Papier Macheniacs: Kadayawan Festival!

4 months?! Seriously?! Have I been away that long???
Well, there's good reason for that. We haven't been doing much papermacheing unless it was for some event. And this was a huge event. Linggo ng Wika representing Davao's Kadayawan Festival!

The Kadayawan Festival celebrates all things bountiful. A bountiful harvest, a bountiful business, a bountiful life --which Davaoenos visualize with strings of beads hanging from colorful masks and elaborate headpieces. Kindla like this one.

Mind you, this was noy my original design. This was.

I had wanted a do-rag kinda thing with bead attachments. But as luck would have it, I got a fabric that was way too thick to fold. And I was pressed for time so I just had to do with it what I can. *sigh* I think it still turned out great in the end. Although as a piece of advice for all you crafters: Always make sure you have the right materials with you beforehand. Don't get stuff at the last minute. *lesson learned*

Okay, onto the dangling beads! Well, you know I'd like to do those by hand and I wanted to give the visual representation of the Filipino capiz. I went to town with a few sheets of cardboard for that.

Papermache'd them, as per yoosh.

And painted them in Davao's favorite festive colors. These colors represent vegetables and fruits and nature.

You can see the colors better here. :P

We strung them all up with tie-dyed yarn to create fun danglers. We weighed them down with clipped on coins so that the yarn would stay stretched. Brilliant brain fart there, eh? Haha!

We attached them to the freshly-painted on headpiece. Of course, we made the necklaces, too. It was fun painting the bigger 'capiz' pieces.

Oh! I made two designs for the headpiece paint job, by the way. Both designs also come from patterns most commonly used in the Kadayawan Festival.

And here they are worn by my boys. I think the tie-dyed shirts made a great match to these hyper colorful papermache'd pieces. Howeverrrr... my boys weren't too pleased that the headpieces didn't turn out to be do-rags as planned. *sigh*

Here they are again after I forced them to be happy about their miscalculated headpieces anyway. Mwahahaha!

So that's it!
Will I post in Halloween? Nobody knows. :D

Papier Macheniacs: Benguet Strawberry Festival Masks

Buwan ng Wika.
A celebration of our language and culture.
And an ideal time to get cosplay crafting!
PAPIER MACHENIACS --ACTIVATE!

This year, the school assigned the Benguet Strawberry Festival as the theme for my boys' class. And because I was so sure every kid will be coming in Benguet native attire (read: red and black weaved cloth), I knew I had to push my boys gear up a notch. Naturally, that meant making strawberry masks! Creepily fruity, huh! :P

We found these eerie Jason canvas cloth masks at National Book Store and I just went nuts with glee!

Post haste, I went down to making paper mache leaves --which, by the way, was a very therapeutic exercise.

Can I be a dingus and tell you now that I totally forgot to take a picture of the freshly paper mache'd masks? Ugh. It was past midnight. I was working against the clock. Still, that's no excuse, you pathetic blogger! *whimpers*

Slathered the masks with red and green paint, complete with white teardrop details --and BOOM! We got strawberry masks!

I am extra proud of the leaf details!

Made tiny strawberries for necklace embellishments to complete the look, too.

And there you have it!
I was informed that my boys spent most of the school celebration sneaking up on people and scaring them with killer strawberry delight. So I guess that means this project's a success! :)

HAPPY BUWAN NG WIKA, GUYS! See you with more of these insane crafts next year!

Papier Macheniacs: Lemon-Scented Infinity Gauntlet

Wow. Another late post. We finished this project like ages ago. Ugh.

Okay, enough whining. Bottomline is that we did something awesome and seriously went nuts with gold! Man, Thanos can be so tacky. lol!

So, the boys wanted to make their very own Infinity Gauntlet. And with how much that thing costs at Toys R Us, I'm just happy they decided to go the creative route on this. The caveat though is that they wanted the Gauntlet to be wearable. As in they wanted to actually move their fingers and possibly do the snap to end all life on earth or something like that. I'm down for that. I love a death-defying challenge.

