Wood dough bowls are one of those vintage staples that can fit into many decorating styles and be filled with a variety of things. I always love seeing how much character and patina they have from years of use. Real ones are expensive, though. And while there are many resin reproductions to buy, they aren’t much cheaper. As I’m always on the lookout for a unique and inexpensive DIY project, I decided to try my hand at creating my own faux reproduction dough bowl. And I must say that it turned out pretty realistic looking! A full tutorial along with in-depth instructions are creating this yourself can be found on my blog.
You can create a rustic DIY dough bowl that rivals the quality of any reproduction treen ware that you can buy and it really isn’t that difficult.
The base for this dough bowl was a Goodwill globe that I took apart and cut in half. You can use just about anything as a base, though. Try a plastic bowl or a container!
The bowl gets covered with a couple coats of joint compound on both sides of the base. (This can be purchased at the hardware store.) Do not make it smooth because those ridges are what will create your “wood grain” later on.
Check out the realistic wood texture that you can create with the joint compound. And after it is painted and coated with antiquing wax, the “wood grain” shows through!
Once in awhile the joint compound will crack as it dries. You can fill these cracks with more compound. Occasionally I like to leave a few to resemble what can form in real wood bowls.
So what do you think? Is my DIY bowl realistic looking? And more importantly, is this a project you’d try yourself?
