Papercreters: [papercreters] Re: Sculptural mix for pumpkins

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

[papercreters] Re: Sculptural mix for pumpkins

The stolloween (http://www.stolloween.com/?page_id=67)link you give below, Evelyn is excellent, thanks. I got some good ideas from it.

I don't have a real set recipe I seem to do art/papercrete the way I cook, using what's on hand and how it feels at the time. I found my basic recipe I posted when I applied for the contest and reposted it below. I have not explored any outdoor projects as yet, but have thought about using ceramic tile/grout sealant, faux finish glaze as sealant, as I have been impressed with how well it has worked around a bathroom sink for about 10 years and wall still looks great.

I used 2 to 3 standard plastic grocery bags of shredded paper (junk mail, newspaper, shiny heavy ink adv brochures, etc) learned it is not good to use credit cards, heavy plastic, window envelopes, etc. doesn't mix/blend well with other materials.

1)Put shredded paper in old 5 gallon paint bucket, poured boiling hot water over paper, let soak sometimes several days.

2)Mixed paper and water with large paint mixer quite a bit to break up pulp and get real mushy, added small bucket, mostly full of quickcrete and a handful or two of wet clay. Clay just felt like it wanted to be there and I needed an excuse to wet it down and squish in
it a bit. ;-) Sometimes added another scoop or two of concrete and or
clay, again; it's like seasoning the soup, what does it want/need.

3)Mix very thoroughly, added a slosh of bleach to kill some of the bacteria that seems to develop and make the mix a bit smelly. This makes about the perfect amount to fill my mold. Any left overs I pour into various takeout containers, yogurt containers, etc to carve later and experiment with various surface treatments.

Hope this helps with your pumpkin project. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Best,
Lynda / ~ljl~

--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, Evelyn Vollmer <evelynanne8@...> wrote:
>
> Yes, I seem to remember this too, Greg. I wish it wasn't so hard to search
> back for posts, I just don't have the time to do it right now but I believe
> that it was Lylabird (winner of Pail o Papercrete) and Bob the builder that
> talked about this. Don't hold me to this though.....
>
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Greg House <ghunicycle@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I don't have any direct experience with this, but you may want to search
> > the archives as I remember a couple of people posting papercrete recipes
> > that they used for sculptural work in the past. As I remember one had a
> > generous portion of clay and the other had drywall mud in it.
> >
> > Greg
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > *From:* rmorger03 <rmorger@...>
> > *To:* papercreters@yahoogroups.com
> > *Sent:* Monday, September 21, 2009 10:43:06 AM
> > *Subject:* [papercreters] Re: Sculptural mix for pumpkins
> >
> > Thats where we got our ideas. Just figured I would make something more
> > durable that could be left in the yard year round.
> >
> > >
> > > You might take a look at this site, its not papercrete but it would
> > > probably work as well. http://www.stolloween.com/?page_id=67
> > > <http://www.stollowe en.com/?page_ id=67<http://www.stolloween.com/?page_id=67>
> > >
> > >
> > > Bob
> > >