Revamp Your Vinyl

We recently came across these on Etsy. These bowls made from melted vinyl records were so pretty! The price tag, however, was not as pretty. Since we just happened to have an abundance of albums on hand (and no record player to play them on), we figured we try our hand at it! Although not as elaborate as the ones for sale, we are thrilled with the results.

What you need:

• a vinyl record (we chose one from a 5 album set of Hawaiian music from 1966...no idea why we even had that...)
• a 9" oven-safe bowl
• cookie sheet
• potholders (the bowl and record could get hot, although we found that ours were just fine)
• paint (optional)

Preheat your oven to 200˚ F and open up a window - the melted records will give off some stinky fumes. Place your bowl upside down on your cookie sheet, and place your record on top of that.Put the cookie sheet, bowl, and record stack in the oven, and leave it there for about 8 - 10 minutes. Stick around and keep a close eye on it. Since ovens vary the heating time will vary (we found ours took a bit longer). Once your record begins to soften and conform to the bowl underneath it, check and see if the vinyl is soft enough to manipulate - you may want to use a potholder for this.If it is, take the tray out of the oven, remove the record from on top of the bowl, flip the bowl over, push the record inside the bowl (we had to push pretty hard), and adjust the "ruffles" however you like. Do this quickly as the vinyl cools pretty rapidly. If you need to, stick it back in the oven for a few minutes to soften it back up.Once it cools you can leave it as it is, but we decided to paint ours and give it a coat of polyurethane. We then decided that although it made a cute bowl, it would make an even cuter planter - it even has a ready-made drainage hole! Perfect for new little spring plants!