Giving your old chest of drawers a refreshed look with new, funky knobs has become very popular in the last couple of years. But as cute as the idea is, most of these decorative knobs can cost anything between £2 and £6 each and if you’ve got a fair few to replace they end up costing you more than the piece of furniture itself.

Wondering how I can save money and still get the look I want, I came up with an idea to just do it myself and upcycle the knobs that came with the furniture.

I bought 2 Ikea RAST chest of drawers for £20 each and they are great! Raw birch, unpainted and unwaxed which makes them easy to paint or varnish without much preparation required. They come with small, plain wooden knobs.

I wanted pastel yellow and duck egg blue knobs. Firstly I just painted them but they are quite small and I wanted them to be bigger and more visible. I decided to explore clay. I bought a big block of Gede clay from The Range. ‘How hard can it be?’ I thought. I used to make things out of that stuff all the time when I was a kid. Turns out, it took me a few goes to get the first knob right and here’s how you do it.

Ingredients

• Knobs
• Clay
• Paint
• Small Brush
• Sealer/Lacquer/Wax – if you’re using chalk paint.
• Decorative sticker

Recipe

1.Grab a bit of clay and roll it in your hands.

2. Wrap it around each knob then shape it into place (leave a little space between the clay and the knob. The clay expands as it dries and might crack if it’s too tight. Don’t worry too much about it being even.

3. I did buy no bake clay, but I’m impatient and decided to bake it in the oven at 100 degrees for about 15 minutes. If you’re working with plastic knobs, leave them to harden for 4 days.

4. Once out of the oven, sand the knobs down a bit and paint them. I used Rustoleum paint.

5. Once dry, paint with sealer/lacquer or rub some wax depending whether you want satin or gloss finish.

6. I finished mine with a decorative sticker I picked up from The Range.