Made by Emily Willis, Jennifer Willis, and John Willis
We needed an art medium to build a 12 foot jungle tree. After exploring many different mediums, we decided to use paper mache. We used one of the recipes from your website. This was our first big paper mache project, and we learned as we went along. We were so excited with the results. (Edit – watch the video below to see how they made the tree.)
Your link for the explanation doesn’t work. Could you please send me the correct link to see the process? Would love to do this in our childrens church!
Hi Rachel. I don’t know if Emily is still watching for comments on her post, but when I put that link into my browser window it asked me to download an app. That doesn’t sound safe, so I’ll remove it from Emily’s post. I hope she sees this – maybe she put the tutorial on another page that we could get access to. It would be fun to see how it was done.
Yes, all her links don’t work, I’d love to see what worked during this process! Do you have any info to this project? I see chicken wire and real branches?!
I don’t have any other information, but it does look like she attached chicken wire to some short wooden boards that were attached to the wall, and then some 2x4s were strung between the ‘trunk’ of the tree to the ceiling and one wall. I assume they were bolted in – in a public place with children, you’d need to make everything really strong. If it came down when someone tried to climb the tree, it could cause some injuries.
Some paper mache, or maybe masking tape, covers the wire and the padding that was put around the branches. You could shape the tree with crumpled paper and masking tape. Then some brown paper was crumpled up into the long ropes to add the interesting bark features, and more paper mache was put on top. You could use paper mache clay for this last layer, and use a knife or trowel to give it a bark-like texture. But I’m just guessing, of course. If you do make one, I hope you’ll let us see how it turns out. 🙂
Hi Rachel. I know this is really late, but I just found a video on YouTube that Emily posted about her tree. I just now added it to her post, so you can see it here.
Wow!!! Looks like a prop for a Hollywood play. Amazing job!!
Wow amazing! Gives me inspiration to make my nativity stable!!!
Waaw!! Truly amazing how this turned out… the branches, the colors…everything is just so well done.