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African Animals Pattern Set.
Save $10 when you buy this three-pattern set. Use the patterns to create memorable gifts, or to bring a little bit of Africa to your own home
A conversation got started recently on the blog about how fun it would be to see all the elephants that people have made using my baby elephant pattern and video tutorial. It was Soul’s idea originally, and many people gave it a thumbs up – including me.
So I gathered together all the paper mache elephant pictures I could find in the comments on this site. There are over 26 pages of comments that have the word “elephant” in them, and a lot of comment images that show an elephant don’t actually use that word in the comment – so I may have missed a few. If your elephant got left out of this “class reunion,” please let me know and I’ll add it to the gallery.
And if you made an elephant but were too shy to show it off, I hope you’ll do it now. Just add a comment below, and upload a photo of your paper mache elephant. I’ll add it to the gallery at the top of the post so everyone can see it. We would all love to see how your elephant turned out.
I’m amazed by how much personality each elephant has, and how different all of them are. Thanks Soul, for suggesting this post – you were right. It is a lot of fun seeing them all together.
Want to Make Your Own Elephant?
Click here to see the life-sized baby Indian elephant (and many other patterns) available for instant download, so you can start your project today.
I have uploaded my elephant I am afraid it has none of the finesse that your elephant does but it was a fantastic tutorial my son didn’t seem to mind he had it as a surprise for Christmas.
What a wonderful Christmas present! Did you try to upload a photo with your comment? If you did, it didn’t come through – the image was probably too large. I hope you’ll edit the photo and try again, because I’d love to see it.
I will try to upload elephant again
Teresa, I can see why your son liked it – what a nice present.
I added your elephant to the gallery in the post, to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it. Thanks for sharing!
Hello, My name is Jamie Rice and I live in Erwin TN. 100 years ago, we hung an elephant. Yes, its crazy. Just google Murderous Mary and you can see the complete story. As a local, I cringe every time I hear a non-local try and retell the story. We are tired of this being a black mark on our reputation. For the 100 year anniversary, we want to create something positive out of something so negative. We want to become the largest contributor to the elephant sanctuary in Hohenwald TN. They take in abused, and retired circus elephants. WE cannot help what happened 100 years ago, but we can help these elephants now.
I found your beautiful paper mache baby elephant on pinterest. This is a crazy idea, but would you be willing to sell or donate your baby elephant to this cause? Mary was an Asian elephant, just like your baby. We would use your paper mache elephant to create a mold that would then make the fiberglass elephants that would stand up better in the weather. We would also like to get artists to paint these and auction them off as a fundraiser. There is a local fiberglass plant that says they could make these for us if we had an exact model of what we want. Your sculpture is just precious, and I know it would be so wonderful to see all these colorful elephants all over town. Our celebration will be in August, so time is of the essence. We were trying to get these manufactured by mid July, to give artists time to paint. Uggg, we should have started this process a year ago.
Please call me at your convenience and we can discuss further. 423-220-7624.
Hi Jamie. I couldn’t bear to let go of my baby elephant, but you can find the pattern and full instructions for making one of your own here on my website. As you can see on this page, many people have used the pattern and instructions, and they turn out great – and these are just a small sample of the sculptures that have been made from my pattern and video. Besides, it would cost a small fortune to ship her to Tennessee.
Good luck with your project. I hope it goes well. And by the way, is there a website where we could go to learn about that rather gruesome-sounding story? I’d like to know more.
Since you’re in a hurry, I would suggest finding a local college with an art program, and ask one of the teachers if they’ll make one for you. He or she could get it done quickly, since they can use my pattern.
From Brasil – Very ,very beatiful Celio
Hi,
I’m ready to finish my baby elephant, but i’m wondering how fixed the table paper on it( pva glu?…)
Thank you
I’ll post the final work soon.
Hi Sophie. I’m not sure I understand your question, but I used the flour and water paste to add the paper towel ‘skin.’ Does that help?
My english is not good…but you understood well. So i use flour and water to stick the paper towel on the elephant and i create skin’s effect with the painting?
Many thanks
Yes, that’s exactly how to do it.
Ok. i try to stick the paper towel…it’s hard to have a good result!
I post the picture soon.
Thank you.