That meant I couldn't do a full-on paper mache on the Gauntlet. I needed a flexible base that can carry paper and glue, and yes, stones. We needed a glove.

And here it is. Haha. Okay, okay... it's a lame lemon-scented dishwashing glove. It's all I got, alright?! Oh, look at it snapping!

 

With a huge amount of self-doubt, we managed to slather the thing with tissue paper and glue, about 3 coats so it stays sturdy. But again, we needed to keep the thing flexible so we made sure to avoid covering up the finger joint areas and the wrist.

After leaving it to dry overnight, we went on ahead and spilled a ton of gold on it. Oh, and precious stones! Yes, yes... I do realize that we only had green crystals. That's like Thanos binging on the Time Stone. We'll just paint over them later.

There you go! Not too shabby!
We used a combination of gold and brown paint just to give the design dimension. More dimension happened when we used rope as the base of each stone. It was all a matter of sticking the rope around each stone with glue and painting them.

Body detail was a load of fun! Especially since we didn't cover the whole glove so there was a lot of paper mache play that went into the design.

TA-DAH! In full use and moving! Perfect for murderous snapping...

And nose-picking, apparently.

The best part: It still smelled like lemon! FRESH!

If you want to make your own Infinity Gauntlet, just follow the steps I've outlined here. Dishwashing gloves are available in a variety of fruity scents. :)

Papier Macheniacs: How to Turn Hulk Into Thanos

Painfully late post, friends. But this is worth the wait.
This is the official HOW TO TOY TRANSFORMATION from The Big Green Smasher to The Mad Titan!

Riding the Avengers: Infinity War hype, we came up with this neat little paper mache project that had us cross-eyed with how little it is. No, I'm not kidding. Other than Mr. Bean's tiny Teddy, we have papermache'd anything this small. Anything this small with this much detail.

But I'm just whining like a little girl. The project came out great so it's well-deserving of the eye strain.

We started off with an old Hulk toy that lost his head, thanks to our chunky pooch, Luna, and her unfathomable hate towards action figures.

We did a test on the color change and it looked pretty good. Well, after a few tries and a dollop of Fixative. The paint kept sticking to our hands.

Then, we went with the body modification process. This was a lot of fun. Especially that part where we molded boots to cover Hulk's gigantic toes and got a Pink Power Ranger's head to play stand-in.

A bit of waiting time for drying and then we went down with painting in colors. the details followed soon after. The head, much much later. It literally took us 7 tries to get Thanos' features right!

Finally, we did it. YAY!

Hard to tell this guy used to be Hulk, huh? Definitely one of your craziest transformations, Mr. Banner. :)

Papier Macheniacs: PINGU!

Okay, okay... so June had been a busy summer month. But, as dedicated as we are, we still managed to squeeze in a couple of paper mache projects. You know about the land formation project, right? Yeeeah... I'm just gonna have to assume that you read that blogpost. Other than that, we also had our little Pingu project.

Hey, you know Pingu --that adorably naughty claymation penguin on TV? He was one of the most popular TV characters in this household. Well, back when we still watched TV. Now it's just all about Markiplier on YouTube.
But I digress. My kids decided to pay homage to their past fave so we did a little crafting.

You know the drill, re-use and recycle. Other than the usual glue and tissue paper, we never buy anything when crafting. The point is to always make something new and awesome out of something that other people may deem as junk. For example, this old Christmas tree silver ball ornament and this empty bottle of Vitamins. Just tape cardboard around these items until you get the shape you want. Before you know it --BOOM!-- the beginnings of an arctic flightless bird! I'm sure it looks like a tired astronaut right now, but give me a minute here.

We mummified the shape with glue and tissue paper. Basically, paper macheing the figure to hard, smooth goodness.

Then, we added the details. Alright, I added the details. Isn't it crazy how I went over the eyeball outlines like a thousand times?!! Ugh. Thank God that mess will be painted over. But still, Pingu looks more like a monkey here, doesn't he? Double ugh.

PAINTED!

