I love making holiday decorations with my kids, and the best material I’ve found to use is paper-mache. Kids love getting sloppy and I love having a way to repurpose newspapers and junk mail circulars into something that will last for years and spark the memories of making them every year I take them out.
I like to use paper-mache on holiday crafts and decorations, but you can use it for anything. Holidays, birthdays, special events or any time you want to get down, dirty and crafty with your kids!
What you do with the paper-mache will vary from project to project. But you will always need to start the same way – with the paste and the paper.
What you will need:
- Easy to clean work space and aprons (very important)
- Flour
- Water
- Food coloring (optional)
- Newspaper, grocery/department store mailers
- That’s it
Prep the area and mix the paste
Find an easy-to-clean area in which to work. If you have a glass table, use that as glass will clean easy. Avoid working in carpeted areas.
For added ease of cleaning: put garbage bag or spare paper down where you will be working.
Combine flour and water in mixing bowl – for every 1 cup of flour, add 2 cups water. The amount you need will vary based on the size of your project. I recommend starting with a 1-to-2 cup flour/water mixture. You can always make more. Mix the paste until there are no clumps of flour remaining. Consistency should be like a pancake batter, so mix while you pour in the water to avoid over-runny paste, and adjust the water level accordingly.
TIP: Add food coloring to the paste to give your project a good base color. For example: orange food coloring to make a pumpkin, red to make large Christmas ornaments, brown for a turkey. This will make it a little easier to paint later.
Kid Fun: let the kids mix the paste and tell them they have to taste it to see if it’s ready. It’s a yucky, fun joke and won’t hurt them if they actually do it – it’s only flour, water and maybe food coloring.
Prep the paper
Tear your paper into strips. The width of your strips will vary based on the size and shape of the base form for your project.
If you are using a balloon as the base form, the width of your strips should be roughly 10-20% of the diameter (width, side to side) of your balloon. For example: using a 10-inch diameter would need strips no wider than 1 or 2 inches. Anything wider than that, and the edges of your strips won’t lie flat to the form without bubbling or creasing, which makes it harder to get good coverage and even drying.
The length of your strips is less important. In general, though, the shorter the strip the easier to work with, but the more strips needed to get good coverage.
TIP: I find that newspaper or grocery circulars you get in the mail work best. The paper is thin enough that it will easily lie flat to whatever base form you are using, dry relatively quickly, but strong enough to not tear very easily. Tissue paper will tear too easily when wet, and construction paper is too thick and heavy – it won’t form easily and dries slowly and unevenly.
Kid Fun: Let the kids help cut the paper into strips (using kid safe scissors of course!). This cuts down on work for you and helps the young ones develop fine motor skills. Plus they love to cut stuff up!
That’s it! Now you have a bowl of paste and a mound of strip ready to become whatever you can dream up.
Have fun, and please share your project photos with The Daily PBJ. We love to see the creative ideas our readers come up with.
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