How to Recycle an Old Record Into a Basket or Bowl

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How to Recycle an Old Record Into a Basket or Bowl

Over the summer I was able to get a few old records for 10 cents a piece at a local garage sale. Being an avid crafter, I purchased them but wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them at the time.

I did know that my daughter wanted a few to try and recycle them into guitar picks for my husband. That was a pain in the butt, so I’m not sharing it.

But, I found something for me to make too in a magazine that dated back to 1981. There was a picture of a record bowl with popcorn inside of it. Oh, I’m gonna play – you know it!

I Played With Some Ideas and It Worked!

So, now you are wondering HOW it was done? It is simple.

Here Is What I Did

First be sure that you have a well ventilated kitchen. Open a window or patio door. After all, we are working with vinyl and I am not sure what chemicals are in them. It doesn’t smoke or anything, just a safety measure. Plus, after the fact – I can tell you it does have a strange smell when heating up.

STEP 1. -Take an old pizza pan and place an oven proof bowl in the center. Chose a bowl that your record will sit flat on.

STEP 2 – Center your record on top of the pan and bowl structure. At this point you will need to move around your racks in your oven to accommodate your record tower. Do a test run BEFORE you preheat your oven to 170 degrees. Learned this little tid bit the hard way.

STEP 3 – Place your record tower in the oven and heat it for 5 minutes. Check it. I did a few of the bowls and I noticed that some records are thicker vinyl than others. So start checking at the five minute mark.

STEP 4 – Checking at 5 minute mark. You can see that this bowl can stand to go to the 10 minute mark. It has just started to drop. However, I want it to be a tighter bowl, so I am going to switch out the base bowls. I need a smaller base bowl.

STEP 5 – I switched out the base bowls. My bowl is now white, instead of purple. Be sure to use a pair of hot mitts for removing the record tower from the oven when switching out bowls. The record itself is not hot; it is warm to my touch. The pan and bowl ARE HOT! Switch out to a smaller bowl if you wish. Otherwise, just continue to let drop to your liking.

STEP 6 – When the bowl is to you liking, remove with oven mitts from oven. You can play around with the shape for a VERY short time. By short, I mean 10 seconds. If you want to shape it out of the oven you can. If after it is out of the oven, you don’t like the shape, return the record to the oven and repeat process.

I made up a family movie basket and some teen baskets using the bowls. Each gift recipient thought that the basket was fun & functional and has re-purposed them in their homes.

I wouldn’t recommend using them for serving any food. They were not intended to be used for that purpose…