Fabric Bowls: Upscycle fabric scraps into an easy, DIY, no-sew, gift or product!

1. Fabric Bows Introduction: I am bowled over every time I take a look at these fabric bowls that I made with all of my fabric scraps. This is an easy and very satisfying project. Not only are these bowls creative and useful, but they make great, personalized, handmade homemade gifts. These fabulous fabric bowls are perfect for so many uses. On a desk for office supplies like paper clips and tacks, on a night table, for miscellaneous items and jewelry, for makeup, keys and coins, pens and pencils. This is a great class for anyone who's crafty and into making homemade things, especially if you're into recycling and up cycling in unique ways. Obviously, a sewer has lots of scraps lying around. But even if you don't have scraps, you can easily find some to make this project. I'll go over the supply list, and I'm pretty sure you'll have most of these items already on hand, or it's really easy to get them. I'm Zoe, and I'm a skill share teacher. I teach classes in memory quilt making, sewing pouches, art journaling, tag art, lots of crafts and recycled projects. I have a lot of interests and passions, and I love sharing cool projects with my students, whether in person or on skill share. In this class, you will make at least two fabric bowls, but you can make as many as you want. We will go over preparing the bowls and cutting the fabric. I will show some gluing techniques, demonstrating four different sizes and shapes of bowls and containers. We will try out different layout styles such as stripes or lines or haphazard and more organic. And finally, I will show you various ways to embellish the rim of your bowls and make them stand out and be as creative as they can be. Ready to join the fun, in 24 hours, you two will have some fabulous fabric bowls to show off. Let's go. 2. Project: Project. In this class, you will make anywhere 2-5 fabric bowls. Basically, you can make as many as you like. Personally, I like to work on at least two projects at the same time. We will prep the bowls with seran wrap or cellophane. We will cut many fabric pieces. We will glue the fabric down in three separate layers. We will wait 24 hours. Then once dry, we will remove the bowls and decorate their rims and anything else you want to do. These bowls have so many uses, and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Finally, we'll share our projects with pictures. Meet me at the next class where we will go over the supply list. 3. Supplies: Supplies. I promise there is an easy supply list for this project. Download the PDF in the projects and resources section of this class. If you already have scraps of fabric lying around, then great. If you don't, feel free to tuck into your giveaway bag that's sitting in your closet or garage or head over to your local fabric or craft store. They always sell scraps of fabric or fat quarters for cheap. You can even find stuff online. Next, a few bowls, and I suggest different sizes. Plastic is great, disposable is fine, too. If you use glass or china bowls, just remember to be very careful because you will be handling them and flipping them over a lot, and we don't want anything to break. Glue, I suggest good old fashion school glue or Elmer's glue. This dries hard and clear. Other decapage and hobby glues can work great, too. A hot glue gun can be useful too, but not required. But from personal experience, I found that the good old fashioned school glue is best. Seran wrap or cling wrap or cellophane or cling wrap or plaster wrap or cling film or glad rap or whatever you call it in your country. Same thing, different name, whatever you use to wrap food to put into the refrigerator. A paint brush you don't care about. A palette brush can be useful, and of course, good old fashioned fingers will work too. They'll get a little sticky, though. Clips are helpful, scissors, and or a cutting blade, ribbon, or binding, or piping, string, yarn, rope. These can be used to decorate the rim of your bowl. Paint pens are really useful, too. Can also add beads and sparkles and any other stickers or stuff that you want to add. Grab your bowls, seran wrap, fabric and scissors, and let's get into prepping in the next lesson. 4. Prepping: Let's get started with prepping our bowl and our fabric for the project. Like I said before, I think it's a great idea to work on at least two projects at once, which means let's wrap at least two bowls with Saran Wrap. Cut enough fabric and wrap enough bowls that you can work on multiple projects at the same time. So what I have here are a few different size bowls. You can see the small medium bowl and a large bowl plus a more cup like shape bucket, let's say. I'm going to take my seran wrap or culpane, and wrap it around nice and smooth. The smoothest part needs to be the outside. I'm going to tuck in the remaining edges and take a do a second layer for reinforcement. Just to make sure it's all nice and tight and snug around the bowl. Obviously, if you have a bigger size bowl, you'll need a few pieces of ceram wrap to make their way around to cover the whole outside of the bowl. Our bowls act as the mold for your fabric bowls. The sera wrap has two purposes. The first is to protect your bowl from getting messy