So I stumbled upon a website that gave instructions on how to make a bowl out of old doilies. Kind of like this one
Now this one told you to cut up old doilies then sew them or stick them together with masking tape to give it an old aged look, but given I was using brand new doilies I felt this would ruin the newness of the white doily, which wasn't what I wanted. I managed to snag myself a couple of doilies for seventy five cents each the other day while shopping with mum, so already it's been a really cheap project to complete. Add a bottle of PVA glue for $4.50 and I've got two new bowls for about $2.00 all up.
To make a bowl out of a doily, or really any thick material, you'll need a few things.
A doily (or thick fabric of your choice)
A bottle of PVA glue
A large bowl or balloon to shape your doily around
A second bowl to mix your fabric stiffener in
Some cling film
Hot water.
Now as you can see from this photo I've placed everything on newspaper. Don't do this, as it's a bad idea, which I will explain later on. I've already covered my bowl in cling film to protect it from the glue, and make the doily easy to remove once it's dried.
Your next step is to squeeze some PVA glue into another bowl and add some hot water. It must be hot water, as cold water doesn't mix with the glue as well, and tends to make it set too quickly. Now the more water you add to your glue the thinner it is and the more times you will need to apply it to your doily later. The thicker the glue is the longer it takes to set but it makes the fabric stiff with less applications.
My glue mix
Next you put the doily into the bowl and cover it completely with the glue. You want to make sure you get the fabric as wet as possible at this stage because once you've put it on the bowl to set it becomes harder to reapply the glue. I have to apologise for the lack of photo for this step, once my hands got covered in glue I was reluctant to touch my camera again till I was cleaned up.
Your final step is to place the doily over your covered bowl, and arrange it into any shape that you want. If you can find a bowl that is larger than your fabric, then you can have a completely smooth bowl without any ruffles. If you want to add some interest to the bowl, find one that is the same size as your doily, or even slightly smaller so that you can add a lip or some ruffles to the fabric.
Now when you place the fabric on the bowl, don't do what I did and do all of this on a piece of newspaper. Of course I forgot one fundamental element of newspaper when I was doing this, and that is that it absorbs glue wonderfully, and tears easily. So when I tried to lift my bowl up once it was dry, the newspaper came with it. Much cursing and kicking myself followed of course.
Now all you have to do is wait for your material to dry then either reapply more glue (with a brush this time) or if it is as stiff as you want it, remove it from the bowl and voila! You have a new decoration for very little money.
TA DAAA!!!
Now you can't really see much of the leftover newspaper still stuck to my bowl in this photo, but there is a bit of it there that just won't budge no matter how much I swear at it. I'm considering painting these parts white just so they at least blend in with the rest of the bowl. Mine could probably use even more glue as it is still a little too flexible for any practical use, but given this was just a test run to see if I could get it to work I'm not too worried.
So that is another one of my Pinterest pins crossed off the ever growing list. I'm thinking of making it a regular thing to do, just to keep the crafty urges at bay.
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