Somewhere, somehow, in the midst of all these 'I can't get a thing done anymore' baby and preschooler-at-home days, Boo and I managed to fashion something with our hands. Whoop whoop!
The other week we borrowed a book from the library called 'Hot air: The (mostly) True Story of the First Hot Air Balloon Ride' by Marjorie Priceman, Simon and Schuster 2005.
It tells the story (in a most amusing way) of the (mostly imagined) escapades of the sheep, rooster and duck who were the passenger of the maiden voyage of the hot air balloon.
I had been thinking for some time that I would like to introduce Boo to the world of papier mache, and this provided the perfect opportunity for a bit of gluey creation.
We used an inflated balloon as the base and layered newspaper and paper paste (about 4 layers) before leaving it to dry and harden. The trick with the laminating technique of papier mache is to ensure that both sides of each piece of newspaper are thoroughly coated in glue. Boo and I did the glueing together to ensure that this happened, though I have to say she took to it wonderfully, always eager to get up to her eyeballs in gunk of some description or another.
The best bit for the little one was popping the balloon when the papier mache was hard and seeing the shape retained. It does take a couple of days to dry before you can progress to the next stage.
We then painted the balloon shape using white paint to cover the newspaper and then Boo painted it in her own choice of colours. I did have ideas of further decoration but baby naptime was over and it just wasnt gonna happen today.
Finally, a basket was required, so I made an origami one, attached it to the balloon using string, and then we were ready for the inaugural flight....
and Boo chose a cow and a panda (finger puppet) if you can just about glimpse them, to take to the air in our creation...
It might be good to do this project using layers of coloured tissue paper to achieve a translucent effect. Maybe next time. For now, I'm still celebrating the joy of a wee bit of creating.
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