Easy DIY Sunflower Trivet

Despite fall being my favorite season of the year, I have the hardest time thinking of autumnal DIY projects for some reason. Halloween? That’s another story. I’ve already got a bunch of Halloween projects in the works this year. But to me, the fall season is more about cozy elements like lighting candles, drinking apple cider, visiting the pumpkin patch, and reading cozy mystery books. My favorite ways to decorate for autumn are more about adding natural harvest-y elements to my home like pumpkins and dried florals.

I know there are a lot of people out there that prefer the autumnal elements of the season over the sometimes cheesy and over-the-top Halloween decorations. So I definitely wanted to kick off this lovely season with a more autumnal project. And nothing says fall to me like sunflowers. So follow along below to see how I made the cutest wooden sunflower trivet to decorate my coffee table this season. This DIY is the perfect low-key project to do while sipping on a pumpkin spice latte and watching your favorite episodes of Gilmore Girls. Check it out!

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Supplies:

Mini half wood beads (12mm) — you will need about 151 beads per trivet
Cork board roll (1/8” thick)
Glue
Scissors and/or x-acto knife
Ruler
Pen or marker
Acrylic paint
Paint brushes
Zip lock bags & paper plates (optional)
Clear satin spray paint (optional)

STEP 1: Painting your wood beads. You will need 151 total half rounds for this project and you will want to paint them yellow or dark brown depending on whether they will be used for the center of the flower or the petals. You will need a total of 37 brown beads and 114 yellow beads, but I would recommend painting a few extra of each just in case!

I started by mixing up the acrylic paint colors that I wanted for my sunflower. I mixed a few drops of black paint with a dark chocolate color to get a really deep brown for the center of the flower. Then I mixed a gold color with a bright yellow to get a more golden sunflower petal color.

I decided to try out the ziplock bag method of painting the wood beads (which I saw on TikTok). Basically you stick your beads in a sandwich sized ziplock bag then pour in a good amount of paint to cover the beads. Then you shake the bag until all the beads have been coated in paint. Pour them out onto a paper plate and shake the plate a bit to get them to move around until they begin to dry. Once they were some what dry, I noticed there were still a lot of places that I needed to go back in and touch up with a paint brush. I’m not sure if I didn’t use enough paint in my bag, but I think it would’ve been too thick if I used more.

So after experimenting with the brown beads and half of the yellow beads, I decided to just hand paint the other half of the yellow beads and, honestly, I’m not sure that the ziplock bag method saved me any time. So you can try it out yourself and maybe you’ll have better luck than me. Otherwise, just put on a good podcast and get to hand painting your beads. I found the brown beads only needed about two coats and the yellow ones needed about three.

STEP 2: Unroll your cork and cut out a square that is 8” x 8”. You can use an X-acto knife for this or a sharp pair of scissors. My cork came on a roll so it wasn’t laying very flat. I used my iron and just placed a piece of parchment paper over the cork and set my iron to low heat and a few passes of the iron definitely helped the material to flatten out! If you have more time you could also probably flatten this under some heavy books.

Find the very center of your cork square and mark a dot in the middle to know where to start gluing your beads.

STEP 3: Gluing your beads! You are going to begin by gluing down one brown bead to the very center of your cork where you marked the dot. Squeeze a small dot of craft glue to the bottom of your wood half round and press it onto the cork. You should be able to still move it around if you need to adjust your placement as you go, it will take a few minutes for the glue to start to set and cure in place. I found it easiest to lay out the beads circle by circle. So after your 1 brown bead in the middle, do a circle of 6 brown beads around that. Then 12, then 18. Make sure to keep each ring a circular shape.

I’ve drawn in a guide above to show you how many beads you will need for each row. Once you have completed all the brown beads, continue on with the yellow petals of your flower until your sunflower shape is complete!

Once you are happy with the placement of all the beads. Set a few heavy books on top of your trivet for a few hours while your glue fully dries.

Once it is dried, it will look like this!

STEP 4: Cutting out your trivet. Now we want to make the cork shape match the shape of your beads. I found that this thin cork is actually really easy to cut with a pair of sharp scissors. But it was kind of tricky to cut the left side of each petal, since I’m right handed. So I used an X-acto knife to cut out the left sides. Keep in mind, the x-acto knife tends to make the cork crumble a lot more than the sharp scissors. So after trimming off the cork with the knife, I went back in with my scissors to clean up any messy edges.

Once I was happy with the edges of my sunflower shape, I poured a small dab of more craft glue on my fingers, and I went around the edge of the cork, smoothing down some glue to try to keep any more cork from crumbling off the edges.

STEP 5: Sealing your project (optional). I wanted to make sure my trivet lasts for a while and can be used for fall seasons to come, so I just took my project outside and gave it one coat of a clear satin spray paint to make sure the paint on all the wood half rounds was fully sealed.

And there you have it, a completed wood trivet!

I would not recommend placing anything that is TOO hot onto your trivet (like a pan straight out of the oven, etc.) — but it’s the perfect little decorative mat to set your favorite fall candle. It will protect your surface from the warmth of the bottom of the candle jar, while also adding a fun touch of autumn charm!

I love simple projects that have a big pay off, and I think this one is just that! It is super easy to make, you almost don’t need a tutorial at all. But it really pops on your coffee table and adds a fun handmade autumnal touch.

Hope you enjoyed the first project of my FAVORITE season of the year :) Check back soon for more fall and Halloween coming your way!

xo Rachael