Ever had the problem of Stickles glitter glue, or Liquid Pearls, getting to the last dregs? You know there is more in the bottle, but even the hardest wrist flick doesn’t get it down to the nozzle. I have – and being a crafter and ridiculously frugal, I thought of a solution. And as a crafter, I’ve spent out more money than I save on getting the right tool for the job! Introducing the Stickles Spinner Mk I:

Yes – it’s a salad spinner, and you may have one in the back of a kitchen cupboard somewhere. Or just thrown it out as you hadn’t used it and needed the room… On trials, I found that unless the bottles were held down, they’d flip to the side. Equally, an unsecured cradle also worked its way up the bowl. So here’s my solution:

Pinning the foamcore board together allowed moving and trimming until I got it the right size. Of course, it would have been quicker to measure and draw first, but that’s not how I work! The whole construction is then pinned to the bowl through one of the horizontal bands.

Load the bottles lid outward, spin the spinner (which let’s face it, is the best bit) and when the bottles come out, the remaining Stickles is at the tip. Of course, if you load it the other way, it settles to the bottom of the bottle – but gravity usually does that on its own.

And unlike the average laboratory centrifuge, this pretty much works with a single bottle in the spokes rather than having to balance with another on the opposite side. Now all I have to do is find somewhere to store my new contraption. Back of a kitchen cupboard may be? 😉

P.S. It seems that I’m not the first to come up with the concept – Rice University students in USA developed a similar version in 2010 to spin down blood samples to help in the diagnosis of anaemia in developing countries.