DIY hot plate

Sometime last year, Matthew and I went to a Flea Market that claimed to be "The Largest in all of Tennessee!" Yeah, ok. It was big, but not interesting. It was mostly vendors selling t-shirts or "never have to buy windows again!" windows...

The only thing I bought was a double sided fabric head band {that I've basically been waiting until spring to wear} and we left. Across the street {where we had to park our car} there was a store that sold a little of everything. Old doors, hardware, windows, and some furniture. I only had a couple dollars left to spend, so most of it was out of our "designated spending money for the trip" price point.

On an old mantel, there were a couple of mismatch tiles for a dollar each... I fell in love with one. You've seen it before, but I'm sure you didn't take much notice.

In our house tour for our kitchen, it was propped up next to the vase of flowers that Matthew bought me. See it? I know it's tiny, but you can check it out here if you want to jog your memory in person.

At first it was just a tile, but I'm trying to cut down on useless clutter. Insert Matthew's brilliant idea here: We make it into a hot plate.

When I finished making the cork board we had corks left over. Some were the normal "put in a bottle cork", but some were little... like this.

This project is easy-peasy. Just a hot glue gun, a tile, some corks... oh and some felt {so the hot plate will sorta slide across the table if we want it to}.

I traced the corks onto the felt, and cut out the circle. A little of hot glue attached the felt to the corks, and the corks to the tile. Viola {pronounced "wah-lah"}!

Whoa! Did you see how that tile just transformed into a hot plate? 

My favorite part of this project? The price tag. $0 {unless you count the electricity it cost to run the hot glue gun, but no one does that}. So, originally $1 {the corks and felt were gifts}, but today... nothing. :)  My kind of project.

Here it is sitting pretty with our other hot plates {owl one from the Knoxville Zoo $5, blue one $1 at a local thrift store}. I think it looks at home already.