Here’s a funny story.
Once, in a land far, far away, during a dark and stormy night, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. A little woman named Karen, got herself 4 little red hens, because she always, always wanted to have her own chickens so she could gather her own eggs. She built them a house made out of sticks that would protect them from the big, bad wolf, and she fed them a trail of bread crumbs. In other words, she poured her whole fairy tale life into making sure she had happy hens and fresh eggs, struggling night and day, with God as her witness she would never go hungry again.
Even though she didn’t really like eggs.
The moral of this fairy tale is that Karen is a whack job and she’s fine with it.
I like eggs as an ingredient but I don’t really like eggs on their own. Like the thought of eating a hard boiled egg makes my face screw up into something resembling an anus . I don’t eat sunny side up, over easy, soft boiled or poached. Unless it’s Eggs Benedict prepared by someone who really knows what they’re doing (I am not that someone) I eat scrambled eggs and scrambled eggs alone.
So the truth is out that I have chickens not for their eggs but for secret voodoo reasons.
Having said that, I understand there are many of you who do enjoy a nice hard boiled or soft boiled egg every so often. And YOU may even know other people who enjoy such things.
Which makes today’s DIY gift idea perfect. Some people make rules about only giving handmade gifts, or there are those of you who only like to give handcrafted presents because you’re caring and thoughtful and don’t buy into the whole commercialism of Christmas. I, personally, embrace the commercialism of Christmas. But I like to give or get a DIY gift as well.
And this year one lucky family member of mine will be getting this set of 4 DIY egg and toast holders. I just haven’t decided which lucky family member yet.
It is for all of you, you egg loving fiends, that I have this DIY eggcup you can make in about 10 minutes for about 10 dollars. Actually you can make about 10 of them for about $10.
*10 minutes is a generalization based on someone who is comfortable with tools, cutting, drawing straight lines and is referring to how long it takes per eggcup.
Materials (for 5 egg and toast holders)
1″ x 6″ x 4′ piece of pine
Wood glue
Tools
Circular saw
Drill with 1 3/4″ hole saw
Ruler
Pencil
Steps
- Cut board into 5 lengths of 9″.
- Mark each board at 5″, 2.5″, 3/4″ and 3/4″.
3. Using a 1 3/4″ hole saw drill 2 holes into the 2.5″ section of the board.
4. Cut along each line. Cut directly on top of the line, not to the left or to the right of the line. On top of the line. If you aren’t accurate with your cutting you run the risk of ruining everything and living out your life in a van down by the river.
5. Squeeze a bunch of wood glue onto the back of the egg holding portion and the two smaller pieces.
6. Align the egg holder and the two thinner pieces on top of the largest piece of wood and clamp it down until the glue dries.
7. If you don’t have clamps, don’t worry about it. Books to the rescue. Just weigh the egg holder down with anything hefty. Like your hydro bill for instance.
10 minutes, $10, 10 gifts. The fairytale ending to your DIY gift giving dilemma.
Is that your ” Eddie Munster” fingernail polish?
This is pretty clever, Karen.
You have that “Oral Surgery” book too???? jk
I did love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was a kid though.
Now I want a soft boiled egg!
I see what you did there on “A Horse of Your Own”. Very nice.
The egg and toast holders are also cool. Clever. Fun. Cheap. Easy.
I am, however, concerned about how many foods you don’t like to eat. What’s up with that?
Well, just the one food. The egg, lol. But I love it scrambled and I love it as an ingredient. I just can’t eat a hard boiled egg and try as I might I’m not in love with soft boiled eggs either. I’m gonna suck it up and try an over easy egg tomorrow to see how I feel about that. I’ll report back. ~ karen!
Well, there is the egg and then there is the B.S. word (brussels sprouts) ; )
Brussels Sprouts. Don’t try to wriggle out of that one!
Also, try an egg “over medium” instead of over easy. That means the yolk is soft and deliciously runny (good to sop up with toast) but all the white is thoroughly cooked.
