Making of a volcano - Day 1

Big Bear is coming up on his 6th birthday this week, and we are getting ready to party! We're branching out from just family this year and are inviting some of his friends, so we're trying to plan a couple of games/activities for them to do together. The theme is: Volcano! One idea I thought of for an activity was a "lava rock" toss into a "volcano." So our first step is to make a volcano. We decided to try paper mache. It's not something either my husband or I have any experience in, so I thought it might be fun to document our adventure. Here's hoping it is successful, too!

We made a family trip to Home Depot yesterday for the main supplies: a big bucket, duct tape, a piece of plywood for the base, chicken wire, and bolts/nuts/washers. Then I made a trip to the grocery store to get some newspapers and flour.

My husband started by drilling two holes into the plywood and the bottom of the bucket. Then we secured the bucket to the plywood using the bolts/nuts/washers. Next we used chicken wire to build a sort of cage around the bucket.

Duct tape was used to cover the edges of the board and the inside of the bucket where the chicken wire ended-- to cover up all the pointy edges.

As we worked, my husband tried to shape the chicken wire and create some contours. I used a staple gun to help secure the wire to the base as well.

Then came the fun part: paper mache!

Using the recipe we found at cockeyed.com of 3 cups of water to 2-1/2 cups of flour, we made our goopy paste.

Then we used strips of torn newspaper and got to work.

Paper mache is a seriously messy business.

Big Bear didn't help because he was in bed-- but as he hates getting his hands dirty, I suspect he wouldn't have wanted anything to do with this process anyway. LOL!

After about 2 hours of focused paper mache work, we finally had something resembling a volcano.

Now we're crossing our fingers that it will be dry by Wednesday or Thursday night.

I made some cookies today to help warm up the kitchen and facilitate dry time. (Mmmmm.... chocolate chip!!!)

There may still have to be some blow dryer action involved. Or maybe more cookies.