Kids looooooooove messy crafts

Kira needs to make a model of a cheetah for her Academic Fair project. She decided that she wanted to do papier-mâché. I haven't done papier-mâché since I was a kid (and someone else was in charge of making the goop). So today was the day.

Ended up using undiluted liquid starch for the goop (hope it works...research *said* it would, and it seemed to be pretty good while we were using it....we'll see), and made the base model from crumpled newspaper wrapped in masking tape. There was much goop-ing. Much messiness and stickiness and overall very much fun. We enjoyed it. It looks pretty darn good so far, too, considering it was mostly done by an 8-year-old. (for instance, the cheetah does not really have feet--Kira says we can put it in the grass. I don't think there will be grass to put it in.)

No idea how many days it is gonna take for this thing to dry so she can paint it. Originally I was all panicky thinking that if we made it today, it might not be dry by Thursday (our next available craft-day) and thus not done by Friday. THEN I discovered that I had my dates mixed up and she doesn't actually have to bring it in until NEXT Friday. Whew! So we're actually ahead of the game for once!

This was a fun project. I really enjoyed doing it with her. It was pretty relaxing getting my hands all covered with the fairly slimy starch and newspaper combination, and smoothing it out over the body. She chattered away the entire time, very pleased to be doing something a) messy and b) crafty and c) with her mom. Pretty much her definition of bliss. And you know what? Mine, too.

I shall be sure to post a picture of the finished product to show it off. mk