Iron Craft Challenge #28 – Rolled Magazine Bowl

This week for Iron Craft we were challenged to take something we would normal throw away (or recycle) and turn it into something else. I was a little stumped about what to do for most of this week (being sick didn’t help), then I realized I had a big stash of supplies waiting to be used right in front of me.

We only have subscriptions to five magazines, but we seem to have a hard time getting rid of them. Time to turn some of them into something else.

I’ve always kind of liked the look of those rolled magazine platters and bowls you see in gift shop sometimes. They are one of those things that I see and say, “Oh, I could make that.”

There are a ton of tutorial from making your own online. I used the one from Abstract Octopus because I liked the straight sides which makes it more like a round box than a bowl. I thought they might make a cute way to store things like safety pins and bobbins on my craft table. They are a little time consuming and messy to make, but not really that hard.

You just take a page of a magazine and start rolling it up. I started with a fold of about 1/8″ and stopped rolling when I had used about half of the page. At this point the strip was about 1/4″ wide. I glued the final fold shut using tacky glue and cut off the excess.

Then I put glue on one side of your strip and start rolling it up. My first strip was a little thick so I had a hard time getting a nice roll, thinner strips work better. I faced all the cut sides inside with the cuts facing down. Hold it together until the glue holds. I added more strips until the disc was as big as I wanted my bowl.

For the sides, I folded magazine pages into strips that were 1″ thick. Once again I glued the last fold shut. I glued these thicker strips around the outside of the disc so they just overlapped at the end, cutting off any extra. The strips were spaced out about 1/4″ until I reached the height I wanted the bowl.

To make the sides a little thicker and secure, I then glued 1/4″ strips over the top of the wider strips.

I think this turned out ok, but not as cute as I had hoped or as strong. I found it almost impossible to get a nice circle shape which was frustrating. If I try doing this again I think I’l stick to the basic bowl with sloping sides made completely out of the 1/4″ strips.