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How to Make a Nice Bowl From Recycled Paper

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This article will teach you how to make an inexpensive, low-tech bowl by recycling paper you have lying around, instead of throwing it to the bin and letting it rot in decades.

Do you sometimes find yourself sitting on a rainy Sunday afternoon, looking at a pile of old magazines, junk mail and papers and wondering what to do?

Here we decided to show you a quick, easy and very practical way to recycle your old papers by turning them into a handy paper bowl.

The materials you need are the following:

  • Some water
  • Any scrap paper that you have laying around
  • An old blender
  • Tape
  • Plastic grocery bag or a wrap
  • A plastic or glass bowl
  • An old towel
  • Some glitter, if you want to add an extra finesse.

And now the steps:

1. Prepare the paper

Shred the old newspapers and magazines into small pieces, about 1 inch size, and soak them in water overnight. You can also use wrappers if you want to have different colors. A good idea might be to separate by color so you can then design the bowl better.2.1

2. Cover the bowl

Use the plastic bag to wrap the plastic bowl that you have prepared. This will be the mold for your new one. Use some tape attach the wrap, and also make sure that the sides overlap to the inside of the bowl.

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3. Blend the paper

When the paper has been soaked overnight, put the mix into the old blender and blend until the mass is big and pulpy.

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4. Shape the bowl

Pour the mix from the blender into another bowl, squeeze out some of the excess water (but not all of it) and start applying the pulp onto the bowl. The first layer will be the inside of the bowl, so think about the patterns you want.

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5. Repeat step #4

It could be very nice if you could apply two layers, so that the bowl does not break easily. The second layer can also be slightly different, as it will be the outside of the bowl. Here you can apply some glitter or use different colored papers.

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6. Let it dry

Let the bowl dry for about 2 days. When the outside is hard, you know the bowl is ready.

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7. Remove the inside bowl

Turn the bowl over and gently remove the plastic bowl from the inside. Then remove the plastic bag too. The inside of the bowl will still be wet.

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8. Let it dry off completely

Let the bowl dry for another day, and make sure you do not wet it again, so that it can remain in one piece. Needless to say, it is probably not very wise to eat from it, but it surely makes a wonderful decoration.

Special thanks to the Instructables user Jnifrwebb for the tutorial and pictures. 

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