Making Mondays: Sleepy Papier Mache Birds for Spring

You might remember a couple of weeks back that I mentioned plans of making papier mache birds.  Well, we did it!   These were so much fun for both Yashar and I.  Yashar especially loved the messiness and how tactile making these were. Apart from making the legs, drawing the eyes on, and supergluing the ribbon, Yashar made all of his little baby bird (the one with the red ribbon) himself.  I'm so proud of him  :)))   And I became a litlle mesmerised and relaxed making my 'mama' bird too! -It turned out to be a perfect activity for both 3 year olds and 30 year olds!

This is how we did it:

1. First I made up some glue using this recipe for flour and water glue from http://www.papiermache.co.uk/

I put a small amount of the glue in a bowl and the rest in a jar to use later.

2.  We made each bird shape by scrunching up 2 squares of foil  - 1 smaller for the head, 1 bigger for the body and then taping them together using masking tape.

3.  Next we ripped up old paper brochures and bags into small strips.

4.  We covered the paper, piece by piece, with glue and put in on to the bird shape - to cover each piece with glue we sometimes dipped the paper into the glue and sometimes painted glue on to each side of the paper with a paintbrush.

5. We covered the birds with a couple of layers of paper at a time, leaving them to dry fully, and then adding another two layers and so on.

6.  To make the legs I used the wire from a champagne cork - half for each set of two legs  - as in the photo.  I taped them on after the first two layers of papier mache had dried and then papier mached around them in the following layers.

7.  After doing about 8 layers we left them to dry well and then painted them using acrylic paints.  After the paint dried I drew some simple sleepy eyelids and lashes on and stuck a little piece of ribbon around each of their necks - joining it with a little superglue.

It seems like Spring is as sleepy as these birds around here...can't wait until the weather warms up!

I'll be back later in the week with a post about our crazy 'long weekend' roadtrip we just got back from.