How to Make a Christmas Bauble Using Papier Mache

This is a super simple craft which is versatile and easy to achieve by using ball pool balls. These baubles can be customised to your wish with anything from paint to pens, or even printed pictures of you family or friends. Many of the materials listed below can be swapped if you don’t have them, and the technique used can be applied to lots of other objects you may wish to transform.

These instructions are for a generic sphere shaped bauble, but they can also apply to other shapes.

-        Small plastic balls (I used ball pool balls) or anything else which is light

-        Newspaper/paper

-        PVA glue/mod podge

-        Hot glue

-        Cotton/string/ribbon

-        Paint

- Paperclip

Other things you may find helpful:

1. something to apply the PVA with (spatula, paintbrush, cocktail stick)
2. something to hold the PVA in like a palette
3. a plate to rest your work whilst it is drying
4. a craft knife
5. a little salt to stop mould

There are loads of plastic ball variants available on Amazon, and I got these from an old kids’ play set. If you can’t find any, you can always use something else which is spherical or you could even make an irregular shaped bauble from other objects but it must be light so that its weight can be supported by a paperclip. Alternatively, you could use cardboard for a flat bauble and cut out a shape to use. (The ball on my hand is for size reference of what I will be using.)

Take your sheets of paper or old newspapers and rip them into roughly equal strips. Then tear them into smaller pieces that are about the same size.

Put some PVA or mod podge into anything which you don’t mind getting a little sticky. I use these yellow plastic art palettes for virtually every craft, but anything will do. Then add some salt, as this prevents mould from growing although this is optional. Next dilute the PVA with a little water so it is easier to apply and it is absorbed into the paper better but don’t add too much so that it is completely runny, as it won’t stick as well and it has a tendency to dribble everywhere. Try and see what works for you, but I generally stick to a glue to water ratio of about 3:1 adding as I go. Then mix the glue and water until a paste is formed. If you start with a little amount of PVA and use more if necessary, then you won’t be wasting as much PVA. The amount in the picture when I squeezed it out is more than plenty for such a small ball, and in fact I had to put some back before adding the water in the next image.

To make sure the paper has absorbed the most glue it can, leave it in the gluey mix for a little time so it is coated before applying it to your bauble base. If you have a wider plate or surface with your glue on it is easy to lay out lots of paper pieces at once so that the process is quicker. I use a small glue spatula to pick up the pieces and then put them on the ball, but if you don’t have one of them a paintbrush or cocktail stick or even just your hands can be helpful.

For a less messy method, simply apply some PVA to the object or ball and then stick a piece of paper on top. This is less time consuming. Insure that you coat the top of the paper as well once it is applied with something like a paintbrush.

Begin applying the pieces of paper or newspaper until you have covered the entire ball making sure they overlap slightly. Leave the completed bauble on a plate or dish to dry. If you would like, you can add a second coat of paper when it is semi dry. Preferably leave it to dry overnight or for at least a few hours. If you would like to add images, apply them now once the base layer has dried. From recent experimentation I found that some printer inks are removed by PVA/mod podge, so you might want to do a tester first. Laser printers may be a good idea.

The ball should be completely dry before any incisions are made. I advise you let it dry for over four hours, even over night. This one dried over night.

Cut a pinprick hole in the top of the ball and unfold the paperclip as shown if you are going to be inserting it into a ball like I am. If your object is flat, you can hole punch or cut a hole quite near the top to put the paperclip through. If you object is not permeable with a knife, you can use super glue or hot glue to glue the paper clip onto the top in its original form.

Push in the paperclip as shown in the photos and put a little glue of your choice around the base of the paperclip. I advise using hot glue as it provides stability around the paperclip. Leave to dry. To stop it rolling and pushing the paper clip out of place, you can put the bauble in a cup with a smaller diameter if it is a spherical bauble.

You can use hot glue to draw a pattern onto your bauble. I just did a very rough snowflake as I was just trying out this method. When it is dry and painted in a base colour, you can paint the raised bumps to give it a tactile finish.

Decorate the bauble as you wish, with paint or pens or anything else. I used a base of gesso to work off of as I used newspaper which may show through the paints. If you want to you could do a few layers of normal white paint/acrylic to mimic gesso. I also painted the paperclip to match.

Use some cotton or string or ribbon to tie up the bauble by looping it through the paper clip.

Hang your bauble wherever you wish to admire it!