Papermache fun

During summer holidays I decided to engage kids in some craft work. Thought of making a name board for house as we did not have one and settled on papermache work. 

Kids were reluctant as usual. All they want to do is playing on mobiles, computers or watching TV these days. Somehow I managed to get them to tear paper strips while watching cartoon shows. Their grandmom sat with them to encourage. Few hours work got us half a bucket of strips (throughout they were sulking) and I soaked them overnight.

Next day, grind them in a grinder (used a mixer-grinder). Some of this mash we used to make handmade paper. Will show that in some other time. 

Removed extra water and added white flour and salt to it.(sorry did not take pictures of this).

Once dough was ready, I showed them how they can make anything out of it. Sulking kids now ended up having lots of fun with it. Out of three, youngest one decided to only watch as he did not want to dirty his hands but even he enjoyed, gave instructions and told them what to make next. We put them to dry and then coated them with glue to give them extra strength and glow.

So here is what we got after 3 days work. Children colored them with their imagination and see how colourful our work table looks.

This tumbler was made to be used as pen stand. I did warli painting on it later. Plate on which flowers are kept was last to be made. We used all remaining dough to make it. This was also painted and warli design was made on it. Will show both next time as I do not have pics.

We also made name board on wood with papermache Ganesha and alphabets. I can't show it here as I took somebody else's design (we fell in love with bright design). But you can see letters being prepared. Kids imagination produced a dice also. You can see that kept along with letters. They even used it to play.

Here are few more pics:

Everybody in the house got busy dirtying their hands and enjoyed a lot during these 3-4 days. Hope you also enjoyed...