Magazine bowl

GOOD ON PAPER… I’m no Martha Stewart, but after flipping through the new book Home, Paper, Scissors: Decorative Paper Accessories for the Home (by Patricia Zapata, Potter Craft, $20), I thought, These projects look easy enough. In fact, some of the featured crafts appear so simple (for example, the fluttering mobile and shadow-forest wall hanging are projects that’d probably take Martha mere minutes to complete), I challenged myself with one of the more intimidating projects in the book: the magazine bowl. In introducing this inexpensive craft, Zapata says she was inspired after seeing a set of square magazine coasters in a store. Luckily, the instructions in the book are easy to follow, and the only tools required are scissors, a glue gun and an old issue of TOC. The book didn’t mention that an extra pair of hands would help as you start to make the base of the bowl, so it’s good to have a friend nearby. It also said it would take three to four hours to complete—but after that long, my bowl was about half the size of the one featured in the book (perfect for housing sets of keys). If I’d stuck to the original measurements, it would’ve taken all day. Still I’m impressed with my little bowl and ready to attempt that fluttering mobile.

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