This deserves a back story. We ran out of black poster color. BLACK. The single most important color on Pingu's body. Because patience isn't exactly our strongest suit, we went to the neighbor --who incidentally fixes cars for a living-- and got some left over paint. We're talking car paint. The kind you put on metal surfaces.
So yeeeeah... that's how our Pingu got that brilliant shine. Uh-huh, this Pingu won't need to bob sled himself over ice bergs. He can just glide over frosty slopes on his shiny tummy. Hehe.

Okay, okay, I'm done.
That's Pingu for ya! If you want to make your own Pingu or any other old TV show character to immortalize some glorious childhood memory --paper mache it!

Papier Macheniacs: The Plateau Project

Has your kid ever gone to you with a homework paper that tells you he needs to submit a diorama of a land formation? Maybe. We did a week before the last day of school and we were ecstatic! Yeah, dioramas rock our boat. Uh-huh.

And just like that, it's Family Project Weekend in this household.
Land Formation: Plateau.

You might think it's easy making a diorama of a plateau --and believe me, we thought so, too. I mean, it's just a bunch of boxes, right? Yes and No. Because we Papier Macheniacs don't do anything the easy way. Wahahaha!

So after getting some old boxes together, we rolled sheet music to to create a semblance of rocks and cliffs along the side of the mountain.

Then, we paper mache'd. That's when the magic starts to happen. The moment you start slathering your rough sculpture with that glue and tissue combo, the surface you want takes shape. Now it almost looks like a plateau! Okay... maybe an ice berg at this point. :P

But we don't stop at 'surface'. We wanted 'texture'! And that's how stealing sand from the neighbor's front yard rock garden got us to this part of the project. Hehe. Pepper your wet and sticky sculpture with sand and let it sit for about half the day. As soon as the whole sculpture is dry, you can shake off the excess sand.

Now... paint!
Let me tell you now that painting on sand is tricky as heck. You should use a dabbing kind of painting style so you hit all those tiny nooks and crannies.

And there you have it --PAPER MACHE'S PLATEAU!

The kid scored the highest and now has his project on display at the school library's Geography Department. BIG JOY! I call this another win for Team Papier Macheniacs. :)

Papier Macheniacs: The Grim Reaper

Whoa! I've been gone for 4 months?! That is so unlike me! I bet some of you thought I'd died or something!

And THAT, folks, is my train wreck of a segue to our latest Papier Macheniacs project: THE GRIM REAPER!

Handsome devil, ain't he? Who would've thought that this vile face was once a pretty little China doll mask?

We just love disfiguring the pretty little China doll mask. It's like a sport to us.

So we hacked away at the doll face's perfectly flawless chin without an ounce of remorse. Then, we proceeded to add abomination-like details. Rope for eyes, thick board for craggy teeth, and --oooh!-- more cardboard for that disturbingly skewed, hanging jaw.

Then, of course, we even things out by slathering the monstrosity with paper mache. For those who have just tuned in, that's a tissue-glue-water combo AND the very foundation of Papier Macheniacs' existence. Oh, look-- you can hardly see perfect little China doll mask in there now. Hello? Where are yooouuu?

Aaand,,, BOO!
Nothing like a spot of paint to bring out the color of its eyes, huh?
Okay, one tiny bit. If you're painting with your kid (provided creepy skull masks don't creep the heck out of him) and he accidentally spills over the lines, or if his strokes are a little too scraggly for Van Gogh --calm down. This is the Grim Reaper we're making! Believe me, this guy isn't the kind who'd drop by a salon before having a good time.

Now grab a black cloak and you or your kid is ready to go!
Oh, wait --Did you see the tiny add-ons we threw in there, too? THE SCYTHE Never leave home without it. This weapon of destruction we paper mache'd used to be a roll of cartolina. The blade is plain box carton.
Another add-on: SKELETON HANDS! These we made with surgical gloves. Surgical gloves have that bony color to it that makes it perfect for this project. For authenticity, we lined joints with a thick, black marker.

There you go! Now go ahead and scare people! When you own a Grim Reaper mask... everyday is Halloween!