Papier Mache Mad!

Recently, I seem to have reverted back to my joyous primary school craft days, and have been especially loving papier mache! I had forgotten just how satisfying it is glueing all of those layers of paper onto a balloon (most traditional) or any other item I fancied modifying.

The thing that started my first papier mache session, was that I needed to make a puppet parrot (Captain Flint) for our school Treasure Island production. This parrot needed to have a moving head and wings, be light, and be able to be controlled by 2 of the girls in the play. Therefore, papier mache was the first thing that sprung to mind, as it's light but really strong, and very easily to manipulate, so I got to work making parrot puppet no.1.

How to make a parrot puppet out of papier mache

As usual, I got too excited and too engrossed in my creating that I forgot to take any photos, but basically I covered a normal sized balloon in papier mache for the body, a small balloon for the head, then added on a beak, and moulded some claws around a long balloon. I then made the wings out of wire and newspaper strips, and attached the head to the body with elastic bands and fabric. Here is the finished prototype:

The girls played around with parrot no.1 for a few weeks and let me know the issues with this model, and anything they thought could be made differently, which was really helpful. So armed with all this knowledge, it was time to start the real Captain Flint. 

He had the same head and body shape as before, only no.2 has a slightly larger beak, a slightly shorter neck, and the neck fabric is attached much more securely to both the head and the body. I have used the same thickness of papier mache base, and then once he was dry I have painted him with a few coats of poster paint. 

The bits you can see sticking out are the cable ties which I have attached on the inside, which will be used to hold the feet, and back and head sticks in place securely. 

For the wings, as the newspaper kept ripping, I have opted for a felt base, cut into feather shapes, with dyed feathers I bought from Amazon stitched and glued into place on top. In keeping with how a real Scarlet Macaw would look, I have used red, yellow, turquoise and blue feathers to create the wings. I started with the bottom row, and allowed the glue on each row to dry before adding the next layer of feathers to make them looks as authentic as possible.

Aside from using stronger wire to attach the wings, using screw hooks in the end of the dowels to keep them attached to Captain Flint, no.2 is much the same as no.1, just with a lot of added paint and feathers. 

Here he is finished and ready to fly....but don't fall for his soft exterior, he is a blood-thirsty, knife-wielding pirate parrot really on the inside....watch out!

No. 2 has fabric strips wrapped around wire to make more flexible feet, as the papier mache ones on no.1 were too rigid. 

Knitted Bunting

I decided a while back, that I wanted to knit some bunting, and that I was going to write my own pattern. After a few terribly odd looking attempts, (whilst sitting in the park in the sunshine so I didn't mind too much) I found a pattern that worked and got knitting....

Friday Crafternoon

Well what more could you wish for to do on a Friday afternoon that making some lovely crafts. In an attempt to make something like this (below) but in crepe paper, I had a play around and found the best method of construction to make some beautiful paper tassels:

How to Make Paper Tassels

1. Cut out 4 strips of paper, about 2 inches wide.

2. Using squares of double sided tape, secure these 4 strips together with a patch of tape in the middle of the strips. 

3. Fold the strips in half length ways, and then cut small strips up to about 2 inches from the centre fold. 

4. Open out and put another square of double sided tape in the middle. 

5. Roll the layers of paper length ways, as tightly as you can, and secure them with the tape. 

6. Twist the roll around into a loop, and secure near the top with a loop of crepe paper secured with double sided tape. 

7. Make a lot more and there you go! Beautiful!

Pirate Fun in Cape Town

Back in December, when it was freezing and horrible here, I spent a few days in Cape Town which although was much warmer and sunnier, it was also very windy!

The theme was pirates, and so I made a selection of Pirate themed props to take with us:

Wedding Bunting - Made To Order

I've always been mocked by my friends for having 'sewing' as my career. They do things like doctoring which they think is much more important? So I was quite surprised what one doctor asked me to help her make (i.e. do all the sewing) a lot of bunting for her wedding.

 She'd bought a load of fabric which matched our bridesmaids dresses, and some that didn't, and had set her mum the task of cutting out loads of triangles so that we could make an epic amount of bunting.

My boyfriend had groaned at the thought of a sewing weekend, but once my friend and her fiancé had got involved, he felt a bit left out and so was given the very important job of trimming off the ends, and turning the triangles inside out.

We had a good little production line going, and so fuelled by a lot of mojitos, we made an epic amount of bunting over the weekend.

So if anyone is after some custom made bunting for a wedding, or any other event, please contact me on fairlyamy@yahoo.co.uk to discuss.

For examples, please check out https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/fairlyamy and https://beta.folksy.com/shops/FairlyAmy

Cutting Out London

A while ago, to make a break from my usual stitching and knitting, I was given a brief to cut out many many shapes, including the London skyline. The idea was that the shapes would be used in a shoot, and then would have illustrations added on top after.

Now in my tiny house, cutting out A1 mount board is tricky a challenge. When the board is the size of your entire living room floor space, crouching on the sofa and leaning over to cut out your shapes just adds a rather unnecessary difficulty. But it was still very fun.

As quite often happens, they didn't really get used as planned, but here are a few images...