Making a Bowl Out of a Vinyl Record

I was at a thrift store recently and they brought a cart out of the back while I was shopping. I saw two bowls made out of records on the cart. I picked them up and bought them for about a dollar each.

I saw someone making these things on a morning show years ago and thought they were really cute but never took the time to make them.

Open the windows and use your vent to keep any chemical smells out of your house while you do this. Basically, you preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Get a cookie sheet and two nesting metal or oven proof bowls. You can make it with one bowl but the bowl will be a little more open with using one bowl.

Once you have the oven preheated, place the smaller metal bowl upside down on the middle of the cookie sheet and then place the record you want to melt over the bowl in the center. Place a can filled with dried beans or the other bowl on top of the record to hold it in place.

Leave the record in the oven until it starts to melt down the sides. Usually about 4-8 minutes depending on your oven.

Use oven mitts to take out the cookie sheet and take the larger nesting bowl and place it over the record while keeping it on the smaller bowl pushing it down which pushes the sides down inside making the bowl tighter on the sides.

If you don't have the nesting type bowls, you can just use the one bowl and have the record melt down the sides and use the oven mitts to push the edges of the records down and hold them down to the sides of the bowl as close as you can making the record into a bowl shape.

If it cools quickly, you can put it back into the oven until it melts more and use the mitts to form it into the bowl shape.

The cuter the record center, the cuter the bowl. You can make it out of records that have special meaning for you or your family.

It wasn't until I arrived home to show Princess Five the bowls that I noticed the records that the bowls were made of. One had the song "Tammy" on it which was a song we heard lots growing up as that is the name of someone in my immediate family. I laughed when I saw that but was in shock when I saw that the other record was "Gypsy!"

The girls were in the process of performing a song from "Gypsy" at that very time. How funny out of the millions of records in the world that I would purchase two that had meaning for our family. Here is a link to the girls singing their song from "Gypsy" they sang for state.

I can't think there would be any better records for her to have as bowls. I bought them specifically with her in mind and thought it funny that I didn't even notice the titles until getting home to show her. I love that it was current in her life at the time as well.

You can make smaller bowls using 45's but I think these are a good size. I would put a napkin in them as a liner if you were putting chips or something in the bowls but I think they would be better used for wrapped foods to avoid toxins off the vinyl. They could be cute to hold trinkets or jewelry in a bedroom or to hold keys near a door or really fun in a game room. Be creative and have fun!