Drop cloth Birds Nest Tutorial or Textured Bowl

I am going to be away this weekend to North carolina to visit a girlfriend of mine from grad school that I haven't seen in about 20 years! I cannot wait to see her sweet little babies and meet her husband. AND we are going to Metrolina to antique! It is almost to much for my poor heart to stand! I am sure I'll have lots of photos to share so stop back.

But while I am away, I thought I'd teach you how to make my drop cloth birds nest. 

 Here's the skinny...

 You will need:

threads pulled from a drop cloth scrap

Mod Podge

tinfoil

bowl

newspaper

and about 15 minutes of time to make this then about 24 hours drying time

The first few  photos will show you how to make a textured bowl from the drop cloth threads. It was supposed to be the nest but I realized it made it too tight and too closely followed the form of the bowl once I had removed the tinfoil.  But it actually looks pretty cool as a textured bowl, so we're going to go with it. I think I am going to try this again using a very large, flatter bowl and see how it turns out. My mind is going full tilt into platters, and long trays......

Okay back to the bird's nest...

Gather your supplies

Cover your bowl with the tinfoil

Pour the Mod Podge into a bowl and add a bit to the tinfoil. Add a bit of the threads randomly and pat down. 

I found that using my hands to apply the glue was the easiest and fastest method of application.

Just keep adding and building up the bowl/nest with threads and glue. Try to make sure it is evenly covered and no gaps are too noticeable.

Now let it dry for 24 hours upside down. For the bowls, you will want to apply the glue more heavily but I think it might look better if the outer threads don't get as much. I also used matte instead of the gloss. The gloss might be better for the bowl and the matte is definitely the way to go for the nest.

The next day, turn it over and peel off the tinfoil gently.

You will now let any remaining glue dry before using the bowl/nest.

So once I turned it over and realized my mistake, I rounded the bottom of the bowl with a tinfoil flattened ball and then added a plastic newspaper bag over that to make it less bowl shaped and more nest shaped

I then very loosely added the threads and used the Mod Podge more lightly. I still made sure that the threads were adhered to each other, just more lightly and loosely. 

It will dry much faster since you do not use as much glue. So once the outside looks dry (about 4 hours) turn it over and remove the tinfoil and then reshape the foil and let it dry as above.

I did give the nest a good coating of spray adhesive inside and out to help hold it together but look more natural.

So now you know how this.....

turned into this..... 

So maybe you have no desire to save hundreds of threads and make them into something totally different. But hopefully, this just might make you see things in a different light and the next time you see something, it might just spark an idea that makes you go "Wow, I can do this!"

Now go pull some strings and see what kind of Marionette you come up with!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!