Just for fun: Decopatch

..... Or paper mache to you and me!!

When this craft hit the shops it looked amazing, beautiful racks of thin paper, self varnishing glue, and inspiring paper shapes to decorate.

I do love the papers, and the shapes, but is gets expensive especially when the girls want to join in! So let me let you in on a secret .... It doesn't have to be! You can cover anything! The self varnishing glue? - pva works equally well, and here's the best bit ... tissue paper works and it's so much cheaper!! How did I discover this? Well having spent hours wandering round hobbycraft looking for their Union Jack Decopatch paper which they had used to decorate a pillar I finally asked if they still had any ... The response - it's tissue paper!

And kids can do it well! Which is useful when they announce that they need to decorate a bottle for school, Sophie wants to make it into a dog and it has to be handed in tomorrow! Paint is quick but doesn't cover plastic well so Decopatch it is!

We tried recycling a brown paper bag for Sophie's dog but it was too thick but we did manage to use the handles for legs!

I am not sure if it counts as recycling if you have to empty the milk into a jug in order to use the bottle!

Once they were covered the children got chased to bed, finishing their animals off early next morning!

Annie created a flying sausage cat!

Sophie a puppy called Su

And Rebecca a pig!

So despite having the activity thrust upon me it turned out to be a couple of hours working together as a family to create something together which was totally worth the late bedtime and morning rush!!