I’ve been trying (and, to be honest, mostly failing) to post more on Instagram, since supposedly that’s where a lot of people find out about books. But even though I mostly just post about my books, what Instagram gives me in my feed are mostly crafting videos. There’s a lot of “look what you can make with stuff you get at Dollar Tree” or “why throw these things away when you could make this out of them?” type videos. A few of them are moderately useful things. Most of them have me wondering why you’d want to make that thing, or it seems like a lot of effort to go to for something only mildly attractive or useful. For instance, there’s a lot of hot glueing wooden beads to the bottoms of cutting boards to make little display stands, or turning soda cans into little vases you stick on your refrigerator with magnets. I guess it’s the process of making it that’s fun, if you’re into hot glue guns and spray paint.

But I think those videos are infecting me. A couple of weeks ago, I was getting ready to throw away one of those bins that dishwasher pods come in and thinking, as I always do when throwing one away, that they really should sell the pods in bags that you could use to refill the bins because it seems like such a waste to have to buy the bins every time and yet only really small quantities come in bags. Then it occurred to me that this bin would make a perfect countertop trash/compost bin.

I keep a grocery produce bag handy to put small bits of trash, mostly stuff like vegetable peelings, tea leaves, etc., in as I cook. The city is encouraging people to compost, and if you don’t have your own compost pile, there’s a bin you can put your compost stuff into at the recycling center, so I try to keep compost-type trash separate. But I don’t like having that bag on the counter and have been looking for some kind of small bin or can that would close. Most of what I’ve found is way too big. But the dishwasher pod bin is perfect. There’s a lid that lifts off for pulling out the bag, and then you can flip it up and down to use it. It just didn’t fit my decor.

So I went into craft mode. I peeled off the label, spray painted with white primer, then used craft paint to paint the lid and paint stencils on the side, and I then covered it all with a sealer. The paint job isn’t great because I’m not very practiced at it, but I figure I can always make another the next time I empty a dishwasher pod bin. I did it in the blue and white color scheme that matches my kitchen. If you squint and stand at a distance, you can pretend that it’s blue and white porcelain. It works pretty well to contain any odors and doesn’t look too bad.

This was what I did last weekend after I finished proofreading a book. I was in between writing projects and trying to do fun stuff away from the computer.