paper mACHE

Today, for some strange reason, I was feeling rather artsy. At first, I tried cleaning the grout off some brick chunks we recently got for free from craigslist. My goal was to clean off the bricks so I could build a fire pit. After 30 minutes, and only two small 1/2 bricks cleaned, I decided this would have to wait for another day. Then, I had a great idea. I would try out a paper mache project that my little sister could help with.

Online I found a simple recipe for paper mache, all it called for was flour and water. How hard could that be? We mixed up the concoction and cut some strips out of newspaper. We decided we would make a mold of my hand. We dipped the newspaper in the brew, and wrapped them around my hand. The stuff was slimy, and making a huge mess, but who cared. We wrapped the soaked strips around my hand for what seemed an eternity. When we had finally layered my hand to what we deemed the appropriate level, we waited for it to dry. I borrowed my sisters hair dryer to speed up the process. The thing didn't seem to be drying, and then I realized even if it did, there was no way I was going to be able to get my hand out. I carefully tried to cut the cast off my hand. By the time I got the mold off, all that was left was a soggy mess of newspaper.

I should have stopped there, but I didn't want to give in. I thought I had discovered a solution, I would take a glove, fill it with newspaper in the shape of a hand, make the mold, let it dry, and when it dried pull the newspaper out. I thought it was a fool proof plan. I spent another 1/2 hour on the second attempt. It didn't turn out either. I finally figured out the directions I had been using were wrong. Now, I was left with a huge mess of dried flour mix everywhere. My sister was very disappointed, it was also painful to peel off the dried flour mix from your skin. My sister so eloquently put it that it was, "the worst day of paper mache in my life, even though it was the first." I couldn't agree more.