My son and I work on a weekly DIY for homeschool. Sometimes the projects stretch out over two weeks when they need time dry or some such other step. This project was one of them. As much as my son LOVES rockets, remote control vehicles, math, and inventing things, the projects he has been really drawn to are the challenges in the Paper Crafting and Bookbinding skills on DIY.org. Two weeks ago he officially finished a Papier Mâché Adventure Hat (I made one too) and earned his Paper Crafting skill patch. Here is how we made them.

Spell Papier Mâché Correctly

First off, I just want to say I have been spelling papier mâché incorrectly all my life. (I always thought it was paper mache.) Love learning something new everyday. Another bonus to the homeschooling lifestyle. On that note, I’ll get to the fun stuff.

DIY Paint & Glue

Unfortunately I didn’t take a lot of work in progress photos this time around. Probably because it was so messy. Before we made the hats though we mixed flour, water, and food coloring to make paint. Then we mixed a separate batch of flour and water as glue.

Forming the Papier Mâché Hat

We measured our heads and cut a hole in cereal boxes to fit. Then we blew up balloons (left over form my sister’s twin gender reveal party) inside of the cereal templates to the size of the hats we wanted.

Next came the actual papier mâché part. In the past I have always used newspaper, however we no longer have newspapers at home so we repurposed tissue paper. I do NOT recommend this alternative because it took more than 6 layers to make each hat. Still they turned out very durable and much more like a construction hard hat than I expected.

Finally, we painted them. Emmett had fun using all the colors he made. I used the deeper blue jean color for mine. This project probably took us longer than any of our other DIY project because of the time it took to dry between layers. However, we both had a lot of fun making a mess, and crafting something so fun together. I’ve ordered his patch which we will be sewing onto an adventure bag as soon as it arrives. I’ll be sure to share more about that soon.

What papier mâché projects have you and your little explorers tried?