Quick Paper Mache Tutorial and Project Life - week twelve

Project Life - week Twelve

This week is all about a project that my daughter has for school. This project was so huge that I had to call out the big guns (that's right GRANDMA!) Imagine your sweet daughter/son coming home all excited bursting to tell you all about their new project that they have to do at school. The conversation started something like this,

Daughter: "Mom Mom guess what we are going to do at school after spring break"

My response: " I don't know but by the looks of your happiness it must be something good",

Daughter: "Ya we are going to make our classroom into the rain forest and we get to pick an animal and make a presentation about the animal we choice"

My response: "Oh how exciting you love animals this sounds like something you'll be good at.

Daughter: "But I need your help"

My response: "Sure I would love to help, do you need me to help you research about different animals in the rain forest?"

Daughter: " No - I need you to help me make a animal"

My response: " Oh so you need to draw or look for pictures for this?

Daughter: "No - We each got to pick an animal and we have to make it 3-d life size.

My response: "WHAT" "

Daughter: "Guess what animal I picked?"

My response: " A frog?????"

Daughter: "No a Jaguar"

My response: "WHAT" How are we going to do that?"

Daughter: "Out of Paper Mac he"

My response: "I don't know how to do that"

Daughter: "Call grandma she'll know"

So I listened to my wise young daughter and picked up the phone and called Grandma. I begged her to come out and help us with this project and she ended up staying five days with us in order to complete this project. (thanks mom you are a life saver). So in case one of your lovely children come running up to you all excited I thought I would share with you how I tackled this project and since this project last five days and I didn't get to do much of anything else we will be included it as this week for project life.


Grandma to the rescue!



OK first I search the Internet to find a picture of Jaguar that was standing side ways and printed out on my home printer. Then I took that picture to a local copy place and had it blown up to two feet.



Then I took tracing paper and piece them together with tape, traced the jaguar and cut it out. I also made a tracing of the front and back legs too.



Then I went to Hobby Lobby and purchase a large thick poster board (my mom said it was called a pin board)



I traced the pattern onto the pin board and then cut it out using a craft knife and box cutter. Note: I cut out four legs.



Then I took a foam board and cut out four spacers.



I placed them under each leg and glued them to the body using white glue.





Then we took crumpled up newspaper and started to tape it the body and legs of the jaguar like this to fill out the body.



After all the news paper is in place on the body we taped the whole thing up so it looked like this.




Then we cut strips of paper and started to paper mac he the body. (I made my paper mac he paste with two cups of flour and two cups of water and a couple tablespoons of salt to keep mold away) We have about two layers of paper mac he strips of paper on the body. I used my old hair dryer to speed up the process. You need to wait for each layer to dry before you start the next layer.



After the body was dried, we started to paint it with craft paint that we picked up at the store.



Here is the final results. I know it doesn't look exactly like a jaguar but I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt. Hopefully you guys will not have to go through such a project but just in case you do I hope this will help you. Now that it is done I done want to see any more newspaper, glue, or paint for a long time.

Project Life - week eleven

Week Eleven

Okay how do I begin to tell you all about our week eleven. It's not like it was an eventful week. We didn't attend any parties, nor were we invited to the White House, nothing spectacular happened but it will go down in my books as one of the most funniest weeks this year. You see the week started off by having me accused of being a murderer. Shocking I know. It happened in the beginning of the week it was just a plain ordinary day where I was cleaning our house. I was putting laundry away and I walked passed my daughter room when something caught my eye. It was my daughter's newest addition to her fish family Bubbles laying on his back floating there. I knew right away this was not a good sign and decided I would try to spear my daughter any heart ache and tried to dispose of it (Bubbles) without her seeing. So I hurried and put the laundry down gathered her fish net and scooped Mr Bubbles into to it and ran to my daughter's bathroom. Just as I had the fish net over the toilet and the fish was falling into the toilet in walks Erin. If you only saw the total horror look on her face and she screamed "MOMMMMMMM WHAT ARE YOU DOING". I try to explain how I was trying to dispose of Mr Bubbles so that she wouldn't have to be sad to see him that way and she said to me "How else am I suppose to feel when I come in to see my own mother murdering my best fish". With that I looked down at the toilet only to find Mr. Bubbles happily swimming away in my toilet. Nothing I said would convince her that I thought he was dead and I was only trying to spear her hurt feelings. She was pretty upset with me until two hours later when the darn fish really died. I wasn't born yesterday this time I got my husband to do the dirty work. So Erin and my husband had a little funeral for Mr. Bubbles and that's the end of our excitement for this week. Other than that our week consisted of Nike +, a walking path, a nice warm spring day, some more spring cleaning and a great big moon.















