Making a paper mache glitter wand for any important occaision a party, a school play or just for fun just got extremely easy. Want to know how to do it then read on. This wand is around 18 inches long, extremely light weight so you can wave it all day long, very sturdy & will fit an adults or small childs hands quite well.
Start with a single sheet of A4 80gsm white printer paper. If you wish you CAN use pre-coloured paper of any size, but i am using a standard A4 sheet here.
For ME the perfect wand shape is not a simple straight rod. I prefer a wand to be more of an elongated cone shape. Basically wider at the end you hold & thinner at the end you point. Nor do i like a simple smooth finish either. To roll an elongated cone shaped wand start at one corner but target around a third of the way up the opposite side of the paper to where your rolling from. To do this follow the directions indicated by the 'purple' arrows above. You MUST how ever KEEP your hand & the pressure as CLOSE to a bottom edge of the sheet of paper your working with as indicated by the 'black' arrows to create the perfect elongated cone shape.
There is no need to glue the entire paper before you roll. Indeed you ONLY need glue this last section indicated above. If you want a smooth wand then NOW is the time to paint it. IF you like ME prefer a rough bark like finished wand then read on.
The perfect wand shape in my book.
However!, we have just created a glorified straw. We NEED to close these open ends. Thats what we are going to do now. Carefully trim of BOTH ends of the wand. Just enough to take off any pointed paper ends.
Tear off two strips of X2 ply tissue sheets. Make these around 1 inch wide. Remember these measurements are not perfect so don't worry about getting things 'exact'.
Lay the first of these on the 'dry' wand. Don't ask me WHY dry works better than wet, but it just makes the tissue wrinkle better this way (may just be me?). Now let the tissue strip run around 1 inch past the end of the wand. KEEP the glue brush 'wet' & GENTLY brush in one direction down the tissue to glue it down. If you press on too much you WILL stretch & tear the tissue strips. We only want to get it wet enough to fix in place & wrinkle.
NOW overlay the second tissue strip over the first remember to leave that extra inch or so 'off' the other end too. Repeat the gluing step. Do not over work the tissue, once it starts to wrinkle stop!.
Now 'pinch' the extra inch of tissue at BOTH the ends of the wand in turn. Whilst you pinch/hold the tissue 'rotate' the wand so the tissue twists right up to the end(s) of the wand. DO NOT twist enough so the tissue tears off. This WILL crush the end(s) of the wand.
A nice Christmas cracker like end is what your trying to achieve as indicated above. Do BOTH ends then allow the wand to again dry FULLY.
When fully dry trim off BOTH ends of the tissue as close as you can go to the wand without re-openning the ends.
Perfect!. When tissue is coated in PVA based glue & dries it takes on an extremely rigid almost plastic like quality. In this case it will create a perfect covering shell over the A4 paper, which IS why there was no need to coat the entire sheet of A4 at the start of the project. By the time you add two layers of tissue to the wand enough glue will have soaked down through the paper adding to the fixing & the strength of the rolled A4 sheet.
Once your newly created wand is FULLY dried it's time to start painting it. YOU can choose any colours you wish. I am going for a nice deep golden look. To create this i am going to start with a base coat of black.
To paint it however i am NOT going to use a brush. A brush WILL layer the paint up against those wonderful bark like wrinkles i created & cover them over. Instead i am going to use an old beat up sponge.
Keeping the sponge wet with paint gently 'dab' the wand all over until coated in a nice 'even coating' of black paint. Then leave to dry. Repeat if you like. Mixing tones like this sometimes requires a little trial & error to get just the right look you want. Try making several wands & trying different coloured paints.
When FULLY dried it's time to add the gold paint. This time however i am going to GENTLY 'wipe' the paint onto the wand. I want the gold paint to catch against those wrinkles i made. This way the gold paint (though in thin coats) will build up against the wrinkles & when dry WILL be a slightly darker tone on the wrinkles than the shaft of the wand. Giving it a more wrinkled 'look' than it actually feels to the touch. It will also be a nice two tone back drop against the multi-coloured glitter dust i am going to use on the wand shortly. Once again leave it to FULLY dry.
Speaking of glitter dust. Here is an example of the glitter i will be using (you can see it BETTER in the actual HOW TO video on YouTube) it literally IS as fine as dust. That 'dark' smudge across the center of my hand leading up to my little finger IS the glitter that has not caught the light yet.
I bought the glitter dust in a multipack set. I do not remember the brand name on the packaging but this WILL be different in 'other' countries anyway so it wouldn't help. I did not purchase it online either. The glitter dust came in around 8/10 ampule type tubes each bearing two tones of each colours. As you can see the tubes are quite large & actually hold an extremely large amount of glitter dust. Anyone interested in obtaining some of this super fine glitter dust then get in touch with me 'after' the holidays & i will see what i can do.
The best way to get a nice even spread of glitter over the wand is simply to scatter the mixed colours you want to use over a flat surface. That large dark smudge across the shadow of my hand is the glitter dust building up as i scatter it. .
Then coat the wand in a thin layer of glue.
Now two factors come into play here in relation to how much glitter you want on your wand. The first is how much glitter you scatter. The second is how much glue you brush on the wand. Frankly too much is just glitter over kill it really is. Again make several wands & do some test rolls.
In MY opinion a single roll in one direction WILL give you just the right coating of glitter. A larger (fatter) wand as shown in the final stages of my HOW TO video may take two rolls. One forwards & one backwards. This how ever IS all down to personal choices whilst doing your OWN wand projects.
To help give MY wand an extra light catching glare i am going to add a few of the small plastic stars & discs i found in this pack of confettie. You can just make them out trapped in the bottom left corner of the pack.
I stuck a few on this black tape to try to show you them better but they just would not catch my poor back lighting i have at hand - sorry.
To see a short video of the 'actual' finished wand click this line of text.
The link to the YouTube video can be found in my extensive list at the bottom of this list. There should be a 'view my latest uploaded videos here' video in my small video bar just above the links list too.
No comments:
Post a Comment