Nicole Alderman

The paper towel trick worked! What I did was:

(1) Had the kid hold the paper towel on their face while I used a fat-tipped washable marker to mark their eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears. The nose and chin weren't really necessary. What was necessary was marking their ears!

(2) Put the mask on their head and use the ears to line up the paper towel template. Then I colored back and forth on the eyes and mouth long enough for the marker to seep through the paper towel to mark the mask. It helped to have another person looking to make sure the mask and template were not crooked!

(3) Used scissors to make slits for the eyes and then had the kids test to see if the eyes were good. Then I let them draw their eyes and use scissors to cut the out.

Our papier-mâché was pretty thin, since most of the kids didn't do many layers. It wasn't too hard to cut out the eyes.

Thank you all so much! You were true lifesavers today!

Oooh, a paper towel is great, because it's soft, and I'll be able to mark their eyes and mouths right on their heads. Thank you!!!

Having your mask broken "on accident" sounds terrible! One of my student's masks had the balloon deflate while the paper mache was still drying. I need to remember to make an extra today for him (he's in my Wednesday class, so I still have time). I want the kids to be proud of their masks and happy with their masks.

My husband just suggested using "wooden stick to mark pupil width" for figuring out the eyes horizontal placement. Good idea! But, getting the vertical placement is the hardest bit...especially since some of the kids have masks that go all the way around their heads!

Thankfully, the school scissors aren't too dull, and the paper mache is pretty thin (most kids got only one or two layers of paper on their masks) so it cuts pretty easily.

My ancient history class is making Greek Theater Masks. Last week, they covered balloons with papier-mâché . This week, we'll be cutting eye holes and using paper clay to add details, noses, horns, ears, etc.

BUT, I have no idea how to manage to get the kids eyeholes in the right spot. And I'll be doing this in 9 hours. Any help is much appreciated!

Today I determined that, if I ever do this again, I'm just going to buy carrageenan and ox gall and do it the traditional way!

It's not that the shaving cream didn't work...it's that it was a gigantic mess! I mixed up watercolors for the kids to use, as well as food dyes. Generally, they'd add a TON of food dye and swirl it up. Then, they'd tap the paint brushes to sprinkle drops of color. Then we put on the paper or cloth, and then scrape off the foam.

The scraping was SO MESSY. We used big popsicle sticks. We should have used pieces of cardboard that were at least 4 inches tall and wider than the paper. But...we didn't. The food-dyed shaving cream that was scraped off the paper was so thick and always spilled over the popsicle stick. We had to use SO MANY popsicle sticks! And, we used so many paper towels trying to clean the area after each scraping.

There wasn't enough table space, either. I thought I could have the students finishing up their last project and I'd pull them over one at a time. But, everything took so long that I brought over 2 or 3 to the table. But, that meant there wasn't room for scraping the papers or storing anything.

The paint did stick better to the alum-mordanted cloth, so that was good. The papers turned out nice, too. My daughter realized she could sprinkle paint on her cloth after she'd did the marbling, and that looked really cool.

Did I manage any pictures? Nope! It was far too chaotic. I think I brought home the ones I'd made the day before. I'll try to get pictures of those tomorrow. For now, I'm all burnt out!

I wonder, what if we covered it with the cloth, and then glued paper on the front and back cover?

I have some book covers that look like this:

The ones I have at home don't have the corner area--just cloth on the binding and paper on the covers.

But, with cloth on the binding and paper on the cover. Inspecting them, the cloth seems to be laid down first, and then the paper is applied over. I don't have paper measure to that size at the moment, but I can quickly cut it up at school.

That would put cloth on the binding, but cover up any mistakes on the cover due to gluing?

I might just give the kids lots of options and let them choose!

For the covers, I'm using "top tab file folders." The paper on them is more ridged than cardstock....and it's a resource that I found in the school workroom :D

These things are called 'top tab file folders'. The paper is strong and ridged...and affordable!

We're making the books pretty small--the covers measure 6 inches by 4 inches....that way they look good when made up, even if the kids only sew a few signatures onto them.

I prepped all the covers last night, too, so the kids can marble their choice of: cloth, cover, and papers. Some might just marble the cover, others might marble the cloth.

Thank you for reminding me about the glue! I'd forgotten how (when I bound with leather), if I wasn't careful, the glue bled through and made the cover dark or wrinkled. What I might do is have the kids use glue sticks to attach it to the cover itself, and then use bottled glue for where it folds to the inside.

I wasn't able to make a complete mock-up before the activity, but I did bind the book and test the size of cloth it'll need before cutting all the cloth.

I'm doing the marbling this afternoon, so wish me luck!

I did some quick experimenting at school today between classes. Sadly, I didn't have my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. I used foaming, sensitive shaving cream and sprayed it about an inch thick onto a tray.

These are the tests I did:

(1) First, I tried my own watercolors, just adding water to my existing dry watercolors (instead of mixing fresh, liquid watercolors). I tapped my paint brushes to sprinkle paint onto the shaving cream, swirled with a stick, and then laid a piece of un-mordanted cotton sheet I had left over from a previous project. I pressed the dry cloth down, smoothing it over the shaving cream, and then lifted it off. Then I used a big popsicle stick to scrape off the shaving cream. I learned:

• A small paint brush does ver small dots of paint! Larger paint brushes should be used
• The natural, re-watered watercolors did not spread well through the shaving cream, and were faint when applied to both cloth and paper.
• The paints smeared on the cloth when I used a popsicle stick to scrape the shaving cream off (they didn't smear as much on the paper)
• I tried rinsing the cloth....and most of the watercolor came right out. This was good to know, because some kids might be sad that their design didn't turn out, and this would allow them to rinse and retry.

(2) Second, I tried paper. I added more paint onto the shaving cream, swirled more, and applied the paper. I learned:

• The design on the paper was a bit more vibrant than the designs on the cloth, but it was still very faint.
• When I scraped the shaving cream, it didn't smear nearly as much as when I used cloth

(3) Third, disappointed with how faint the re-animated water colors were, I tried mixing just pigment with water. I learned:

• This didn't seem to work much better. I think the pigment is just too heavy?

(4) Fourth, my coworker had food coloring. So, I gave that a try. I found:

• The colors were much brighter!
• The colors spread father when swirled, giving a much nicer effect.

(5)I also tried marbling some paper and the cloth without scraping the shaving cream off. We'll see how this works!

I got home and decided to try mordanting the cloth I have at home. My jar of alum actually has instructions for fabric marbling (2 tsps of alum for 1 gallon of warm water. Submerge in the alum bath, wring out--don't rinse--, air dry, and iron if needed). I currently have the cloth drying by a heater and a fan. Fingers crossed that it'll be dry soon so I can cut it up for their book covers!

This video goes into all the ingredients needed to do traditional marbling. I was fascinated to find out that you actually use watercolors and not oil paints to marble paper. That explains why my previous attempts at marbling did not quite work out!



Another thing to note is that the paper is mordanted with alum....which makes me wonder if I should mordant the cloth we use, or not worry about it. I think trying or mordant all my cloth might be tricky. But, maybe if I mordant the sheet first, it'll work better. He shows brushing the alum on top of the paper, but I think with cloth I could just soak it in a mordant bath?


Another thing I'm reminded of is that paper during the 18th century was made from cloth--not trees like it largely is now. So, using cloth is almost more traditional than using current-day paper in some ways...