Paper Mache Clay
Cheap and easy paper mache clay.
Make paper mache clay with materials that you may already have at home and you can recyle. This recipe is very cheap and easy to make.
Material
You will need:
- A bowl
- An egg carton
- Water (4 cups)
- An old sock or strainer
- School glue (5 tablespuns)
- Airtight container
You can use any paper (shredded) or toilet paper.
The reason why I like egg carton is because the fiber of the egg cartons is previously broken down and separated.
It is easy and fast to separate the fibers to be able to turn it into clay.
With your hands cut the egg carton into small pieces and place them in a bowl.
Add the four cups of water to the bowl and wait about an hour and a half.
After an hour and a half, make sure the egg carton or paper is completely saturated and very soft to the touch.
Crush them with a hand mixer. If you do not have a hand mixer, you can crush the paper in the blender. If you use the blender, make sure to add little by little (with lots of water) so the blender won’t get stuck.
The mixture should be watery and pretty much uniform but not perfectly uniform.
Now it’s time to squish all the water from the paper.
You can use an old sock by adding the mixture inside and then squishing the water out.
Or you can use a drainer by adding the mixture and squish the water out from the paper.
Now the paper should look like that.
Separate the balls of paper and add them into a dry bowl.
Then add 5 tablespoons of school glue ( I use Elmer’s glue).
Now knead the paper with the glue until you get a kind of paste or clay.
You can add more glue if you feel it doesn’t knead well.
It must have the consistency of some type of clay. Rough but effective for various papier-mache jobs.
Store your clay in an airtight container.
Ready! Now you can use it to cover structures, mold details or mold small sculptures.