Do you know you have a book about Oral Surgery?..a really thick book…OK, I won’t ask why…Oh yeah, I want one of these egg and toast holder thingys…really bad…like right now….Did you get my email?
She knows! Knowing our Karen as we all do, she probably spent an entire week trying to decide on which books to put in that photo! She KNEW we would all stop scrolling at that one, & say out loud, “Oral Surgery”!! Seriously!! Karen has a book a book on Oral Surgery??!!”-
& all comment on it! LOL!
My guess is there was a late member of her family who was a Maxillofacial Surgeon, & she hangs on to it for sentimental reasons! (And because it is heavy!)
Also LOVE the egg & toast holders! 🙂
Very close Lez. 🙂 In one of my older posts ( https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/things-i-like-books/) I actually explain this sort of thing a bit … My grandfather was a dentist and that is where the book came from, but my cousin now that you mention it is a Maxillofacial surgeon. I come from a long list of people who meander in other people’s saliva. ~ karen!
And I thought it was for the pictures to use at Halloween.
You sure do crack me up!!
That’s an egg joke Jani! Well done. ~ k!
Karen, Your blog is like eggs. Your projects are mostly hard boiled, some of them are poached, and your humor is over easy.
p.s. If anyone makes these, they should be finished with salad bowl finish.
p.p.s. Still haven’t taken the time to set up my photo, but I love the idea.
Wow, what a cool idea. I bet you could sell a bunch of those. Practical, affordable and clever.
and I thought I was the only person with eclectic reading tastes 🙂
there you go…. now you can see what I look like. maybe anonimity is better
Are you the one on the left or the right? 😉 ~ karen!
I think he’s the cute fuzzy one . . .
ok, not about this: I wanted to find that blog you sent on doing selfies (which I have never yet done.)
I poked around, all over your offerings and Could Not find.
help, please, please,
thank you for your cooperation.
ruth
Here you go Ruth … https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/photo-in-blog-comments/ ~ karen!
Love all your posts…but having trouble reading this one. I am laughing so hard and just can’t get past the “makes my face screw up into something resembling an anus” comment.
um. yeah. me too.
Yeah, I tried to come up with another word for that particular turn of phrase but as it turns out, anus, is really the best one. ~ karen!
When people ask me how I like my eggs, I respond, “In cake.”
(I will also eat them scrambled. I’m so glad to know I’m not alone!)
I wonder how long it took you to choose the books for the photo (knowing that all your readers checked each book title carefully!!). You know us all so well!!!
Love the egg/toast holder too!!
OMG…I didn’t even read the earlier comments about the books…so sorry for the repeats!!
No problem. And funny story, since I’m redoing my bookcases and I had stacks of books everywhere, I literally just grabbed a stack and plopped them down. Absolutely no thought to what ended up in the pile. No matter what it would have ended up a weird stack, lol. ~ karen!
I love eggs! My mom used to make my dad eggs every morning, two ,soft boiled, in a glass with butter and salt and pepper.yummy! Every know and then I eat mine out of a glass too ..it’s a happy memory .
In a glass! That’s interesting! Restaurants all over town will be doing that now Marilyn! Cool. ~ karen!
I think it’s a German thing? We’ve always eaten “Eier im Glas” (eggs in a glass) which is soft-boiled eggs taken out of the shell and put into a glass (or glass bowls in my parents’ house). You sort of chop them up with your spoon to eat – and also dunk in buttered toast fingers!
Yum! Comfort food.
Very witty, clever post. I even read your book titles in your stack to see if you used the books that corresponded with the quotes.
Again, the timing! I don’t care for eggs that much either, and I despise runny eggs. I do, however; love eggs benny. Yesterday we went to a favourite spot that makes really good Eggs Benedict but they served my eggs to me runny! I scraped all of the egg off.
