Paper Macheing a Bust

I'm back from a long 5 day festival. Well, it wasn't really a festival, just a big sale, but I'll talk about it in the next day or so.
I'm finally going to post about how I made my own paper mache bust form, which was pretty successful. :)

Supplies: newspaper, flour, water, table salt, tape (preferably masking tape), and paint.

I took a bunch of free auto sales papers from IGA.


Start balling it up!

I didn't have masking tape at the moment, so had to settle with what I had. Notice the bite marks compliments of my dog Soup.


Start taping those balls together to begin the general shape.


This was the base. I would build up from here.


Keep going...

Finally got some masking tape! This makes it so much easier. Here you can see where I was beginning to form the neck and shoulders.



Skip ahead a little to see it really start taking its shape. I had trouble with boob placement, haha.



I ended up cutting off some of the bulk with a kitchen knife and tried again. In these pics it seems to look better the first time, but it's just the angle of the the photo.


Then on to the back.



And tape it up.


After taping it all up, I was ready to start adding the paper mache.




I looked up the recipe for this and it ended up being a lot simpler than I thought it was. Just flour and water! Some people may use wall paper paste, or elmers. I guess it's just a personal preference. I stuck to the basics. I read to add about a teaspoon or two of salt to the mix to prevent molding later on. Just mix the flour and water into a thick soup/thin paste consistency. Some like to measure it out certain ways but I try to keep things simple, haha.



After covering your strips one at a time with the goop and squeegeeing it a bit with your fingers, you can start applying them to your piece. I like how the middle of this says 'save money'. :D



I read not to use more than four layers. I guess it can get a little icky and mildew ridden if you put on too much since it may not dry properly. What I would do to dry it quickly was between a couple of layers, I would put it in the bathroom. Then I would blast my space heater in there with the door closed. It gets pretty sweltering in there when I do that, and it dries out really quickly.

Then you are ready to paint!


I painted mine white first to sort of prime it.


Then I painted it a soft yellow because I knew what necklace I was going to put on it, and I thought it would look nice. I think a nice maroon would have looked good too, but my table was going to be maroon and I wanted it to stand out. Plus I had more yellow and white paint than red. :9

This was the finished product on my table! Looks pretty nice. :) I do think my neck is just a litle too big though, but not a big deal.


Those boxes you see I painted myself also. I was going to include them with certain necklaces of mine but the sale didn't really go all that well. (I will more than likely put them in my shop this week) :/ I'll post about all that later though, along with more pics of my table.

Feel free to ask me any questions about my paper mache adventure. :)