Playing in Paste

  Every minute of today was spent on either the book or the vendor event I'm hosting a week from tomorrow.

Did you know that every one of the children's mysteries has at least two activities in the back that have something to do with the story? In this book, the kids make a mask out of paper mache. I try to include pictures of these crafts if it seems important. Since I haven't done paper mache since I was a kid, I thought I'd better give it a go, just to see how messy and do-able it really is.

The first layer covering a mold needs to be flexible paper like tissue paper. This can just be stuck on to the vaseline which is used to coat the mold so the paste won't stick to it.

Then you want to make sure the newspaper pieces get really saturated with the paste.

The smaller the object you are making, the smaller the pieces of paper need to be.

I finished this layer and it is drying. This example won't get as many layers as it should, but I'll be able to do enough to demonstrate the steps.

As I recall, I made a rectangular container that was molded on a bread pan in Girl Scouts. I painted it dark green. Probably because that was the only color of paint we had around. That might have been during the years when the porch exterior was dark green, and there was paint left over. But now I'm a grown up with craft supplies. I have a lot of acrylic colors around. So, I guess, stay tuned to see how it turns out.

I did some more weed whacking between spurts of rain. The illustrations did get finished last night. I sent a pdf of The Lonely Donkey to a proofreader. I have one side of the roadside sign for the vendor event lettered. It's not as nice as I'd like, but I don't have hours and hours to spend on it. It's better than junk. It will have to do. I want to get it up tomorrow.

See Red Sky Wrong