I have relatives that graduated from the University of Michigan and from Michigan State University so I thought I would make some bowls for them.  I made two with lids and in the lid I put a university coin that can be read from either side.  Here are the bowls:

 This bowl has two strips of two part epoxy using Epoxie Sculpt place in 1/4" wide groves.

 The lid has a University of Michigan coin that can be viewed from either side of the lid.

This bowl has green and white strips of Epoxie Sculpt.  The lid was painted green and then clear coated.

The lid has a Michigan State University coin showing the Spartan head and can be viewed from either side of the lid. 

 These bowls have the green and white strips and have 4 inch openings and no lids. 

 The bottom of the lidless bowls.

 

This is the bottom of the bowls with their lids.  Michigan State University of the left and the University of Michigan on the right in case you can't tell.

I have some other relatives and will be making bowls using their school colors.  I used a boring bar to hollow out the bowls. 

 This is the scraper I use on the boring bar to finish the inside.  The bit is made from an old file. 

 

Here is my boring bar setup.  Note behind my work is a scoop for the dust collector.  I have magnets on the lathe that I fasten tools to.  There are three auxiliary lights that illuminate the work.  I made the wood tray to hold tool rests for the lathe.  The dollar store pans are there to collect the shavings and make it easy to dump them in another container.   In the background you can see a board with chucks mounted on short sections of PVC pipe pressed into holes in a board. 

 

This is the support for the boring bar.  The base is hard wood and the two upper sections are pine.  There is a smooth strip of band iron the boring bar sits on and that makes it easier to slide.   I don't have to remove the tail stock if I slide it to the very end of the lathe.   You can see the many magnets I have on the lathe to hold tools I often use. 

 The camera is mounted on a block that can be rotated and slide on the support to align the camera to the different bits. Originally I had a solid end to the camera mount and it had a thumb screw to hold it to the support.  I moved the thumb screw to the side and cut out the end as I needed to slide the camera mount up an down the support based on the tool I was using. 

 The monitor displays what the camera sees.  On a clear plastic sheet I drew lines that mark the edge of the cutting tool, in this case a scraper.  I then drew a dotted line a little over 1/4 inch away by placing a section of wood next to the bit and marking the outer edge.  When the dotted line gets to the edge I am at the right wall thickness.  I bought the monitor from Goodwill for $20. 

 This is an old Toshiba laptop running Windows XP.  I have a camera monitoring software I run and move it to the big screen.  The camera plugs into a USB port on the side and the monitor (blue connector) plugs into a 15 pin VGA port.  I have a bluetooth touch pad that I use at the lathe to control the program on the big monitor.  This allows me to control the program without having to move back and forth to the computer.  When not in use I cover both with a cloth cover to keep the dust and chips out of the system.