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Used Jonni’s pattern to make a mask for a Safari theme day at my workplace. No one believed I made it until I showed them the inside where my Shreddies boxes showed LOL. Our team used this mask and some cardboard monkey masks to set the scene for the theme day.
Karen Norris
Latest Paper Mache Tutorials:
I’ve used [your paper mache clay] recipe countless times for many years, it’s the best modeling medium I’ve ever tried. Dries hard as a rock and allows for some great detail. I’ve had to break a piece off of a piece of metal and I literally had to whack it with a hammer as hard as I could a few times to get it loose. Thank you so much for inspiring my creativity!!
Dalet Bet
Masks and Sculptures Made by Our Readers:
Crystal Wall Lamp
Made by Kris Pratt I was inspired by many different things when creating this. The base is made with egg cartons glued together to make
Hi Jonni,
I am going to be a hotdog vendor for Halloween and I came across your website when I decided to make a box of paper mache hotdogs. I watched a few of your tutorials, but I’m wondering if you might offer advice on which recipe(s) I should use.
I made my buns using crumbled paper and masking tape and I planned on using your paper mache clay recipe over the buns I made. I plan to use balloons for the actual hotdogs.
I watched a few of your tutorials, but I’m wondering if you might offer advice on which recipe(s) I should use for each. I was thinking that I would use your paper mache clay recipe for the hotdog buns, but I saw that it won’t work with the balloon. For the balloons, do you recommend using newsprint with a glue+water paper mache mixture? Once finished, I plan to seal them with gesso then pain them and hot glue the hotdogs into the buns. Does this sounds like a good plan or would you recommend a different method(s)? Thank you so much!
Hi Sarah. I don’t recommend any form of paper mache with balloons. The air inside the balloons will expand and shrink as it changes temperature, and you almost always get either wrinkled paper mache, or cracks. However, balloons do have great shapes, so I can see why they’re so appealing. You might want to try covering your balloons using the cooked flour and water paste with thin torn strips of newspaper to make a nice smooth paintable surface. Wrap your paper all the way around the balloon, if you can, to make the the paper mache as strong as possible. You’ll need several layers, and make sure the paper mache is dry all the way through before letting the air out of the balloon. If there’s any moisture left in the layer next to the rubber, your paper mache hot dogs will collapse.
You might also want to watch my video that I made about using a layer of plaster cloth first – that really does work well, and takes most of the frustration out of the project – but if you don’t have a hobby store handy, the plaster cloth would have to be ordered online.