How To Make Paper Mache Ornaments

What need is there of sacred subjects - so long as one has skill of papering with pieces of soft paper in several layers. Yes, you’ll need some patience and accuracy for those, but the results of work are well worth the effort and the time taken up.

So, it is required to you:

• Wallpaper glue or paster;
• Toilet paper from the category "house-keeper";
• Balloon;
• Decoupage glue;
• Acrylic dull paint of white color;
• PVA adhesive;
• Decoupage rice paper with a Christmas design;
• Artificial snow. It is possible to get artificial snow as a finished article, but it can also be made of improvised materials (such as foam plastic, for instance);
• Vaseline;
• Spangles – dry or gel-like;
• Special paint effects for creation of "pearls";
• Ribbon for fastening and a tape for ornament.

It is the most convenient to work with a papier-mache on the big table. Cover a working surface by newspapers or by an old oilcloth. To keep your hands clean, it would be better to put on latex gloves.

Step 1. Inflate a balloon to the size of a Christmas ball and smear it with some vaseline. So, it would be the main form. Wrap the ball, layer upon layer, with toilet paper, and, layer upon layer, deposit glue. There's no need to hurry up and to become angry if paper would firstly slide off. Try to be accustomed and superimpose paper pieces as fish scales, one over another. If you want your ball to be rather firm, it is necessary to spend a half of the toilet paper roll for it, not less. When the form is pasted completely over, smooth down roughnesses by the hand moistened with glue.

Step 2. When your preparation dries out completely, take the ball accurately from it (for this purpose it is necessary to puncture the balloon and let the air out of it). After that, ground a preparation surface with acrylic dull paint. It is necessary to apply paint evenly and better in two layers.

Step 3. When preparation has dried out, it is possible to begin decoration by means of decoupage paper. It is better not to cut out chosen applied decorative element, but tear it accurately off along round contours, therefore edges of application would merge with the surface of the ball and won't be noticeable. Place decorative element on your preparation, and apply glue in the direction away from the middle toward edges. Due to a round form of the ball, some folds may be formed on the application, but you don't get upset, because these folds can easily be smoothed and removed by a finger. Besides, small roughnesses will only refine your Christmas tree decoration.

Step 4. When application has dried out, cover your preparation with PVA adhesive glue over the all surface without touching only the ornamental drawing. And then it is necessary "to roll" the ball in the artificial snow scattered over a clear surface of the table in one layer. Shake the excess snow off the ball accurately by the hand.

Step 5. Decorating the ball with dry spangles, fix every single one of them separately with a glue droplet. For convenience of application you can use Jewel Picker, which is the special tool for work with small details and an alternative to tweezers. Paste spangles on the ornamental drawing. Put point-pearls of two deferent colors along the edge contours of drawing. "Pearls" are made of dense Perlen-Pen paint which is deposited directly from a tube, and the size of "pearls" is regulated by the pressing force applied to a tube.

The ornamental decoration for Christmas tree is almost ready. But now you can add a little extra flourish. All you have to do for it is just to make a bow of the tape and to fix it by decorative pins on the ball’s bottom.