How not to make a paper mache whale/shark/fish thing...

The third in my "How not to......" series! I'm good at doing things all back to front and taking months to finish them. It all starts with a mad spurt. It would be fine if there wasn't that period for drying or setting or flattening, in fact anything which causes a break in the process. That is when the process stops ..... nice cup of coffee and 'I'll finish that tomorrow'...

It all began before Christmas - arghghgghghgghhh - so long ago!
*blows dust off*
So this time it was a whale. It was meant to be a whale. Why is that chicken wire stuff so expensive? At least, it was a my local garden centre. Expensive and spikey. I'd read somewhere that the thing to do was to make a wire frame. Hokay. Much snipping (using the kitchen scissors) and bending and spiking of skin ensued. It's pretty hard to make something vaguely fishy without having to mould a particular species ...... I'd made a kind of fish cockatrice - part whale, part shark, part seal, part submarine.


There it is in the picture - all papermached up. Now if you want something covered beautifully in this decoupagey manner visit Bombus - do not ask me. Got that? The fishy thing is all bumpy and dented and mis-shaped and no-one can agree on what it resembles most. The plan was to cover it in a star map but it because very clear that that just looked pants - due to the 'mostly blue with little faint constalations' - so it got more mappage. Its meant to fly over our map table (another How not to......) so I guess that more map would be okay.



Here it is - nearly finished. We used all the star map initally then put the other maps over the top - only we ran out. This means that there is that dreaded 'pause in the process'. Uh oh.





So - there it sits on the floor in the kitchen. At least it is down off the top of that bookcase where it has been since last year.
Now I have to listen to the boys saying "Mummy, it looks nothing like a whale, its a shark, on its side."
Thanks boys.