Meltware: Ingenious DIY Tableware

Are your kitchen cabinets overflowing with tableware you rarely use, only to find yourself in need of an essential missing piece for that dinner party? Eindhoven Design Academy graduate Maaike Seegers has a solution: Meltware, an ingenious collection of DIY tableware that allows you to make your own dinnerware in exactly the sizes and numbers you need, on demand.

It comes with three stoneware pieces – a spoon, a bowl, and a carafe – that can be used as molds for creating more utensils. You make the rest of the set by bending and shaping Carnauba wax – a heavyduty natural waterproof wax derived from palm trees. Just heat up the the wax in a pan to melt it, then pour it into the molds for your very own homemade dinnerware.

Different sizes are made by varying the amount of wax and how it is poured. The best part: The entire collection can be remelted – brilliant storage efficiency as well as a convenient fix in case anything gets broken.

At a time when 3D printing is hailed as the next big design revolution, it’s interesting to see a different, more organic approach that bespeaks the same need: DIY, on-demand, factory-free design object for everyday life.

Images courtesy of FastCo Design

Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, Design Observer and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.