I’ve seen on loads of TV programmes and blogs the idea of making a bowl out of a vinyl record so I thought I would give it a go as a Christmas present for my brother-in-law who is very into music, as I thought he could keep all his plecs and assorted music stuff in it.

I spent ages trawling through all of the records in my local charity shops (of which there are many!) but in the end I found a record with a blank white middle, as I couldn’t find anything that was suitable for the kind of music he likes.

Once you’ve found your record, you just put it in the oven at 100 Celsius or about 215 Fahrenheit. You have to put a bowl upside down on a baking tray (to make it easier to get out) and put the record on top of that. Once the record starts to sag, take it out and then you can mold it into the shape you would like. I tried several things to help me mold the bowl including a too small pyrex dish, a large tumbler (to give it more height), the outside of our colander and finally the inside of our colander:

I must have put the bowl in and out of the oven about 20 times until I got it right. I gave up trying to mold it around the outside of something so instead pushed it into the colander, which gave me the best shape (after a couple of tries). The beauty of this craft is you can heat it 100 times until you get it right, it’s not done until you’re happy with it.