Tea Caddy

The Meeting (Quaker church) I attend has a woven basket that’s been used for years to hold tea bags during coffee hour. During my month to set up coffee I noticed that the basket was on it’s last legs – one of the corners was broken. Being the industrious woodworker that I am, I decided to do something about it, and this is the result.

It’s walnut with a plywood bottom, all pieces were scrap. The sides are 3/8 inches thick, 1 1/2 inches high. The external dimensions are 13 1/2 X 6 1/2. The divider is 1/4” thick.

The corners are rabbeted, and the divider sits in a dado at each end. What you can’t see from these carefully staged pictures is that I had to add shims to the dividers – the dado ended up a little too wide.

The finish is a gel stain to even out the color, topped by a spray polyurethane. The spray poly was chosen for ease of application, though if I had it to do again I would probably make a different choice.

-- Chelle http://artsgranddaughter.blogspot.com