The gift idea is a good one for egg people 🙂
The fact that the comments are more about the books (and oral surgery) than about the egg cups….. tells me I’m in the right place. LOL! 😀
I am a half-egg eater: I can manage the whites, but keep those yolks away from me. If I see someone dipping toast in that runny yellow glop it makes my stomach turn! And I don’t believe you have dental people in your family-I suspect you were trying to practice on your hens-oh, wait, that’s not right, hens teeth are as scarce as- well, you know.
I showed this to the guy that lives here (aka The Husband) and his first words were, “Well, looks nice, but how would you clean it?” This is the natural reaction from the man who eats his 2 soft boiled eggs in egg cups, after he’s used his egg clippers for the tops, with buttered toast fingers (neatly cut in 4s) every single time! Go figure, right? 😉
I’m with the guy; unfinished wood intended to be used with food gives me instant “stains! germs! warped wood!” panic. I had already intended to comment on the idea of a nice polyurethane. With or without stain. Since I’m here at the bottom, anyway… I spent the last 40 years telling everyone I don’t like eggs. It started because my Mom MADE me eat 2 eggs every morning, against my will. “For health’s sake”, as she would always say. I ate them hard-boiled, because a hard-boiled egg is gone in 3 bites, and over-with. When I left home, no more eggs! 40 years later, my neighbor has chickens, and my doctor has reduced my food options until eggs are one of the few choices left, and guess what? I am enjoying hard-boiled eggs! For one thing, they give me an excuse for using salt. I like your project, Karen. Very minimalist!
Hey Jennie Lee! Just use some mineral oil or board butter. And a funny story about wood (although perhaps just maple … I can’t remember). It self heals from cuts and is less likely to harbour bacteria than plastic. ~ karen!
Hi Savannah. It just needs to be finished however you want. 🙂 I wouldn’t use a poly on it. The ones you see in the photo have actually been slathered with my DIY board butter (beeswax and mineral oil concoction). I’ll go add that to the end of the post. ~ karen!
Your hubby sounds as if he’s from England! My Mum did the same for me as a kid.
Oops, I should have said this response was for Savannah! Sorry!
“If you aren’t accurate with your cutting you run the risk of ruining everything and living out your life in a van down by the river.”
That line OWNS me! I use it all the time #snl
KC
I wavered on using it but succumbed. How could I not? Great line. #chrisfarley ~ karen!
I was going to comment on that line too but Kelli beat me to it! Just had an SNL flashback . . . remembering how Chris cracked up all the others during that hilarious bit, one of my all time faves.
Or, you could use a thicker plank of pine and dado the grooves. Which would eliminate the glue as well as the little bit of an overbite of the part with the circular cut-outs. Just saying.
I love eggs in any form (although like another reader mentioned above, especially in a cake) but I hate home-made gifts. So your egg toast thingy would probably end up in the basement where, I am sure, it would prove itself useful during some future project.
I hope the person who bought the knitted dish cloths in the Value Village where I took them to appreciates them. The dish cloths that my awesome neighbour lovingly made for me.
The fact that I didn’t keep and use them always burdened my heart and I am hoping to alleviate the burden by this confession.
Hi Alena. Your’e right. But I wanted to make this DIY as simple as possible for people who might not necessarily be all that comfortable with or own a lot of tools. Technically the best thing would be to use a router, but most people don’t own a router and if they do, they might not own these particular bits. So I went with just using a circular saw and a drill so pretty much everyone could make one if they wanted. ~ karen!
Oh I know. But I do love to tease you. 🙂
My mom made hand knitted dishcloths and while I don’t use them, I cannot bring myself to get rid of them. I seem to be getting more sentimental as I age. Or maybe it’s a hoarding thing. Uchh.
Jan, I completely understand the sentimental value. If they were made by my mom I would have probably kept them (unused). I have two damask tablecloths (including napkins), one in mildly washed out sunflower yellow and the other one in pink. Because those were the ‘in’ colours when my mom bought them for me (some 30 yrs ago) or maybe because mom liked those colours. Neither of those colours is allowed in my house (ditto for damask).
