Smal projects - papier mâché money box

The wonderfully talented Bess Harding recently sent us this great craft. She makes beautiful prints and soft toys under the name Beeb, available from her Etsy shop and also keeps up a great blog of art, recipes and other things.

papier mâché money box

Here’s a creative way to encourage saving (which let’s face it everyone should try and do a bit more of these days) with a new take on the old piggy bank, using papier mâché.

What you will need:

1. Balloons
2. Newspaper ripped into strips roughly 2cm wide
3. Wallpaper paste (or flour and water mixed to a paste)
4. Craft knife
5. Masking tape
6. Acrylic paints & paintbrushes
7. A bit of patience

 

1. Blow up your balloon, until it has a diameter of around 10cm - go larger or smaller depending on how much money you’re planning to save! Use a small piece of masking tape to flatten down the end of the balloon.

2. Being liberal with the wallpaper paste, apply the newspaper strips to the balloon, smoothing as you go and making sure you cover every little bit. Repeat until you’ve built up a few layers all over. It’s better to have the walls as thick as possible so you get a nice sturdy globe. Then – and this is where the patience comes in – you need to leave it in an airy place for a couple of days, until the newspaper is bone dry.

3. When it is dry, and it should feel quite solid, take your craft knife and carefully cut a slot/mouth for the money to go in. If it hasn’t already, the balloon will pop and you can jiggle it towards the hole you’ve made to pull it out. Then, if the edges of the hole you’ve made look a bit raw, use some masking tape to smooth them off.

4. Now it’s time to create your monster! I’ve painted a layer of white all over to begin with, and then using the money slot/mouth as a starting point, painted a face around it. You could make a friendly monster with flowers on it, or a scary monster, or a spotty one, or a stripy one. I’ve finished mine off with a layer of varnish to give it a bit of a shine. Once it’s dry it’s time to start saving!

 

p.s. You might have noticed that there’s no way to open the monster, this is on purpose so that you can’t dip in to your savings until you really need to. When the time is right, you’ll have to sacrifice your monster, using a craft knife or scissors to carefully enlarge the money slot until you can get your money out, then you can start on a new one!

Contributed by Bess Harding

Comments

[cheryl]

CUTE! thanks for the tutorial!

[t-shirt paris]

Great idea ! I'll try it !

[Ticia]

What a great idea! I need to remember this and give it a try.

[susan]

This is absolutely adorable and a great way to get kids to start saving.