First Time Makin’ Paper Clay

Howdy! Decided to try my hand at making my own paper clay. I’ve been using the store-bought kind but it is quite expensive. Looked up a couple of you tube videos and went for it today. Got this recipe from: http://www.ultimatepapermache.com/paper-mache-clay.

I am very happy with my first go at it. I added a couple of things to make it last longer, kosher salt and Cream of Tar Tar. Been using these in homemade play dough for years so thought it couldn’t hurt. I also watched: https://youtu.be/F4KLDqzQxBI. Some great tips from this guy. It could have been smoother, so I’ll work on that next time.

I wanted to make some more “boxes” for a project like this one which was a small wood box to begin with. But it is hard to find boxes just right.

So I had this idea of making my own while washing my cherry tomatoes one day, thinking the size of the tray was just right. What if I build my clay around this “substrate”? So here I am, doing one of my favorite things… experimenting.

This is my first try. Added glue (Aleene’s Taky glue was great for this).

I quickly realized my screws were too short and not in very tight so I revamped that idea. By the time I got to the fourth one I realized that I had this clay on pretty thick, as I had almost used up all my clay. So I finally rolled it out to make it thinner and even. That seems to have worked well.

Just waiting for them to dry to see how strong they really are… TO BE CONTINUED!

Enjoy ~emm