How do you make paper mache?

How do you make paper mache at home?

• My kids want to make a moutain for a toy train to go thur with paper mache,so how do you make it

• Answer:

  Here's a link to some recipes for the paper mache: http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/papermache/a/blpmpastes.htm Your kids will need to make an armature - a sort of skeleton - for the mountain. (You need the armature because a lump of paper mache the size and shape of a miniature mountain is NEVER going to dry) Unless you have some on hand, you're going to be hard pressed to find chicken wire without buying a couple of dozen feet of it, but you should be able to small quantities of wire mesh in the craft store - and they'll have paper mache mix if the kids don't want to make their own. Shape the wire mesh into a rounded cone, and squash it around some for texture. Cut out your tunnel holes from the mesh, making sure they are a bit larger than the train's engine. Press the paper mache onto the wire, making it even more lumpish. After the mountain is dry, you can paint it: green for grass, gray for rocks, maybe blue for a stream down the mountain (which would look better if you kind of worked in a streambed to begin with!) Have fun!