DIY Animal Bowl

During my exam season my desk has looked like a battlefield, and now that it's over - even though I have tidied it - I've been obsessed with making it as tidy and organized as possible. I think this idea is really cute, really easy to make, and it will help a lot with that.

I remembered seeing one of this in my cousin's room last summer and I don't know why it took me so long to make some myself. I had forgotten how exactly hers looked like, so I kind of improvised and did a lot of trial-and-error. And there were actually a bunch of errors. But the good news is that now that I made them, you won't! And in the end, I think my new tiny desk pets are some cuties though.

I used:

• Plastic bottle(s)
• A sharpie
• Scissors
• An x-acto knife
• Acrylic paint
• A brush

My first mistakes:

• I used some mountain dew bottles - which are green - and no matter how much I painted them, they always had this green glow. So I recommend you use transparent bottles.
• I bought the cheapest acrylic paint and it was awful. It was practically transparent. So I had to go back to the street and buy a different one. I didn't buy a really good one this time either, and it ended up cracking as it dried. So try to get some decent paint.

I used my sharpie to draw a line on my bottle where I would be cutting. Then, I drew the ears.

Learn for me: I didn't center the ears around those little stands on the bottom, and the result looked very asymmetric. 

Next step was to cut it. I used an x-acto knife for the first line I drew and some scissors for the ears.

If you like the color of your bottle, you could leave it like that, but I painted mine with acrylic paint.

I went crazy trying to find a way to hold the bowl and not getting my hands dirty and this is what worked best for me:

1. Place a paper on your desk (or wherever you're working)
2. Place the bowl on top
3. Squeeze some paint onto the paper.
4. With the brush - although I think a sponge would work great too - paint the bowl.

This way, you can also spin the paper and reach every angle.

You will need several coats of paint. I recommend you make very thin layers, and always wait for them to dry until you do the next one.

My bowl after the second coat of paint.

Once my bowl was finally opaque - or close enough - I used my sharpies to draw the faces.

You can put your paper clips inside, or flashdrives, thumbtacks, washi tape, some candies...

I made a little bunny and a little kitty and named them Lolly and Lilly.

Question of the Day

What would you put inside?

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