Footed Plaster Craft Bowl

Plaster cloth is one of the coolest crafty inventions that I've discovered in the last ten years. If you think paper mache is fun...this is fun, and a hundred and fifty times easier! The best part is that plaster cloth takes about five minutes to dry. By then it holds its shape and probably another five minutes later it is already paintable. Pretty amazing! This footed bowl is made using strips of plaster cloth wrapped around a balloon. All you need is common craft supplies and maybe an hour, and you're done! Have fun!

For this project, you will need: 

Newspaper to protect your work surface

One balloon

One roll of plaster cloth (sold at craft stores)

Scissors

Small bowl

Cardboard

Bowl of water, warm or room temp

Hot glue

White tissue paper

Black construction paper

Paint brush

Mod Podge (I used matte, not gloss)

 Black paint

Spray varnish (optional)

 

 Blow up a balloon so that the rounded bottom is the size that you want your bowl to be.  Set the balloon into a small bowl to hold it steady while you work.  Cover the top half of the balloon using 4 to 6 layers of plaster cloth that has been cut into strips and dipped in water.  Allow to dry, then pop the balloon.  Hot glue a ring of cardboard to the bottom of the bowl.  Cover the cardboard in a couple layers of plaster cloth and let dry.

 Cover the plaster cloth in Mod Podge (painted onto the outside of the bowl) and carefully wrap tissue paper over the outer surface of the bowl.  Layer Mod Podge and tissue paper in several layers, with strips of black paper under the last layer of tissue paper to create stripes.  Let dry.

Flip the bowl and trim the top edge of tissue paper and black paper.  Cover the inside of the bowl and top edge of the bowl in black paint.  Seal with spray varnish, if desired.

And that's it!  As you can imagine, there are many creative approaches you can take in making this bowl.  One thing I did try was coating the inside of the bowl with crackle glaze and using two different colors of paint, as I've shown on this project.  The glaze ended up pooling up in the bottom of the bowl so the crackle effect didn't really work.  Next time, I'll paint a couple layers of the glaze in very thin coats and see if that works.  Happy crafting!  Enjoy!