For about a year, my friend Reeve and I have talked about starting a craft day.  We finally followed through and invited a few friends over for a spur of the moment craft day.  After looking through pinterest, we settled on making doily bowls.

First we went “doily hunting” as Reeve called it. We found a bunch of doilies second-hand from .40-$4.  If you are local, the Sleepy Poet is a great place to find doilies–just be open to looking at all the displays and lifting things up that are sitting on doilies.

Besides doilies, you’ll need some kind of fabric stiffener {we used “stiffy” available at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby–don’t forget to use your coupon!}.  And you’ll also need a bunch of different sized bowls and plastic wrap.

Making doily bowls is a perfect quick craft to make with your family or friends over Christmas.  You just need to gather the supplies, drench the doilies in fabric stiffener, squeeze out the excess, and spend a few minutes shaping your doily over your plastic wrap covered bowls.  We also covered a few tables with trash bags just to have some safe working surfaces.

Here, Angela is squeezing out her drenched doily.  You don’t want to wring it out because that will mess up the shape, just squeeze out the extra stiffener.  We just put some fabric stiffener in a bowl and you can also see her pre-plastic-wrapped upside down bowl waiting for its doily.

You can pinch or pleat or fold the doily around the bowl mold. Then you let it dry over night.

Or if you have a dryer like mine, you can put in that shelf and like low heating kiln, dry your doilies for about an hour on high heat.

Finally, a good use for our dryer.

Of course we found other uses for the doily bowls.

If you are getting together with friends or family this week for an extended period of time, think about planning a little fun craft to do together.  Reeve started a pinboard so we could keep track of good ideas, feel free to check it out–or maybe you are the food making type?  Ever tried making Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls with a group?  Just make sure you have lots of surface area!