DIY: Turn a Plain Bowl into a Watermelon Sensation

Are you tired of looking at that plain old plastic or glass fruit bowl? Do something about it. Decorate it the way you want.

Not sure how to make it different? Try a watermelon look to it. You will need some tape, scissors, paper and pencil for pattern making, and some red, green and black spray paint. A spray on lacquer will seal it off so that you can put food in it.

You will need to do this project in a well-ventilated area so that you will not be overwhelmed from the fumes of the paint. This is a fun project to do outdoors.

Set up an area with a drop cloth to work on so that clean up is quick and easy. Put on a painter's mask to further help protect your health. Make certain the bowl is clean and completely dry before you begin spraying on the paint.

Tape down on the inside of the bowl about ½" down from the top all the way around. Carefully spray on the green paint at this top border a light layer. Allow this time to thoroughly dry because as soon as it does you will need to turn the bowl over.

With the bowl now upside down, paint the entire bottom side green. If you really want to give it a watermelon look, you can use a liner paintbrush and dab on streaks of black and white. When this is dry, spray on the lacquer and allow this to dry well, too.

Turn the bowl back over, and test an area of the border you just painted to see if the tape pulls off the paint. If it doesn't then it is okay to tape over this so you can proceed to finish painting the bowl.

Have something like newspaper or plastic you plan to throw away to tape to, and hang this over the edge of the bowl so that red and black paint don't get on the outside of the bowl.

There is one of two ways to do the next step. You can either make an insert stencil out of paper to later spray in the seeds over the red, or you can tape off the seeds over black paint and paint in the red. Either one of these methods will work.

What I find looks contemporary is to paint vertical, pointed black ovals inside the bowl. Leaving the tape over the painted black area, and then painting the red on over the border and large seed tape will do this.

Allow the paint to almost fully dry. This will give sharp clean edges to the shapes you have just painted. A razor blade will help in starting to peel of the tape for the seeds.

One more round of lacquer to coat the inside of the bowl, and the project will be close to finished. A second coat of lacquer to your snazzy bowl will ensure its longevity.