Monday, April 30, 2012

Dinosaur Forest

We finally completed our dinosaur forest. It took a few days for the papier mâché mountains to dry thoroughly. The papier mâché paste is relatively easy to make.

Cut newspaper into strips. Soak overnight and blend into paste the next day. Sieve and press out as much water as you can. Add in 1 part water and 1 part pva glue into the paste. Make sure it's not too runny or dry. Use the back of a bowl as the mould. Brush cooking oil all around it before putting on the papier mâché paste. Once done, leave aside in a well ventilated area until fully dried and harden. Remove bowl.

As for the forest, I used a large cork board as the base. You can use anything that is sturdy enough to hold the weight of the items that are put on top such as a plastic serving tray. Other than the board, the other essentials are; glue gun, assortment of fake leaves, fake grass panels, scissor, plier, disposable chopsticks and papier mâché mountains. Use glue gun to stick everything unto the cork board . To make trees, twirl the leaves around a chopstick and poke it into the center of the papier mâché mountain.

Reason why we made this; well.... as usual, I saw the prices of doll houses in the toy shop. Too frugal to buy one, and doll houses are just too main stream, with the scraps I have around the house from past projects, now we have a portable forest. Maya was so excited and helpful with this project. How I wish I could have taken pictures of he helping me out but with a hot glue gun in my hand, it was just too dangerous.

Maya loves it so much she turned it from dinosaur forest, to blocks forest, to animal forest. This is also a good way to teach your child; under, over, on, behind, in front, up and down. :)

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