Plastic Bottle Sumo Wrestler Bowling Pins

About a year ago I had the great opportunity to be a guest craft poster at Sugar and Dots (Now Hello M{ess}).   My first craft on her blog was this set of cute and quirky sumo wrestler bowling pins.  It's still one of my most popular (and favorite) craft posts, so today I thought I'd re-share my sumo wrestler pins over here.

Plastic Bottle Sumo Wrestler Bowling Pins

Ack!  Too cute....

Keep reading to see how these cute guys were made:

Materials Needed to make sumo wrestler bowling pins:

- Plastic bags and paper bags (to cover and protect my work area)
- Plastic cup
- Stirrer
- 6 clean, dry, and empty Aquapod plastic bottles  (You could also use 10)
- Craft paint
- Paint Brush
- Sharpie marker
- Mod Podge
- Foam brush
- Ball
- Optional:  hairdryer

Directions to make sumo wrestler bowling pins:

1.  Cover your work area.  Put a smock on your kid to protect his clothes.  (I totally forgot to do that... eek!)

2.  Mix up your peach skin tone color.  (I combined red, yellow, and some white.) Make sure you have enough paint to coat the insides of all your bottles.  

2.  Once your paint is ready, pour a bit into each bottle.  (You don't need to entirely fill the bottle, you just need enough to coat the insides.)  Cap your bottles and shake them to evenly distribute the paint.  (Chuck had a blast doing this.)

3.  Uncap your bottles and pour out any excess paint.  Leave the caps off and let the paint dry overnight.

Note:
- Most of my paint dried by morning.  However, some areas were streaky because paint had pooled at the bottom of the bottle.  I ended up trying three techniques to fix that problem:  (1)  I used a hairdryer to help speed the drying process, (2)  I tried letting the bottles dry on their sides to coat the streaky bits, and (3)  I dipped my finger into the bottle and tried to coat the streaky areas manually.  By the end, my bottles were about 95% coated and 5% streaky.

4.  Cap your bottles.  Now it's time to paint the outsides!  Use black and white paint to paint the top knot and mawashi (white diaper-looking thing).  Then, use a Sharpie marker to draw on a face.

5.   Protect your paint job with Mod Podge.

Notes:

• Initially I didn't do this, and paint started majorly chipping off after a couple of rounds of bowling.  Bummer.
• Mod Podge has helped to protect my paint job.  But, after two days of hard core playing, tiny bits of paint are still chipping off.  To really prevent this from happening, you could probably use some sort of spray on sealant.
• Chuck is pretty good about not putting things in his mouth, but if your child isn't, then you should definitely watch him while he plays with the pins.

6.  Enjoy!

Hope these sumo wrestlers bring a smile to your face!

(Wow!  It's amazing to see how much Chuck has grown since I first posted this craft.  Time really flies!)

Happy crafting friends!  Pin It