Effortless Paper Mache Acorn

How To Make a Paper Mache Acorn Sculpture

You will learn how to form recycled newspaper into a acorn, cover with paper mache, paint, and protect.

This paper mache project is super easy, cheap, and great for someone wanting to learn the awesome art of paper mache.

We hope to be a spring board to get you started and encourage you to tweak, change the acorn up all you want.

Stuff List

Recycled Newspaper

Masking Tape

Paper Mache Paste

Paints and Paint Brushes

Paper Clay (Optional)

H²0 and Rags

Steps to Make Your Acorn Sculpture

1 Build Your Acorn Armature

Begin by wading up newspaper into a teardrop shape using tape to hold into place. Slide your acorn teardrop into a plastic bag.

To form the cap (top) of the acorn wade up newspaper, press this down flat, and lay over the top of your acorn. The cap will come down the sides just a bit. Place the cap into a bag and glue the acorn body and cap together.

Make a stem by rolling up cardboard and taping onto the top of the cap.

2 Paper Mache and Paper Clay

1st Session

Cover the acorn armature with 3 to 4 layers of newspaper using your hands soaked in paper mache paste. Lay your paper flat onto your acorn and work out all air bubbles. As you continue to apply layers of paper onto your armature your acorn will begin to take shape before your eyes. Never give up you can do this.

Once you have covered your acorn with paper mache they must completely dry. Lay them out in the sun if you can for faster drying, they will take at least 24 hours to dry depending on the size of your acorn.

Tip: If you feel that your sculpture is strong enough you can skip to step 3 painting your acorn sculpture.

Paper Clay or Paper Mache

You Choose

2nd Session

How To Make a Paper Clay Acorn Sculpture

For this session you have two choices; paper clay or paper mache. Both mediums are wonderful and will render a perfect acorn sculpture. The 2 best benefits to using the paper clay vs. paper mache are time and toughness. Both recipes are on the channel; please do check them out.

We will walk through both paper mache and paper clay finishing process.

Paper Mache: Cover with 4 to 5 more layers of paper mache all at one time. Let it completely dry before moving on. If your acorn does not seem tough enough add more paper mache. After each session of paper mache your sculpture must completely dry before moving to your next step. Awesome, guys get excited to see your acorn take shape.

Quick Link to Paper Mache Paste Recipe: http://goo.gl/BH5lgM

Paper Clay: Cover the entire acorn with about 1/4 to 1/2 inch layer of paper clay, doing one side at a time and letting that completely dry. Apply the #paperclay with your hands and smooth with paper mache paste, butter knife, etc. You can let your paper clay dry for about 6 or more hours and then smooth more with paste.

We are still learning and experimenting with the paper clay for better results every day.

Paper Mache and Paper Clay Acorn with primer coat of paint

The size of your acorn will determine how long it will take to dry. A large acorn will take approximately 3 to 4 days to dry, the paper clay takes longer to dry than you think so don't rush it, wait an extra day before painting for caution.

You can use a fan, the sun, and the oven on the lowest temperature it will allow. Our oven can go as low as 145 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a perfect temperature for slowly drying your paper clay, we will place it in the oven over night and pull out doesn't do well in the closed oven when off. Also, if you heat your clay to fast it can turn dark brown in the oven which is okay because you will cover with primer paint.

Paper Clay Recipe: http://goo.gl/xoTFbJ

Question: Can I skip the paper mache and put paper clay directly onto my armature?

Answer: Yes, yes you can if your armature can support the weight of the paper clay without the support of the paper mache strips and paste.

If you need once the acorn has dried you can lightly sand with sandpaper and wipe off before painting.

3. Paint Your Acorn Sculpture

Paint a white coat of primer paint on your acorn this will give you a white canvas for painting. We use white flat interior house paint to prime the surface our sculptures.

Once the primer coat as dried paint with acrylics anyway you like. I begin with the darkest color and work my way to the lightest color shade. Color is fun and you can't mess up, anything goes.

Let all you paint completely dry before sealing with varnish.

Varnishing (Protecting)

You must seal your paper mache pieces with varnish for protection against moisture. Brush on 3 to 4 coats of varnish and let it completely dry. Varnish also comes in a spray can but takes so much to cover your pieces I prefer to brush.

Follow the instructions on your varnish to apply. We brush on Polyacrylic Minwax at the studio to varnish all our art. The gloss enhances our paint job.