sugru giveaway wrap-up

As noted previously, sugru makes a great replacement for lost or broken feet. It helped my laptop, and it helped Arnon's drawing board.

It also recently helped an ironing board with a missing foot cap. A couple minutes molding sugru—

—and the ironing board is good as new again:

And though I'd love for more people to have been interested in trying sugru, isn't it convenient that exactly three people left comments when there were three packs to give away? Sugru samples on their way!

(Juglans, would you please email me a mailing address?)

a handful of sugru projects and a giveaway

Last July, when I was still largely bedridden, Jane of Sugru announced some improvements to the formula which made it lighter, brighter and less sticky. She also offered samples to anyone willing to review it on their website. I volunteered, and Jane was gracious enough to send some this way.


We love sugru around here, as I have noted before. The only real drawback to using it is that it starts to set up once you open the packet, so you need to have several projects ready before beginning. Finding the right projects that would use up a full packet at a time was the first step.

project #1

The bird cover I made for my broom hook had had its beak chipped. I wanted to rebuild the beak and cover the metal of the hook to make it blend into the wall a little more.

project #2

I was regularly making the berry scones from this cookbook when the handle of my biscuit cutter snapped. My repair is not terribly elegant, but it is strong and allows me to use the cutter again.

project #3

It's a little hard to see, but one of the tiny rubber feet had fallen off my laptop. The constant wobbling was driving me crazy until I rolled up a ball of sugru to make a substitute.

project #4

I'd painted a couple of old metal folding chairs we had (shown here with S's desk chair, which he prefers in "original condition"), but had taped over the plugs and feet and then didn't like the contrast of the orange and beige. With no more paint left, I covered the plugs with leftover orange from the beak repair, thereby adding both color and durability. I'll do the same with the green chair as soon as I think up some projects for the rest of the green sugru packet!

project #5

A throwaway. There was still a bit of orange left, so I looked around the house, found a broken craft punch, and did a super quick repair. This was probably more sugru than I needed, and the middle photo is a blurry mess, but you get the idea.

It's worth noting that while some of these repairs might have been made another way, sugru is the epitome of quick-and-easy: simply open the packet, knead, mold and leave it alone for 24 hours.


This new formula is definitely less sticky and therefore that much easier to work with. All five of these projects used a combined two packets (one orange, one white), and I could have easily squeezed in another couple of small repairs had I had any.


I passed along packets to kids in our Young Makers group, and they also blogged their projects: a drawing board repair, and a trio of projects, including a pencil grip, replacement buttons and Sugru Man.

the giveaway!

Still leftover: packets of blue, black and green. Would you like to try some? Leave me a comment, letting me know how you think you might use it (I won't hold you to anything—I just like to hear new ideas). Be sure that there's some way I can contact you and if there are more than 3 comments, I'll use a random number generator to choose. All I ask is that you share your sugru project, repair or hack with the world in some way. Blog it, tweet it, put it on flickr, or share at the sugru gallery. This is why we have social media, right? To share a bit of ourselves so others can learn from it?

sugru cookie cutter

We'd never heard of sugru before this year's Maker Faire, where it caught our attention by having hands-on demos and the unabashed enthusiasm of everyone who worked in the Shed. We came home with a pack, not entirely sure what we'd be using it for but thinking it could be a fun material to have around.

Fast forward to the other day in the car, when I idly mentioned that my ideal phone mount would attach to this part of the dash and be angled just so. S's instant response was, "Why don't you just make that with some sugru?" That's how much faith we have in this sci-fi amazing material now.

Sugru is a moldable silicone that cures at room temperature in a matter of hours. It adheres, flexes, and is heat resistant. And it comes in colors, which you can mix. It's like silly putty, but brighter and more durable. It's also like the grip on your favorite kitchen utensil—one you can mold to fit the contours of your own, individual hand.

In just a year, sugru and its users have repaired, tweaked and created a full gallery of applications.

We've used it for typical fixes, like this storage bin whose lid had cracked from being stuffed too full.

Or to cover up a large picture hook which didn't seem decorative enough to hang my favorite broom from.

I'm not much of a baker and have absolutely no talent for decorated sweets; nevertheless, something in me really wanted to make this melted snowman cookie as soon as I saw it. I'm also linking to it because of its story, a likely too-common tale of an idea published for free, only to have others appropriate it as their own.

But back to the cookie: her original directions call for cutting out the melted puddle shape with a knife. I knew I would not have the patience for that and thought it would be faster to make a melted puddle cookie cutter instead. 

And yes, you guessed it, sugru was used.

In fact, this is the sum total of what was used: the metal strapping discovered at Halloween (I knew I'd be using it again!), some J-B Weld, and the sugru.

The strapping was bent into shape and epoxied.

Sugru was applied to the top, both to seal the shape and as a bit of a grip.

Had I meant for this to be a lasting cookie cutter, I would have used enough to cover the entire top; but I really wanted to just try this as an experiment first. What is on here is the contents of a single packet. It might take 2-3 packets to cover the entire top edge.


Here are the melted snowmen, made in gingerbread instead of sugar cookie dough (not an improvement, I have been told by the kids) and with the lazy-baker modifications of half a marshmallow for the head and candy-covered sunflower seeds for the nose.

Thank you, Meaghan Mountford, for sharing a fun and adaptable cookie idea. May you regain all the credit you deserve.