1.10

Hi there, world,
finally I'm back to writing again... Christmas (aka my birthday) and New Year's have come and gone, but winter has decided to stay a bit longer here, which is a first since I came living in the Netherlands. Time was spent doing wintery things, like baking a lot. K loved decorating our candy houses

and they even tasted lovely ( I managed not to burn them in the oven for the first time ever ; )  ).

A new year brings new projects, and this is one K and I are going to do together:

The idea is to make something for every month of the year  and put it in a calendar. K and I each have our own calendar, but we'll use the same creative technique and theme for each month. Since it's cold out there and we've had snow now for a while our theme for January is snowflakes. And I have to admit, K's (on the right) looks a lot more like the real thing than mine... I guess I got a little carried away...

I've also wanted to try out papier maché for ages, so I finally did. Of course I did glue paper to balloons to make lanterns when I was a kid, but I had never tried to make real papier maché.

If you haven't tried, do so! You'll be surprised what you can do with it (well, I was)! It behaves like modelling clay, and I'll certainly experment with it a little more in the near future!

I started by cutting a newspaper into little pieces,

then I soaked the stuff in water over night,

squeazed most of the water (but not all) out of it again,

sprinkled some wallpaper paste (the powdered stuff, and not too much of it) over it

and worked it like bread dow until it all was mixed well.

If you want to try this and your papier maché is too dry to work, just add a little water.

Then I took a toilet paper roll and stuck a paper ball to it with masking tape.

And then the messy bit started: I stuck the papier maché to the paper "model" in little bits at a time.
An hour and a half later (I guess I can't just do quick experiments, I always try to make things as good as possible...) I ended up with this:

Now the waiting begins... It'll take at least a couple of days for it to dry completely. After that I want to try whether you can sand it smooth, how to paint it... the finishing touches if you like. Can't wait to see how this will turn out in the end!
I'll keep you posted.