Spring Cleaning continues at our house. I got rid of one whole box of Erin's books.



Even with that boxed full of books gone she still has a lot of books. What can I say she loves to read.





I decided to get out my Nike+ and give it a try. Only this time all I can do is walk since my knee still isn't 100%




Here's a look at the running (oops I mean walking) path.



This was the full moon on Saturday, it's suppose to be the biggest and brightest one since 12 years. I guess it has something to do with the fact it's closer to earth or something like that. All I know is that my daughter teacher told her kids to take a look at it and we did.




Last but not least Erin and I tried to enjoy the only 61 degree day this past week by playing in our back yard.




Until next time thanks for stopping by!

Project Life - week ten

This week was all about a lizard, bleach, a camera and a school project. We took our daughter to see the movie Rango this past weekend. It was a cute but very long movie. Also, my daughter has to do book reports and with each book report she usually has a project that goes with it. This time she had to make a scene from the book in a shoe box. I thought she did a good job. The book she wrote about was "Kirsten goes to America" and she made a scene of the inside of what her cabin would look like. She took Popsicle sticks and took off the rounded edges than colored each one brown to represent the wood floor they had. Then she asked me to take her to Hobby Lobby so she could get furniture. I think the curtains that she made were adorable. She got a "A" on the project. As for me this week I am in the mist of spring cleaning. This week a got three rooms done including the master room linen closet. I am doing way better this year on my spring cleaning because last year I just didn't do it. I was sick on and off last year so I was in survival mode, but not this year I'm 100% and I'm getting things done around here. I had some time so I took out my Nikon and started to experiment with it. I'm learning a lot about my camera but it is a slow process.





Here's me experimenting with the Nikon. I decided to shoot in the raw and I like the results so much.




This is my daughters scene that she made for her book report. See the wooden floor isn't it amazing






You can tell the weather is changing around here by how long the car line is at my daughters elementary school. Usually in the winter months this line is twice as long.





It feels so good to get some of my spring cleaning done. I love making empty spaces. So far four huge garbage bags have left the house due to this cleaning. Can I get a "GO, Carrie"!

Project life - week nine

I love the ordinary, typical,boring week. Wish we had more of them. It seems that our life are getting busier and busier that it's hard to stop and really enjoy just the everyday of life. This why I am so thankful for Project Life. It makes you focus on the daily routines and every day life. It let's you live in the moment and document that moment. I'm so happy I decided to participate in Project Life.






A quick picture of the family prior to leaving for a dinner out.



Life here on Eliot lane this week was anything but exciting and that's the way I love it.



I could probable take this picture 100 times. This is Erin's room she is always playing with her animals and always creating something where she has to cut up paper. Once this mess is cleaned up another mess that looks just like this one would take it's place.




What a wonderful boring week we had here. Until next time thanks for stopping by.

Project Life week eight

Project Life - week eight


This week I have decided to change things up a little. Instead of taking a picture a day this past week I decided to use the picures that were taken at the begin of this week which was of my birthday party with my parents and brother. Also, I used two of Ali Edwards overlay templates Story Overlays 6x4 Journalers Value Pack and Evidence 4x6 Overlay Collection. You can find them here.












I decided to cut up the overlay template and only use the words here.




We all look tired in this picture, it's been a long week for all of us



This was such a nice birthday this year.









Life is good - when you slow down and take the time to enjoy it for what it is. Until next time thanks for stopping by.