Paper Mache Sand-Man (Snowman)

I don't have any pictures of the process, but I volunteered to make a paper mache sand-man (snowman) for my kids' Scout troop float in our Christmas parade last year. The theme was "tropical Christmas" which is why it's a sand-man.

I blew up three balloons and covered them in paper mache. When they were dry, I popped the balloons and used the holes where the balloons weren't covered to stack my body parts on top of each other.

I used more paper mache to paste the body parts together and let that dry.

When that was dry, I painted the sand-man a tan color to cover up the ink from my kids' homework assignments which made up the majority of the paper mache.

Once the paint was dry, I made a watered down paste with school glue and water. I spread that over the sand-man a bit at a time, and covered that with sand.

After the sand was dry, I hot glued some sea shell buttons, the sun glasses, carrot nose (which I made from a rolled-up piece of construction paper), and lei. I added a bucket for the hat.

If you want a snowman instead, just paint it white and skip the sand part!

Paper Mache Ghost

I have been seeing these adorable cheesecloth ghosts all over bloggy land and was dying to try it, but since we didn't have cheesecloth, I thought I would give paper mache a try!
This is cheap, easy, messy and fun for your kids, especially if they actually want to help :). I had fun at least...