Papier mâché Easter bunny figurine

This is my first but surely not my last papier mâché figurine. I've been longing for an Easter bunny sculpture for a long time. Sooo, I decided to make one by myself. For this I used the paper maché technique which was not entirelly unknown for me since I have made a pinata earlier.

I tried to document the preparation with photos and now I try to explain it.

1. I pierced a wire into the top of a French cheese box. 

2. I filled this top with papers. I attached the papers to the box with Tesa tape. This became the pedestal of the sculpture. 

3. I wound Tesa tape around the wire.

4. I started to build the body of the rabbit - first of all the legs.

5. The belly came next.

6. When the body was ready I started to cover it with pieces of newspaper. For this I used papier mâché paste (a mixture of flour and water).

7. I installed safety eyes on the face.

8. After it dried completely I started to paint.

9. Parallel with the rabbit I made a flower too.

10. I covered the whole bunny with Schmincke acrylic fluid-medium.

11. I placed the flower into the hands of the rabbit.

The things I used:

Rayher safety eyes
Tesa tape
newspapers
cardboard
papier mâché paste
Rayher wire
French cheese box top
acrylic paint
Schmincke acryl fluid-medium

Blowing out Easter egg

Easter will be here soon! It’s time to decorate! Right now, I would like to show you how to blow out Easter eggs. I don’t pretend that this is the most professional way, but it works for us. It is worth a try, because this is a great fun for children. My daughter could blow out eggs properly from the age of four. 

Here are the instructions, step by step.

1. Buy white eggs from the food store so you don’t have to paint white if you want do decorate them later.

2. Wash it properly with a sponge because you have to remove the impurities and the the printed numbers.

3. Take a big and thick sewing needle and hammer it into the egg with something useful. As you see in the photo I used my daughter little but solid knife.

4. When the needle is in, try to expand the hole a little a bit with the tip of the needle. Practically, you have to poke the hole with the needle.

5. At the top of the egg you need smaller hole at the bottom you need a little bigger.

6. Put the top hole to your mouth and blow out the egg through the bottom hole from the eggshell.

7. When you are ready with this put some warm water into the eggshell through the bigger hole while covering the smaller hole. Shake it a bit and blow the water out as well. With this you wash out the rest of the egg and your egg won’t smell at all.

8. And now you can paint or decoupage on it.

Have fun!

Embroidered felt ornaments for Christmas

When I finished the green Christmas trees I began to make some white ornaments. I embroidered and sew a white Christmas tree and a bell. 

A couple of photos about the preparation:

I’m running out of the floss now. Tomorrow I will buy some... plenty.


My other blogpost on this subject:

Felt Christmas tree ornaments

Felt Christmas tree ornament

Thursday night I drew a sketch before I went to sleep. I imagined a felt Christmas tree in bright green colour with a couple of dots. I could hardly fall asleep because I was so excited about my new project.

Friday morning I went to one of the hobby craft shops in Luxembourg where I bought some felt sheets and some embroidery flosses in different colours. (The felt is 2 mm thick)

My sketch

When I got home I made a template and I lined around it as many times as I could. I cut them out.

I drew a half tree on a paper folded in two

I lined the first template on a card

I cut out the final template

I drew little dots on the green felt trees and I started to embroider them with blue and red flosses alternately. When I finished with this I made some yellow stars if I found enough place and I embroidered brown the trunk.

I fixed green cords onto the top of the trees (the inner part of course). 

In the end I put together two parts and I stitched them up with green thread.

I’m very satisfied with them. They look like exactly as I imagined them. 

My other blogposts on this subject:

Embroidered felt ornaments for Christmas

Embroidered Christmas tree ornaments - Stockings with dots

My shop on Etsy

Painted fridge magnet for Christmas

I’m ready with this Christmas tree fridge magnet.

I have prepared another one before with decoupage technique. In this case I painted the dots on the white surface instead of gluing dots of a paper napkin. I used four colours from my Marabu paints. In the end I put two coats of lacquer for the durability. 

before...

My other blogpost on this subject:

Decoupage fridge magnet for Christmas

Christmas lampshade for kids' room

Hi! I’m here again with my other lampshade design. I made this for Christmas into my daughter’s room. 

I used plain IKEA lampshades and paper napkins with pull puppet Santa/Father Christmas figures. This paper napkin is not just funny but seeing the puppet’s movement is playful as well. 

I cut out the Santa shapes from the napkin, I rid of two layers from the three, so I used only the coloured top layer. I glued on the surface with decoupage glue and a flat brush. Be careful, this layer is very delicate and breakable.

I put gold paint gently around the motives with a sponge. In the end, I covered the motives with a little lacquer. 

I made an extra lampshade too, which goes to my shop. 

Raphael’s angels on home decorations

I would like to show you some of my decoupage works. For these I used some paper napkins with the motives of Raphael’s (Raffaello Santi) famous and well-known angels. He painted these chubby putti in his painting of Sistine Madonna.

I’m fond of them too, and since they are ideal for Christmas decoration, I often use them. But I admit to you that I leave these objects in sight all year round.

Here are some ideas:

Salt dough decorations for Christmas

It’s time to look for the Christmas decorations and check their condition. Today morning I have found my salt dough decorations what I had prepared last year. But surprisingly they are still in very good condition.

Now, I will tell you how I made them. It was easy, and to tell the truth I couldn’t follow precisely the recipe what I had found on the internet. The instruction wanted me to use 200 grammes (about 0.45 lb.) flour and 300 grammes (about 0.65 lb.) salt and some wallpaper paste as well. However, I hadn’t got neither enough salt, nor wallpaper paste at home. So I mixed circa 150-200 grammes salt with the flour and some water. Luckily the dough was good enough in this way too.

I put them on a floured table and rolled out with a rolling pin until it was 5 millimetre (0.20 in.) flat. After I cut out different forms with my cookie cutters. I made holes with a toothpick. Beware of making too tiny hole, because you can’t pull a string through it.

I covered the baking tray with greaseproof sheets and after I put the shapes on the tray. I dried the salt dough forms in the oven in very low temperature. I didn’t even close the door of the oven entirely.

When they were dry I painted them with acrylic paint. I put some tiny dots around the shape. In the end I covered with lacquer to make it durable.

And here is my extra design :-) my gingerbread man but I haven't come across him yet, only his last year photo.

What I used:

- 200 grammes flour

- 150-200 grammes salt

- some water

- acrylic paint in diferent colours

- brush

- lacquer

- raffia rope

Handmade Advent calendar with decoupage technique

I made this Advent calendar for my 4 years old nephew, Zsigmond (Sigismund). 

For this I bought 24 white zinc buckets in a craft shop. They are so tiny, their height is not more than 6 cm, and the diameter above is only 6.5 cm. Luckily in the same shop I found a pocket of paper napkins with Advent motives. Although not all the 24 numbers occur on the napkin but luckily all the numbers are present from 0 to 9 so it is possible to cut out and put together the missing numbers for the 24 days.

Beside the numbers I also cut out the bigger and the smaller pictures. I glued the big ones on the opposite side and the small pictures all around the buckets. At the end I put two coats of lacquer on the surface.

You can put the buckets on a shelf but they take up too much space like this. So instead I twined  a green and a red raffia and I tightened them between two screws. After I tied each buckets on the twined raffia rope.

Some buckets with numbers:

The other side of the buckets:

What I used:

- 24 white zinc buckets (height 6 cm)

- 3 paper napkins with Advent motives

- decoupage glue and decoupage flat brush

- lacquer and normal brush