Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Step Forty Five: A slight obsession with snowflakes!

Dearest Sylwi

Good Grief! What a few weeks?! I have no clue where time went, but it WENT! And fast. Hopefully, I can catch up with my missed posts today... that's the plan anyway!

I've missed being here. I'm so glad you were here instead, though. I dropped in to read your posts and they cheered me up no end!

I did actually make this week's Step during the correct week, but it went so horribly wrong (ha ha! I think I say that every week!) that I didn't want to upload it. I wanted to take some time to better it and ... well, then... the week's flew past and I completely missed last week's post, so I realised, that I have to upload it ... in all of its imperfect glory! ;-)

So, here it is! Snowflakes again! I'm obsessed with them.

Somewhere on the web {which of course, I can't find now I want to give credit! I'll keep looking and add in the link, when I find it!} somebody blogged about a project they did where they cut 2 identical letters out of cardboard, stuffed in between them with paper and then covered them with papier-mâché! The result was large, solid letters that could be painted.

I thought I'd get adventurous and try the same technique with snowflakes. I had a zillion ideas buzzing around my head about how to do them and how I could paint them and even lots of different ideas for how I would use them... garlands for the Christmas tree or fireplace, window decorations, gift tags, hanging mobiles and so on! :-)

It all started out quite well. I cut out a typical snowflake shape from cardboard twice...


... and glued on little rolled up pieces of tissue paper for the stuffing.


I then glued on the second piece of cardboard and was ready to begin with the papier-mâché.


... which is (a) where it all began to go wrong and (b) where I forgot (in my panic) to take any pictures of the unfolding disaster! heeeee! ;-)

I quickly realised my snowflake was far too small for wrapping wet, gluey newspaper around! It would have been much easier to wrap a larger snowflake. It was very fiddly and quickly became a bit too wet and mushy!

I'm sure if I had more patience, or skill (this is my first time with the papier-mâché technique) that I could have made this work, but I was really beginning to get quite annoyed! Not least, because it was all taking so long. I'd forgotten that each layer needs to dry before you can apply the next.

I didn't get around to painting or collaging it - apart from a quick, messy coat of white. And so, this is where my snowflake adventure ended. A hugely time-consuming project for... well... a bit of a disappointing result. However, I did learn infinite amounts about papier-mâché and its (or should I say, "my") limitations...



... and despite the mess, I did actually really enjoy the project, for the most part! Although, I think I'll stick to buying my Christmas decorations in future! ha ha! :-)


Lots of love
Fi
xx

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