Encouraging Fairies; Paper Mache Toadstools!

I spent the weekend making these paper mache toadstools, and I love them! In my head, they were expertly crafted and beautifully painted. In real life, they’re not quite as perfect looking, but I reckon I did a pretty good job. As usual, I was religiously trawling Pinterest when I saw some that I knew I had to make.

At the weekend I am helping with a friend’s birthday party. Her daughter is turning four and is having a fairy-themed party. I think I’ll be able to squeeze these in there somewhere. If they survive, I’ll also work them into my Halloween celebrations!!

Anyway, I thought I’d share my pictures of how I made mine. The original tutorial is really good, and it’s a proper tutorial, whereas I’ll just show the various stages of the makings of them. I  recommend checking out the original if you fancy having a go.

Actually, this was an addition to the tutorial; I added copper coins to the bottom of the stems to add weight. They stand up nicely.

For the larger toadstools, I made a disc of foil and put three pennies on top.

Then I wrapped that in more foil and squidged it together.

Twisty twisty with the foil.

The caps were made separately from the stems.

Following the tutorial, I covered it all in masking tape so that the paper mache toadstools have something to grip. I don’t know if this was necessary, but it also helped to shape everything.

Once I had covered everything, I left them for a couple of days to dry naturally. In April, I was playing with paper mache and thought I’d put my creation out in the hot sun to dry. It was too intense, and it did annoying crinkly things to what I was working on (Ice King pinata-it was so cool).

I’ve ruined my tray as I was too lazy to get a separate doodah for the paint. I did two coats of acrylic paint. Three would have been better.

I love playing with my glue gun. Stems got stuck to caps. And fingers.

I thought too much about dot placement. Not the worst thing to worry about, I guess.

Now, er, where to put them? I don’t know, and I don’t care, they’re so cute!

I skipped the stage of using paper mache to smooth out the seal between the cap and stem. I shouldn’t have done. It would’ve looked so much better with lovely, neat gills.

Anyway, that is what I did at the weekend! I also squeezed in a couple of crochet squares for the fireplace blanket (nearly all squares done). And I’ve fun over the last two days making half a tonne of tissue paper flowers and other exciting fairy party related things. Really, I should have my own fairy party. It’s all too exciting.