This is a fun craft to try......melting records! You can use these as snack bowls and they can hold smaller items if you fill in the hole. You can buy a resin kit at most craft stores and use this to fill in the hole. I've used them for chips and candy, as is. They also make great gift baskets to hold your actual gift. I love looking for a specific record that I know my friend will like or you can look for the date that a record was produced or the movie hit the screen. Anything to make it meaningful to the recipient. Goodwill sells these for $.75, so your investment is small.
Just use your regular oven to melt these. They will begin to melt at around 250 degrees, but this can vary. Just watch the record. It only takes a few minutes to get soft. There are different ways to do this, but I like to melt mine centered over a large glass mixing bowl, open side up, and when it softens, push it into the bowl. Wear oven gloves or dish washing gloves. I like dish washing gloves because they are less bulky and give me better flexibility. The record will be hot (obviously) but not very hot. You only have a few seconds to work because the record will begin to cool and stiffen immediately after it's removed from the oven. The other way to form these is to slump them over an upside down glass bowl, then quickly remove them from the bowl, turn the bowl over, and push the record into the bowl. Although this may let you control the record a little better, I'm just too slow to get the record off and pushed into the bowl before it becomes too hard to shape. Another tip that helped me control the record was to place a large bolt in the center of the record to use as a handle. There is no easy way to grip and slide the softened record and the bolt gives me a way to move it towards the center if I haven't lined it up right. This won't make a lot of sense until you actually try to make one of these. I would start with a test record, not the one that you would like to use for your bowl or gift. As simple as these are to make, it's also easy to mess up and get your record stuck to itself. You can reheat and try again, but I haven't had much success with this. Making it work the first time around is the way to go. Have fun with these. Maybe you could put your Halloween candy in one of these! I forgot to add that if you are going to put food items in them that might be greasy or wet, spray the record bowl or just the label area with Krylon Clear, or similar. This will make your record label waterproof instead of soaking up the potato chip grease. ;)