Screw modern life, enjoy this Swedish wood carving kit
Slowly apply paraffin oil to juniper wood, feel instantly more relaxed
With so much of our time spent staring at screens it's important to take a pause from modern life every now and again, and they don't come much more satisfying and elemental than the Tälja wood carving kit.
The kit (499kr) contains "everything you need for a relaxed and creative experience", namely a knife, two pieces of Swedish wood (juniper and birchwood), sandpaper and paraffin oil, along with instructions to get you started including a stencil for a butter knife and a marmalade spoon.
Tälja (Swedish for woodcarving) was created by Jakob Nielsen, with the purpose of "getting people to spend a little less time in front of a small (or big) screen, and to enjoy the rewarding feeling of creating something physical with your bare hands, something real. We see it as creative meditation."
Nielsen posted a dreamy trailer for the kit on Vimeo seeing someone carving away in a forest, but it yields a similarly meditative quality at your desk. Carve away, it's what Jesse Pinkman would have wanted.
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