Making Decorative Bowls

 I saw these amazing bowls online recently and I thought to myself.... I can make those! 

They make very cute as decorative pieces.
Homemade. Rustic. Natural. Just my style. 

I made three of them, mostly because I find three to be a nice number when decorating, but even just one on a shelf would be nice.

Here's how it's made: 

Materials: 

Various sized bowls, bowl for glue, scissors, fabric stiffener, jute string, and plastic wrap.

Wrap bowls with plastic wrap.
Be sure that they are fully covered, even on the inside. 

Pour fabric stiffener in a bowl and cut strands of string.
<see below for lengths of string>

String should be long enough to wrap from one side of the bowl to the other and back.

Put strands of string in bowl with stiffener and soak them so that they absorb lots of the glue.

Wrap your bowl with as much string as needed to cover it.
I used 8 or so (around 12 inches) on the small bowls, and a dozen strings on the bigger ones (the bigger ones had longer string too - around 20 inches).
Try to wrap it so that the string ends land somewhere in the middle or on the bottom of the bowl. I tried to curve most of the top edges.
The string will feel soft and insecure, but it does harden later!

Pour a bit of extra fabric stiffener on the sections where multiple strings cross, as these spots need to be stronger.  

Push down on the bowl periodically to make sure the strings are pressed tightly together.

Let them dry overnight.

When they are stiff to the touch (24 hours later) turn them over and take the bowl out of the centre.

Then slowly peel the plastic wrap away from the string.

Clean up the little clumps of leftover glue hanging from the strings on the bowls.

Ta-Da! Done!

Just for some ideas: You can fill them with yarn (as I did!), fruit, or decorative accents. I plan to make some and fill them with cookies (as housewarming gifts), or hats (as welcome-home-new-baby gifts), or dishcloths (as wedding shower gifts). So versatile! They can't hold anything too heavy, but you'd be surprised how strong they are! Enjoy :)

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