with glue. The second is to make it easy to pop out the fabric bowl when it's all dried. It just slides off because of the sera wrap. When you're gathering your fabric materials, think about what you want to show on the inside of your bowl and what you want to show on the outside. I like to pull all sorts of scraps, and sometimes I sort them into themes, animal and pet related prints, shades of blues or reds, solids, est of prints, and I like to have a solid, pale cream or white fabric that will be used for the middle layer layer two. You can cut using a scissors, and I do like cutting into strips or squares. You can use a cutting tool and ruler to make more exact strips like 1 " by 4 ". It's also nice to have a few different shapes and sizes of your fabric that will fit into different parts of your bowl, small and big spaces. I also like to cut one or two pieces that I know will cover the bottom completely like a big square swatch of material. I really like having a cream or white fabric as a middle layer layer two for this project. It adds reinforcement and structure to the bowl, and also helps if you're using fabrics that have a lot of patterns and stuff that you don't see through the bowl. So I cut a bunch of different sizes of the cream or white fabric to have to use as my middle layer. And while we're cutting, I want to show you how I cut what I call the scalloped edges, which are circles or ovals that I will use around the lip of my bowl at the end as part of my decorative embellishment. Just make sure my fabric is folded over and cut a circle or oval shape. You can be very even imprecise about this or a little more casual and haphazard. It really depends what your personal style is. Now that we've wrapped our bowls and cut our fabric, we are ready to get started on our project. Grab your glue and meet me at the next lesson. 5. Glueing: Stick with me. It's gluing time. Co is ready to get messy. When it comes to using glue on this project, you're just going to have to accept the fact that your fingers are going to get messy. I say, lean into it. This is nothing a little soap and water can't clean afterwards. This project involves gluing down three layers of material. Layer one is the inside of the bowl and what you will see and where your stuff goes on the inside. Layer two is the middle layer, the reinforcement layer. This is where the pale material goes, and no one will see this. And finally, layer three is the outside of the bowl, what is shown on the outside. Let's begin. What I have here is a plate to put my glue on. A paint brush, an old paint brush, palette knives, or my fingers that I'll use to apply the glue. I have the scraps that are going to be layer one, the inside layer of the bowl that you'll see some squares for the bottom and my scraps for the outside, plus my cream colored middle layer. Let's begin with our small bowl that I'm going to use my strips of fabric. So the first layer is the layer that's the inside of the bowl, what you see from the inside. So when you lay down your fabric, you have to make sure it's facing the inside. When you pull the bowl out, what you see, there's your first layer. You got to make sure you lay down that fabric with the right side facing towards the bowl. It'll seem backwards, but later, it won't be. Let's begin gluing. Take our glue. We can use our finger, brush, palette, anything. Lay down a strip, and just start lathering on the glue. I would say the first piece of fabric is probably the most challenging because it's very slippery against the seran wrap. It's holding onto nothing. Your fingers are in the way. But once you get it in place, you'll see the rest of the project will move along a little bit smoother. You just keep going down, building on what you have, layer layer, always making sure to have the right side facing in towards the bowl. How it's time to add the bottom piece? Now, even though it's a square shape, it will show as circle because you only left that circle shape showing screw it down in place like you did all the others. I also want to take a moment to show you what it's like to work with square pieces instead of strips. They're a little easier because obviously they're smaller and adds a little patchwork pattern. The inside of this bowl, I want to be poca Dots, so I'm using all my poca Dot squares facing in like I mentioned, because that's going to be the side that shows, and I just lay them down one after the other. For my medium sized bowl, I want to make the inside of the bowl have stripes of different fabrics. I'm going to pay attention to laying my strips down in fairly even lines so that the after effect is stripes. Moving on to the big bowl. Now, this one is awkward because it's large. I have my strips, and I'm going to start frosting the bowl, like I'm laying frosting down. I'll do that first, just because it is more awkward to handle the bigger bowls. I want to get my foundation down. Now I'm going to start laying down the strips of fabric. Lay one and then the next. I have the glue on the sera wrap, so I just have to press down and add a second layer of glue on top. Keep adding strips of fabric, more glue. More frosting, more fabric. Eventually, you will start to see the entire inside surface area of the bowl come together. There's lots