I love your work…I wanted to make twin friendship necklaces for a girl I like and myself, and I wanted to use a mini elephant for a pendant. I wanted something stronger than clay so I thought about carving it from wood, but I’m a pianist and don’t want to risk hurting my hands, so I decided to use paper mache instead. I bought a vintage mini-elephant made of paper mache from Etsy and am going to try to copy it. (A picture is below).Thank you for this great site…it has really inspired me and shown that paper mache isn’t just for little kids–and it’s something inexpensive that produces durable works I can enjoy!
Hi Jonni,
Thank you so much for sharing your technique of making paper mache elephants. It was a great inspiration! My niece and I made 2 baby elephants for our new house and they turned out great! We named them Nidhi and Siri. We made white elephants as they signify prosperity according to hindu traditions. Here is a pic of the elephants.
Thanks again,
Sushma
Hi Sushma – your image of your elephants didn’t come through. The photos may be too large for the system, but I would really love to see them, and add them to the gallery. You can use this free online service to make your images smaller, and I do hope you’ll try again!
Hi Jonni,
Sorry about that. Just realized it. Here you go!
Thanks,
Sushma
Your elephants are beautiful, Sushma! I’ve added them to the gallery, also.
Wow! They are beautiful.
hi! this is my first time on your website and I’m finding it so informative and inspiring! I was shocked at how impolite and grouchy the commenter was about the problem she had reading the gray text. Your response was very patient and friendly. I think you are better off w/o scrooges like that on your mailing list. This site is for cool and fun people only! Thanks for the great site, cheers – Anna B.
I agree that we have a remarkably friendly and supportive community here. But, in TrainChaser’s defense, she (or he) did point out a problem that other people are also having, but nobody else ever mentioned it. I really do want people to be able to read my website! The gray font is readable for me, with my trifocals, and my monitor, but I can understand how other monitors (and other eyeballss) may have difficulty with the lack of contrast. So, grumpiness aside, he (or she) left a valuable comment, and I hope that once I find a WP theme that doesn’t use a gray font (they almost all do, unfortunately) I hope she (or he) comes back to enjoy the site.
Besides, I get grumpy sometimes, too – I just try real hard not to do it in public. 😉
My first and only post happens to be a complaint.
Do you ever go in the ‘front door’ of your website and look around like a guest does? Do you notice that your web designer thinks it’s clever to have gray text on a light background? Are we promoting eye strain deliberately or accidentally? Let me guess, your web designer is about 25, doesn’t really know his/her job, and is merely copying what many of the other incompetent site designers do; ease of use is not on his/her agenda.
Now, I’m reasonably certain you won’t change it, so could you please remove me from your email list?
Thank you,
Sue
I’m more than happy to remove you from the mailing list. By the way, has anyone else had any trouble reading the text on the home page?
Hi Jonni,
Yes, Yes, Yes, I do have a great problem with the color of your web-site.
The text is extremely difficult to read…so I print it out in black & white. And it may just be the age of the eyes I’m looking through…..I’m laughing…yes it’s true…things that were easy yesterday, now seem to be growing difficult.
I’m sure your web designer would appreciate a constructive critique…..you might want to experiment with a different color. Thank you for the opportunity to express the request. I’m having so much fun experimenting with paper mache…as a watercolorist it’s 3-D approach
is a bit of a challenge. Susan
Thanks to both of you for telling me. I don’t actually have a web designer – that takes big bucks! So I use themes out of the box, and I’ve been wanting to change this theme for months now. But – the theme I’m using was designed by someone who used different code for the videos and the images at the top of every post, which means I would have to go through the entire site and replace every single one of them by hand – over 350 tutorials and posts! But maybe I’ll go ahead and do it anyway.
Jonni- this is a really sweet post. It is really nice to see how many people were inspired by your baby elephant. And you are right, each one has it’s own personality! Nice work to all elephant sculptors!
Thank you Jonni. They all look wonderful together. I love all the different styles and each one has a character of its own. I hope others will be encouraged to add to the baby elephant gallery.
love them!
love!!
What a great idea. What great work you have inspired
OMG!! These baby elephants are absolutely wonderful! I cannot pick a favorite….fantastic, all! After seeing these, I am going to plunge in and make something! Thank you, Jonni
Dumbos, my little granddaughter just loved this post.
Thanks, Soul. I added your new image of your baby elephant to the post, and I also added a picture of Ron’s elephant. I knew I’d miss some, and I was quickly proven correct! Great job, everyone. Isn’t it fun seeing them all together like this?
It’s great to see the herd grow 😀
It’s a lovely bunch, hope there will be many more to come.
Awesome! They would fill quite a gallery all together!
Here is another picture of my version more close up.