Make Beautiful Sculptures and Masks with Paper Mache and Paper Mache Clay
Click the yellow button above to see my easy patterns for paper mache sculptures and masks.
- Create beautiful gifts and decorative sculptures for your home.
- Or quickly create professional-looking headdress masks for your local production of the Lion King play or a Vacation Bible School event.
The patterns make it easy, even if you’ve never made anything with paper mache before.
Latest Paper Mache Tutorials:
Timon Headdress Mask Pattern for the Lion King Play
This Timon headdress mask pattern for the Lion King Play is easy to use. Just cut out the pieces, tape them together, and add one layer of paper mache.
DIY Gnome Update
My DIY Gnome spent the winter outside, in Minnesota – and it’s still waterproof and hard as a rock. Success. Except for the varnish…
Is Paper Mache Clay Waterproof?
Is paper mache clay waterproof? This video tells you why it isn’t, but also gives some tips so you can use your paper mache clay sculptures outside anyway – at least for awhile.
Jonni’s Sculpting Books
Paper mache recipes.
You can find all the traditional paper mache paste recipes on this site, plus my famous paper mache clay recipe (and several new variations). You can always find the recipe you’re looking for under the Recipes link at the tip of the site.
Or download my free booklet, The 5 Best Recipes for Paper Mache.
Your Host.
I’m Jonni Good, the creator of this site and the author of several best-selling sculpting books on amazon.com. You’ll find me on the Daily Sculptors page almost every day, along with many other friendly and supportive folks who love creating beautiful things with this exciting medium. Be sure to drop by and say “hi.” We’d love to meet you.
Masks and Sculptures Made by Our Readers:
Dear Jonni,
Today I told my husband my plans for the day ; Laundry and paper mache. He looked at me panic stricken and said, “Are you going to use toilet paper??” I burst out laughing. With today’s corona virus scare we can’t find toilet paper in our stores. I eased his mind by telling him I had some clay frozen, and then I was really stupid and told him I had three rolls Rolls of toilet paper in my paper mache bin. He replied, “ah…you shouldn’t have told me that” I may have to place it under lock and key!!?
Good point! I’m not out of TP, thank goodness. I ordered a big carton from Amazon when I first started hearing the news out of China. Now they’re out, and my local store is out. Time to get out the old wash cloths, I guess. (My daughter knew someone way back in college who never used TP. Everyone else in the student boarding house thought she was crazy, but maybe she was on to something?)
Hi Jonni,
Can paper mache projects (statues) be sealed to withstand extreme weather (snow etc)? If so, what do you recommend using?
Thanks so much,
Niki
Hi Niki. Some people say that Flex Seal will work, but other people who’ve tried it say it didn’t work for them. Did you see my video series about the garden gnome? It’s not paper mache, but it stood outside all winter, in Minnesota, and came through just fine.
Hi Jonni
I am Lorna Atkinson from Abudhabi in the United Arab Emirates.Please let me know if you have the masks for other animals like giraffe, rhino, elephant, deer etc.
Hi Lorna. I have wall sculpture patterns for the elephant and deer, and a giraffe head sculpture that stands on a table. But no masks of those animals. Not yet, anyway. I try to make a new one once a month, though, so check back later.
Hi Jonni,
I wonder whether this recipe would work for small oaxacan alebrije sculptures for sixth-graders (12 years old). I’d keep it simple. Would I use a foil armature or would I even need an armature for small, simple shapes like turtles and frogs?
What do you think?
Hi Lynn. The paper mache clay recipe can’t be formed in the hand, like real clay. That’s also true for my air dry clay recipe. They both need to be applied in a thin layer over an armature. In fact, it’s the armatures that take the most time, because that’s where all the real sculpting is done. You could use crumpled paper and masking tape instead of foil, so you don’t need the hot glue guns, but you’d need a lot of masking tape.
WED clay would work for hand sculpting. It can’t be fired, but it’s slow to dry out, and a small piece my grandson made five years ago is still intact, even though it wasn’t sealed. You can sometimes find it at pottery stores. If you have to order it from amazon.com the price, which include shipping, might be too high for a school project, though.
I am looking for adult size mask patterns on otter, martin, deer, moose, eagle, crane, elk, fish, beaver, Linx, all wild animals of Ontario except squirrels, mice, rabbits,
Hi Marie. I haven’t made mask patterns for any of those animals yet. I have a deer sculpture pattern, but it is intended to be displayed on the wall. I hope to make an eagle this year, though. Good luck finding what you need.