My friend Jessica’s paper mâché success. She’s an artist and made it look easy.
Remember paper mâché? That totally innocuous craft medium we used to be amazing at in Kindergarten? I recently indulged in an overambitious paper mâché sesh with some friends, and it turns out that it’s not a medium for the weak or stupid. In my defense, I never went to Kindergarten, thanks to my unkempt hippie childhood. So it was a humbling experience with dubious results. Here’s how it went:
Leslie rolling out the paper mâché at like one in the morning, after our evening flight to LA, where said project went down. Also, I have to admit that it wasn’t actually paper mâché but rather some nefarious product that comes in a box off the internet and doesn’t list its ingredients.
First step: cover every bowl in the kitchen with plastic wrap and then fold paper mâché goop over it to form a basic mold.
In an ideal world, the bowls are completely dry 24 hours later.
In our world, however, they required several hours of “firing” in the “kiln” before we could paint them.
Jessica deeply absorbed in applying Martha Steward-brand (that’s right) fabric paint to her bowl.
I overreached with this ambitious gold leafing idea. Anyone ever used gold leaf? I’m blind and crazy now and have arthritis.
But if you squint, it looks pretty cute!
Verdict: I will probably never do that again. Turns out I’m better at more ladylike kitchen crafts. But it was an interesting endeavor and made for some great bonding time with my awesome, creative friends in LA!
I made a backup bowl too. I might actually like this one better. Oh what are these bowls for? Good question. Nothing. They’re made out of paper, so.