of gaps in places to keep adding glue and little areas where the fabric needs to be pasted down. Moving on to the bucket shape, same rules apply. Have the fabric facing inwards because that's what's going to show on the inside of the bowl and just keep building layer upon layer. The middle layer is, like I said, the layer that adds reinforcement. It's a pale color, and so won't really show up in between the inside layer and the outside layer, but it adds a more structure. It fills in any holes, and you just have to lay it down. Since you already had the first layer a little sticky from the glue, it's much easier to lay the second layer, the middle layer. It's basically the same process for whatever size or shape you're working on. No. The bottom of the bowl is pretty straightforward. Since you've left an opening or you lay down your first layer, you just put your square piece of material over it and glue it in place. Get those corners, all the edges. You know the drill. And of course, it's the same for the bucket shape. You have your opening, and you lay down your flat square. You might have to get a little creative with folds and stuff to get the corners folded down smoothly, since it's not as round as a sphere shape of a bowl. But just keep adding your glue and holding it in place, and it will stick. It's the same process for the smaller and bigger bowls. Let's tackle the outside of the bowl. Here I have my small bowl, and my theme is the animal prints or pet related fabrics. I lay down the first square that's going to be the bottom of the bowl on the outside. Then I just start placing all my square animal pet print related fabrics facing outward this time because this is now the true outside of the bowl. So you want the right side or the correct side of the fabric facing out. And just like with the second layer laying on top of the first layer, there was already sticky fabric in place, so it is a lot easier to place these pieces of fabric for the outside layer in place. I mentioned having small scraps. This is perfect for when you have small little spots where the middle layers peaking through. You can just add a little square and cover up that spot. My medium bowl has the inside stripes going vertically, so I'm going to make the outside more horizontal. I just start laying down my strips of fabric with vertical lines, even covering the bottom, so there's no special piece that's for the bottom. It's just the lines continuing, and I just keep building on it. For the large bowl, I'm using a striped pattern of fabric, but I'm not laying it in stripes. So I'm going for the hap hazard layout. The bucket is also going to get a ha layout, but with a color palette of all blues and greens fabrics. And the bottom of this one will also have sort of a haphazard layouts of fabric pieces. Now that your bowls are covered with the three layers of fabric and glue, Layer one, the inside, Layer two, the middle, the reinforcement, and Layer three, the outside. It's time to let them dry. 24 hours should do the trick. So you're going to have to be patient. When you come back and look at them, make sure they really dry, almost crunchy like. You don't want them to feel moist or cool at all. If they do, then they need some more time. When you're sure your bowl is dry and ready to come out of its mold, meet me back here and we'll take care of the next step, the decorating. 6. Decorating: I know waiting the 24 hours was challenging, but here we go. Releasing the fabric bowl in the mold is a very exciting step. Remember to make sure your bowl is completely dry, nice and crunchy. Then you get your finger under there and slide it off. It looks so good. The outside, all the way around. The edge is a little rough, but we're going to fix that later. The inside is sturdy, the pink looks great. The bigger bowl requires a little more muscle to release the inside plastic mold from my fabric bowl on the outside. But eventually, it'll slide out. Also looking good, the outside, striped fabric, the bottom, the inside. Again, the edge is a little ragged, which we'll fix. The bucket also needs a little extra help getting it out of the mold. You can grab your palette knife or pencil or ruler to help ease it and get it out. Also looking good. The small bowl is by far the easiest one to pop out, and you can see it just split out. You bowl is protected. It's looking good. Nice and hard. The ragged edge we will fix when we decorate. And finally, the striped came out really nice. Pleasant surprise to see the striped pattern reveal itself. We'll deal with the edges next. There is nothing like seeing your project come to life. There are many ways to add embellishment and decorations to the rim of your bowls, and I'm going to show you a few. Remember those blue circle ovals we cut out. We're going to attach them now. Grabbing my clips, we're going to use those. I'll start by trimming off any extra pieces. I'll just trim the little bits that fly off the side. I'm going to take a blue oval and it's going to go on the inside and the outside. I'll glue both sides down, clip it into place. Lay down some glue. Just spread a little maybe three to 4 " area of glue and lay down about four of your ovals. Add a little more glue on top as reinforcement, and then glue on the outside, fold