I thought many times of donating them to a thrift store because I constantly move them from one place to another (don’t really have a lot of storage) but I just can’t.
Oh my golly, Alena, you’re taking me on a trip down memory lane. I have damask tablecloths & serviettes in mint green, blue and white. They’re from the ’50’s and 60’s. Guess that qualifies them as vintage . . . hmmm, what does that say about me? lol
I, too, do not like eggs! Not even scrambled. I only like them baked into something delicious… Like cookies.
Do you think a couple shot glasses would fit in the holes?
It would really be easier for me if you could just stick your logo on it, mark it up a bunch and sell it to me. I’d buy it. =)
So did the chickens get to feast on those pretty eggs?
Love the egg and toast catcher but I am not a handy woman. I really do not like hard cooked eggs unless in an egg salad sandwich and I am not a scrambled egg kind of person; however I love soft boiled, poached and fried over easy with buttered toast. There ya have it Karen my history on egg loving. have a great day.
Speaking of the stack of books, 10 points for clever watermark placement.
I love the egg and toast holder. Thinking now of how I might make one our of some scrap wood hanging out in the garage. I used to have china egg cups as a child, and have since loved boiled egg holders (collect occasional ones as well).
I hope that you might add an Erma Bombeck book (If life is a bowl of Cherries, why am I always in the Pits?) to your tower. Please read if you haven’t yet. Her humour lives on, even is she is no longer here.
Lovely Monday read Karen!
I like my eggs ON my toast (poached), so this woodn’t work for me. And, I like my boiled eggs soft, so this wood (haha) get really messy, cos I angle the egg to get the butter in it, then scoop out with my spoon. That’s if I leave it in the shell. Usually I just scoop the egg out of the shell put in on a plate, then it’s easy to get the butter on my spoon, and grab a bit of egg. Mmmm.
This is Lovely Karen. Thank you so much for the idea. Really appreciated.
You know your addicted to a blog when you have to read every blog just to see what whitty comments the bloggers comes up with. Regardless of whether you are interested in the subject they are talking about. I too am scrambled only kind of girl. Oh, and in cake and pie…you get the picture.
I think your board is great. I love all the pictures you’ve posted about the chickens and eggs.I don’t like eggs either, I will eat a hard boiled egg, scrambled would have to doused in catsup.
I only like eggs as an ingredient or scrambled as well. It turns my stomach to watch my husband eating “dippy” eggs. I have to leave the room. Needless to say that since he has to make them thankfully he doesn’t eat them often. So I won’t be needing to make your egg and toast maker either but it is a cute idea. This is my first comment I’ve ever made so I just wanted to say I really enjoy your blog. It is the perfect mix of useful, humor and education.
Thanks Heather! I love that you commented. And I really love the phrase “dippy” eggs, lol. ~ karen!
Why is it that some of your posts and the resulting comments section seem to require multiple comments from moi while with others, not so much? If you are even remotely considering trying a fried egg, may I recommend over medium with NO uncooked egg white, which btw is incredibly disgusting, in a hot fry pan that has just been used to fry up a bunch of well done bacon. That way you will get the gorgeous “brown lace” at the edges . . . yummy.
I”M WITH YOU ON ONLY EATING THEM SCRAMBLED AND IN CAKE> SOMETHING ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHOMPING INTO A CHICKEN OVUM PUTS ME RIGHT OFF> SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS> MY L APTOP IS STUCK ON CAPSLOCK> YEH
Gah. I still don’t like eggs. Not even scrambled. Better as an ingredient. And I wanted ducklings/ducks for pets. Pondering whether they would live in a coop and perhaps their eggs might be edible, if I didn’t have such ulterior motives on the fantasy of keeping ducks.
Just in case I ever do get a duck pond and farm, I will expect you to provide a great recipe for Peking Duck, k?