make it".

Hmm, I would have to certainly agree to the those lines now, after making my cup of tea in my own style literally :)

The making process:

Well its fairly simple to make one. Grab a nice brown husky ripe coconut of appropriate size. Crack it open. (Use saw blade if the shape and design of the cup matters to you :P) Drink the trapped water inside. Then the obvious next step, remove its white meat using knife or whatever and ya without shattering the shell into pieces.

Eat it. Eat whole of that delicious thing in one go :O. (get a good boost of energy as a result). Use this gained energy to file the rough surface of the shell for hours together until it feels butter smooth silky. Glue up the parts into a shape that resembles a cup. Apply a coating of good old coconut oil. Rub to polish. Relax and drink some tea. Its done!

Don't pull away your head and tighten up your facial muscles, if the tea tastes a bit coconutty ... :-)

The Pics:

Just love holding this thing
The warmth and coziness of the woody coconut shell is amazing

The handle is unique and definitely cute one

The gorgeous insides

The cup with the green tea .. though taste a bit coconutty !!!

Bamboo Bicycle Parking Stand - A DIY Project

Bamboo Bicycle Parking Stand - A DIY Project

"Let me leave the cycle here on the wall this time .. mmm .. " that is exactly what goes on in my mind every time i am trying to park the the bike at home. The fact that i have to bend down in an effort to put the bike on or off a conventional metal display stand that i have and that too after a long tiring bike ride is not cool. Leaning the bike against the wall in a casual but careless fashion is an obvious solution but then, you know that's too much of an lazy attitude, not to mention the marks you get on the wall and the bike. Lately, i have been thinking of better ways, something practical that is as easy as being lazy. Well this eventually stuck me.

I have been looking at it, it was a scrap abandoned piece of bamboo that has been lying and rotting in front of my house on the corner of the street from months, who knows maybe years. One day i bought it home, salvaging the dead unknown, giving it a chance to be alive again. After cleaning off the heaps of dirt, not surprised though, found 2 spiders and a lizard living in it. Carefully removed the little cute creatures and let them go back into the wild where they belong. 

With the new carpenter born in me, i decided to build. The objective was clear. A simple, yet effective design that is unique, ingenious, innovative, functional, aesthetically pleasing to my taste and most importantly that requires minimum or no tools to make. Yeah that's important, I am no carpenter here and i ain't got any tools except a kitchen knife, a pliers and a basic cutting blade.

Meticulously planned the shape on paper, started the work by cutting the bamboo in strips of desired length followed by hand sanding them for hours together, Then came the assembly part but wait! .. am i missing something here? does that require nails or the least a glue? I haven't got either. So what, there is always a way out. Thought of using a cotton chord alone to hold pieces together. Luckily i had that and it did seem to work. The structural design ensures a good stability anyways. Within no time the product was ready but there is a little more to it.

The polish. Now everything that i have used so far in the construction has been  the already available materials, i was in no mood to buy a polish from market. Did the research. Coconut oil from kitchen has more uses than what we know of. One such i have tried here, being a wood finisher or polish, and it does work, giving a deep mat finish with very subtle shine, bringing out the natural grain of wood at the same time.

With the junk bamboo and its rough edges, the cuts, the notches, the scratches, the chord joints, the coconut polish, all give this product a very raw, rusty organic feel, like some ancient furniture (ok better to say its a desi jugard :P)

Total cost of construction including the labour charges was Rs 0. Parking the bike is now as simple as gently sliding the tyre in its middle pocket. Its not bombproof but sturdy enough to hold the bike in place forever.

Few pic and the final product.

the design

work in progress

cute looking square lashed bamboo joints

the final product

testing with the bike parked in and its damn stable

love the raw style (total desi :P)

Finally