Papier Mache

I've been thinking about Papier Mache— you know, that crafty thing you did as a kid, to make masks or the bust of Abraham Lincoln or a lopsided little bowl to give your mother for Mothers' Day to keep her rings in. A very messy, get-your-hands-gooshy activity that I loved. I had a yen to do it again. The last time I was at Powells, this used book, priced at $3.95 sort leapt off a shelf at me.

It was a sign.

I decided I needed (needed!) to make one of those cool yarn bowls with the side yarn guide to hold my knitting. A trip to the dollar store yielded a plastic flower pot that could work as a form and I found, online, a good recipe for the paste needed to make it happen. Gooshiness!

I tore up strips and bits of newsprint and started covering the outside of my pot with paper, well-gooped with paste, until I had a couple layers, then left it to dry overnight.

I thought the plastic pot form would slip right out when the paper dried, but it didn't. (Maybe I should have greased the pot...) So I cut through it with an exacto knife and pulled it off. After trimming the top and bottom edges evenly, I patched the cut side.

I drew my yarn guide on the side and cut it, and glued a circle of foam board in the the bottom of the bowl.

Then I covered it all, inside and out with a couple more layers of pasted paper, smoothing it out and really saturating it all with the paste, and set it outside in the sun to dry well.

I left it for several days to dry and harden. I sanded it lightly, then painted it inside and out with gesso. When that was dry I drew my design for painting it with acrylic paints.

I painted about 3 coats of acrylic to get good, solid coverage, then sealed it all with acrylic medium.

Here's my finished yarn bowl. It was about a weeklong project with all the layers and drying between. Pretty labor-intensive for what it was, but fun and satisfying.

Now, back to my "real" work!

 

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