DIY Kris Kringle

Always keen for a craft project, I was very pleased to hear we had a 'DIY' rule for Kris Kringle gifts with my extended family this year. After seeing a few lovely versions on Pinterest I decided to tackle my own paper mache bowl to add to the 'lucky dip' at our pre-Christmas day lunch this weekend (any lunch guests reading this blog post, please turn away). 

Outlined below are steps to creating the bowl:

1. To make your bowl shape, start with a balloon.  

2. Cut up your newspaper (or butchers paper as I used) into small strips.  Stick the paper to your balloon using Selleys Wall Paper paste.  The more layers, the thicker the bowl - I ended up with about three layers.

3. Place your balloons upside down inside a paper cup and let it dry overnight.

4. Once dry, pop your balloon and discard it.  What you will have left is a bowl mould with imperfect edges.  Just use scissors to trim it down to the shape you want.  I made mine an
irregular shape on purpose.

5. Paint the bowl white (or any colour) inside and out. I ended up spraying the bowl with a final coat of enamel spray paint for a better finish (not pictured).

6. On to the tricky part...I purchased the gold leaf sheets and the Tannin Sealer (gold leaf size) from my local art shop and simply followed the directions on the bottle. As enjoyable as it was, the gold leafing took a little longer than I anticipated. It could probably be left to an expert - or just someone with more patience and a steadier hand than mine!

7. I sealed the bowl with a standard Jo Sonja's sealer (not pictured) - which actually made the gold become a little tarnished, but I ended up liking this effect.

Fingers crossed the recipient is pleased with his/her gift! I'll check back in with some of the DIY presents from my family that join the mix - with a few artists in the family, some are sure to be beautiful - and some are sure to be....entertaining!