HIP HOP HOORAY!

I have to say that this is a good week! I am celebrating my birthday (which we are not going to discuss how old I am getting) and A Handcrafted Affair is also celebrating it's 6 month anniversary! Not to mention that this is also the first full week of spring and Easter is right around the corner. Pretty good week, right?!?

So, in preparation for this celebratory week I thought it would be the perfect time to finally get started on the paper mache craft that I have been eager to test out. I love West Elm's paper mach animal sculptures but thought it might be a good idea to start out with a simpler form and with it being so close to Easter I immediately wanted to create some bunny ears. 

I bought Jonni Good's book Make Animal Sculptures with Paper Mache Clay and found her tutorials and recipe super helpful and easy to follow. She also has her Paper Mache Clay recipe on her site so you can get her complete directions there for creating your own batch of paper mache clay.

Jonni didn't have a specific tutorial for bunny ears but I took direction from her other tutorials and created a cardboard template of the ear and then layered wads of newspaper and masking tape to create dimension to the ears. 

Once I was happy with it's shape I stood the ears up on top of a piece of cardboard and traced around the bottom of the ears. I cut the base shapes out and taped them to the bottom of the armature. This will give your sculpture a nice flat base to stand on.

Next, it was time to cover the armature with the clay. I can definitely see how using the clay versus the paper strips and paste is much more intuitive to mold and create detail. It was similar to icing a cake!

Cover everything with the clay but the bottom of the bases and allow to dry overnight. You can also speed up the process by setting your oven to 200 degree F and drying them out in the oven for a couple of hours. I ended up doing 2 coats of the clay and I also lightly sanded any rough edges in between the coats.

To make the bottom of the base flat, put a piece of plastic wrap on a flat surface and then spread a layer of clay to the bottom of the ears. Stand the ears up, bottom facing the plastic, and push down to flatten the clay against the plastic. Slowly pull away the plastic and gently smooth out the transition between the bottom and the sides of the ears.

To seal the clay, you just need to apply a coat of gesso and once that has dried you can paint your paper mache sculpture with acrylic paint colors of your choice.

I'm super happy with how my bunny ears turned out and will definitely be making another paper mache sculpture soon! My 5 year old has requested a unicorn so we will see how well that goes. J

I hope spring is treating you well so far and thanks for stopping by to celebrate with me!! Have a great weekend!

A Ring Pop Felt Flower Ring

Hello! It's Friday...woohoo! And it is finally starting to warm up here and signs of spring are starting to sprout which is amazing because the kiddos are going stir crazy over here.

So, last week our family took a small little getaway to Great Wolf Lodge. Have you been to one?!?! It's a pretty good set-up. Plenty of activities for the kids and I admit the hubby and I have just as much fun. We like going on water slides, too and playing Magic Quest! Anyhow, we ended up in the arcade and my oldest had her first encounter with exchanging tickets for prizes. Remember those days? It was super exciting for you but all the while your parents are like "Great, I just spend $40 for a tiny stuffed animal and a sucker". Well, the story hasn't changed much but who cares, it's all about the smiles on their faces and the memories!

And, of course, one of the prizes she picked was a ring pop. Once she was finished with it she handed me her plastic ring base and I completely had an aha moment. I already had an idea to create a felt flower ring for the girls but hadn't gotten around to it. I instantly realized this would be the perfect base so once we got home I was on a mission.

It took me about 15 minutes to put together one flower ring and that included the time to needle felt the center pom pom (which was the first time I had attempted this and now want to make entire garland of felt pom poms...I will save that for a later post). 

Here's what you need:

• *Felt Fabric Sheets in Two Colors (I chose a dark purple and a light pink)
• *Wool Roving for Felting (colors usually differ from the felt fabric sheets)
• Ring Pop Base
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun
• *Needle Felting Kit (any foam block will do but the needle needs to be specific for felting)

*purchased at Hobby Lobby

The process to create the felt pom pom center is quite easy and therapeutic. I admit I enjoyed the process of repeatedly stabbing wool into a tiny little ball. 

You will only need enough wool to make a ball approx 1/4" in diameter. Helpful tip, use a thimble (which I didn't and stabbed my poor little finger more than once). Once you have formed the pom pom, use your scissors to cut an "X" in the center to create cavity for placing onto the ring pop stem. Then, using your hot glue gun, add a dab of glue to the tip of the plastic stem and secure your pom pom on top.

Next, you will need to cut a 5" wide X 3/4" high strip from one of your felt sheets. I chose to do this with the dark purple to match the pom pom center. With you scissors, fringe the strip and then wrap around the base of the plastic stem and secure in place with the glue gun.

To create your petals from the secondary felt color (light pink in my case), cut (6) petals approx 1/2"wide X 3/4"high and another (6) petals approx 1/8" larger in width and also in height. It's just a subtle difference in size. 

Finally, secure the smaller petals around the fringed center and follow with the larger petals which will alternate in between the smaller petals. Voila! Your ring pop felt flower ring is complete!

The flower ring ended up being a little big for my very petite 5 year old but what girl doesn't love a statement piece?!?! Sometimes, it's all about the accessories. J

Hope you have a great weekend!!