Experimenting with Sugru

The lovely people at Sugru sent me some samples to experiment with at the end of last year, and I thought I’d share the results with you! Sugru is basically play dough for grownups. It arrives as this colourful mouldable dough which then sets to become a hard rubber material. You can use it for fixing things (like phone chargers, paint brushes, or cables that have been nibbled by my naughty bunny rabbit!) or for crafts like jewellery making. There’s a tonne of ideas on their website, but I tried three different things to show you. I like that you can use this stuff to extend the life of products. So many things are designed to break easily (which means that you have to buy more – the technical term is “planned obsolescence”) but if you can fix them, then you avoid the environmentally damaging cycle of constantly buying new stuff!

The first thing that I tried is an idea from their website. I made these little pink wool clips for my basket so that when I’m crocheting I can tug on the wool without the ball rolling around everywhere. I just separated one pink packet of sugru into three balls, which I pushed onto the top of the basket. I then used a fork prong to make a hole in each ball for the wool to travel through. Lastly, I used a knife to slice a little slit into the top of the clips. You can use this slit to get the wool in and out of the clip without having to thread it through the hole!

The second idea that I tried is very similar, but it holds chargers and wires. There are a lot of wires on my desk – for my printer, my various chargers and my speakers. Whenever I take them out of my laptop they end up in an annoying tangled mess on the floor, which is unpractical and looks super messy! These clips store wires neatly at the side of my desk so they’re easily accessible when I need them. I simply rolled three balls of sugru, and stuck them on the side of my desk. I used the end of a paintbrush to make holes big enough for the wires, and then I cut a little slit in each holder with a knife. These slits allow you to take the chargers in and out of the holders. It’s such an improvement!

Lastly, I made some cute little rubber decorations to brighten up my fridge! Since my fridge has a wooden door I can’t stick magnets on it, but sugru sticks to basically anything, so these rubber flowers are a good substitute. For these tutorials I used the classic colours and the new colours from their shop. I still have some packets leftover, which I might let my Dad use for household repairs and cable fixing – my bunny rabbit Archie thinks phone chargers are tasty, and they are usually a nightmare to fix! Do you have any tips or tricks for fixing products that are built not to last?