DIY Tribal Key Bowl from Thrift Store Bowls

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Hola,
Do you have friends or family members that you exchange clothes or home accessories with? My sister and I have swapped a few items here and there. It’s so fun creating a new look with something swapped or thrifted. A few of the bloggers who exchanged Christmas gifts for the blogger Secret Santa also decided to do a thrift item exchange. Sara of Shabby Grace Blog coordinated the event and requested that we spend no more than $5.00 on a thrift store item and send it to our secret santa.

The lovely Jess of Domicile 37 sent me a set of wooden bowls. There were 3 bowls, one large and two smaller ones. She also sent me a blue and white decorative ball which I placed in my garage entryway shelf. I used one of the smaller bowls to make a DIY tribal key bowl/catch also for my entryway.

It is one of the easiest DIY projects to do! I used my engraver pen which was a present from my mother in law this past Christmas. If you don’t have one of these, definitely get one. It’s great for wood, glass, and other surfaces. So far I’ve only tried it on wood, but I’m looking forward to trying other surfaces. You can purchase the one I used here.

Here is how the bowl looked before.

Using your engraver, make a line that encircles the bowl. This will help you anchor your design. By no means do you have to follow the exact design I used. The fun part of this project is that you can do any design.

Prior to designing my bowl, I did google mud cloth designs which help formulate an idea of what I wanted. I added triangles right above the line, then “z’s” directly in between.

After a few more additions, I cleaned the bowl off with a moist paper towel and applied a bit of hemp oil to seal it. You’ll want to be sure to engrave your bowl deep with the designs so that the hemp oil can highlight the design. A design too shallow will not show up as great as one that is deeper into the bowl.

Finish by adding a personal touch inside the bowl itself. I was going to write “keys” in Spanish but had already started writing a “K”. Oh nuts! I bet it will also look cute with your name too.

Well that’s it my amigos! Easy, peasy. A quick 5 minute project with one of my thrifty bowls. I have a few more ideas of what to do with the other 2 bowls so stay tuned for those projects.