I’m not a fan at all of Valentine’s Day. I don’t see why I should subscribe to a day which has been commercialized by people. However, I do like to indulge in craftwork using as many natural materials as possible. So I like to use commercialized days to give me excuses to indulge in messing up my room with lots of craftwork materials.

This V’day, I decided to make a small gift (as usual) for my partner. This is an idea I got from a herb book, so credit can’t be given to me. However, it’s so simple I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. But since it uses herbs and natural materials, I thought it warranted a post on this blog.

I decided to make a cloth spice coaster for him for use in his office and/or at home. Okay, maybe I’ll make two.

I bought some cheap and thin cloth so that air can pass through it easily. I hand-sewed the cloth into a small pouch of sorts. And then I stuffed cinammon sticks, star aniseed, cloves and dried bay leaves into the pouch, and sealed up one of the openings with adhesive velcro.

When you place a cup of hot drink on the coaster, the aromatic fragrance of the spices will be released by the heat, mixing with the fragrance of whatever drink is in your cup.

Now, I’m not the most adept sewer nor craftsperson. But it’d do. I don’t think my partner reads this blog frequently, so…

Materials needed
1. Thin cloth
2. Thread
3. Sewing machine (optional)
4. Dried spices – cloves, star aniseed, cinammon sticks, bay leaves.