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I had a lot of fun today, making this little hummingbird. I would have made a whole tree’s worth, but my little rented cottage isn’t big enough for a Christmas tree. I think I’ll keep him around, and hang in my kitchen window.
I made this guy really fast, so I didn’t pay much attention to getting the wing details right, or making the colors authentic. It came close, and a dozen of them on a tree would look really nice – but you might want to go a bit slower and be more careful. If you happen to have some metallic paint, be sure to use it. I think that would look a lot nicer than the metallic wax I happened to have on hand.
Since a recipe of paper mache clay will make enough for 20 or thirty of these, you have several choices. You can make lots, or you could invite friends over and have a hummingbird party – or you could just cut the recipe in half. If you want to use my pattern for the hummingbird ornament, you’ll find it down below the video.
When I was making this hummingbird, I remembered that I made a tutorial several years ago for butterflies, and they’re made almost exactly the same way. A tree with both butterflies and hummingbirds would be really nice, don’t you think? You can find the butterfly tutorial here.
You are the very 1st company/blogger or anyone I’ve allowed to send notifications. I appreciate your work and will try to make hummingbirds for next Christmas.
i made this on but its still need some painting, I put magnet on it to put it on the fridge
Hi Reo. If you tried to send us a photo of your hummingbird, I hope you’ll try again. The image may have been too big for the system.
Jonni, thanks so much for sharing, what did you use for the eye?
I painted the eyes.
I see a lot of happy people used your tutorial, and I wanted to show you mine! I was worried, when I made my clay it was very stiff, more like Play dough than your creamy mixture. But it was so much fun to work with, I gave it a go anyway and am I glad I did!
He came out great, Ann. Thanks for showing him to us.
Thank you.
Tried this before but having technology issues…. thanks so much for the information and inspiration! My 10 year old son and I are having a great time!
Hello!
I happened upon one of your paper mâché recipes a few days ago on Pinterest. I’ve been working my way around your site in bits and snatches and I find it very inspiring! I did some paper mâché a long time ago, but with the ideas you have shared think that I would like it better. I wanted to make some kind of bird for our tree this year and had not settled to anything so finding your Hummer was just perfect! My 10 year old son and I had a lovely afternoon yesterday working on our birds. I must confess to being very slow and it took ages and I’d only finished 5 armatures. Later I thought I’d try to do one more before bed and digressed(if you can see the little round bird, the dog and the snowman….oh yeah and some butterflies….) this morning though I hit on a technique that made the hummingbird go faster for me that is to sort of mold the sides in my hands first then sandwich them around the paper body shape and wrap them with a little sheet of foil, then I did the head the same way! I got them down to 15 minutes doing this and was much relieved! I was thinking I might not make my goal of 10! So ready for the next step- now
I’m just hoping I can do it! Thanks so much for your generous sharing of technique and experience! Thanks to you we’ll have a great memory!
Good advice for making more hummingbirds, faster. Will you be using them on your tree this year?
Yes! I mean, I hope so- and gift a few, if I am happy with them. We will start the next step after school today, I can hardly wait!