DIY Ring Bowl

It's no Paloma's Nest bowl:

Sourced from Paloma's Shop

And it's no Love Grows By Giving ring dish:

Sourced from Love Grows' website.

And sadly, it's certainly no Prince Design UK bird bowl:

But it's my bowl, and I made it with my own two hands.  Let's start at the beginning shall we?

Supplies:

Sculpy pearlescent clay (I bought two, but only used one - they were less than a dollar a piece)

Clear acrylic letter stamps

Doily (hand crocheted by my great grandmother)

I laid out a colorful Cheesecake factory bag on the table so there was more contrast in the instructions.  As a side effect, it also helped shield the table from ground in pearlescent clay bits.  (*Side Note: Although Cheesecake factory gives you WAY TOO MUCH food, I really enjoyed the goat cheese pizza that I had there, brought home in this bag, and then ate for the next 6 days.)

After warming up the clay a little bit and kneading it in my hand, I started to use the heel of my hand to flatten the clay into a circle.

When I was fairly satisfied with the uniformity of the thickness and the general shape, I took a picture of it next to a pen so that you could get some perspective on its relative size.

I love when it looked like this - a blank canvas, begging to be adorned!  And adorn I did.  I use the I, D, and O letters to spell out a secret message in the clay (inspiration from Paloma!)

Then I used the doily to imprint a sweet pattern on portions of the flattened disc (Inspired by Love Grows and Prince Design UK!)

The hand crocheted doily imprint was a hot mess.  Seriously.  Ewww.

Back to square one!  Knead it back down.

I got the bright idea to use a paper doily (from a project that I've been procrastinating about) for the second go at it.

Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner!  Much better, if I do say so myself.  Hahahaha, I do.  Carry on.

I decided at the last minute to prick a hole so that I could add a ribbon or an ornament hook later.  A tooth pick did the trick quite nicely.

To get the dish to bake in a curved bowl shape, I rigged a piece of aluminum foil into an oven safe bowl and then baked the clay according the package instructions.

To finish the bowl, I used a silver sharpie pen to highlight some of the doily impressions and tied a bit of silver ribbon to the top.  I feel "meh" about the final product - kindof like it was a crafting fail.  Looking back, I might have left it to bake flat because I think that it spread a little unevenly in my rudimentary bowl contraption.  After I looked at this picture a bit, I decided that the edges needed to be more uniform.  I took a nail file to it and it really started to look sharper!  I pretty much ruined my nail file though, so the rest will have to wait until I get my hands on a sheet of find grit sand paper to finish the job.

Unfortunately, we don't have any chubby little ring bearer paws to hold onto this, so I think that the finished product will merely be a prop for some professional ring pictures.  I'm pretty pleased  considering that the whole project was less than a dollar!

Are you using a ring bowl or dish for your wedding?    Are you planning on using it in your home after the wedding?