over, your scallop, press into place, and add the clip to make sure it stays down. Continue around the entire rim of the bowl, let it, and then later, you can take off the clips, and it's looking good. Fabric that you've used for binding or hemming or bias tape. Something you might have if you're a sewer or a quilter you can make or you can buy. I'd like to find a piece that will cover the entire rim of my bowl. So it will fold over on the inside and the outside. This piece works. It's a little longer than I need, so I will cut it. I will also cut the edges of my bowl to make them tidy. And I will clip the white binding in place. First, I'll just get a few spots down before I start gluing. Then I'll start gluing. And clipping. Again, just keeping it in place, nice and sturdy, and I will go all the way around the bowl, gluing on the inside and the outside, pressing it down using my clips till I get to the meeting spot. Then I'll trim it off. Glue it down, clip it. Let it dry. Paint pens are a really fun and easy way to add a little more pizzas to your bowl. I used a gold paint pen on this and drew circles and lines on top of my navy binding. Returning to my bowl with the white bindings now dry so I will take off my clips, and I'm going to use some paint pens to decorate the rim of this bowl. The paint pens can go right onto fabric. I used brick a Brac ribbon or trim along the inside and outside of my bucket bowl. Hey, I used some paint pens here. Also, I wrote an O, X O. I wrote hello with my paint pen. So I'm going to put my black brick abra on the outside of my small bowl, the one I used the binding, the white binding ribbon, and then I used my paint pens, and I'm just going to glue down and pin into place this latest edition. Also paying attention to where the two ends of the ribbon meet, and making sure it is got plenty of glue to stay in place. Leftover piping is another scrap you can make good use of putting it around the edge of the bowl. You can attach it on the inside or the outside. This one I did at the outside. You add your glue, put your piping down, hold it in place with your clips. And wait for it to dry. Moving on to your basic ribbon, you can use leftover holiday or gift wrapping ribbon and you can glue it to the outside as well as the inside. Now, I'm using a hot glue gun here, which is really nice because it dries super fast, but it is hot, and it means touching it can be a little bit tricky. If you're really eager for your project to dry quickly, you can use a hot glue gun, but just be careful. Finally, I wanted to show what it's like to use some tassels or rope. Tassels are really cute at dangly element to the outside of your bowl or the inside. Here's some other fancier ribbon I can also use of course, your basic rope, which is really nice also has a tic look. Just clip it in place and glue it down. And if you wanted to get fancy, you could do a wave effect. We really did it all, scallops, binding, fabric, paint pens, bric a brac, piping, ribbon, rope, tassels. Is there anything left? If you come up with some other ideas for decorating your rim, please share in the project section of this class. I would love to see your decorations. No. 7. Wrap Up: Thanks so much for participating in this class. I am very eager to see your masterpieces and even more excited to hear or see how you use these bowls. Don't forget to share your pictures in the project section of this class. And while you're at it, please leave me a review. It's so important for us skill share teachers to hear how we are doing, or if there are improvements that can be made or ideas to be shared. After all, this is skill share. 8. ART PARTNER 1 on 1 Session: Hey, art partner. Let's face it. Doing art alone can be well, lonely. I mean, lots of us spent a lot of time doing art, sitting in a quiet space alone. And you know what I've noticed over time? It's so much more fun to do art with a friend or an art teacher. Chatting with someone while you're doing art about TV shows, recipes, movies, trips, foods, or whatnot, makes the time so much more fun. Plus, you get to discuss art and techniques and get feedback right there on the spot. But not all of us have art friends who are ready to do art when we're ready to do art. And that's where the art partner one on one sessions come in. Let's set up a session where we both get work done. We give feedback, we share insights, techniques, and honestly, make the time so much more enjoyable. When you commit to a session, you're committing to setting aside time to do art, and your productivity will go up, and I bet you'll have something to show at the end of the session. Set up an art partner one on one session with me and get accountability, finish something, get feedback along the way, have company, Enjoy Light chit chat. We can work on something from one of my classes like fabric bowls or something else entirely. When you sign up, just let me know what you want to work on, what supplies you're bringing, and I'll bring the same. Some of the projects from my skill share classes include fabric bowls, altered mint tins, tag art, artist trading coins, and any other card making or collage projects. For being a fabric bowl student, use this code. Check out my one on one link and sign up on Super peer. See you soon.