Building a paper clay shelf yay!!

⋆⋆⋆ Paper Clay Shelf Part 1 ⋆⋆⋆

Recently, i've been working on making a cardboard shelf.

And It's not as scary or unstable as it sounds!!! Promise!

I saw a lady called @slugdealerrr on Instagram making a shelf using cardboard and paper clay and i thought it was soooo cool!!! she was shredding up paper and mixing it up to make paste, that she was then applying to a cardboard structure to make furniture!

Now, i need a shelf badddddddd, and I've got nowhere to pop any of my stuff. My poor figures, books, movies etc, they're all just strewn all over the outer sections of my room in precariously balanced towers... and with just moving to a new house, i deffo have a lottttt of paper and cardboard going spare.

My 3 second sketch of my shelf plan i made using my laptop touchpad ;_;

I've been working on it slowly over the last month or so, and its deffo a slow process, especially because i chose to make a GIANTTTT shelf as my first piece oops ˙◠˙ Buttt its gonna look like one of those old littlest pet shop houses in the end hopefully, so the effort will be worth it.

I've been primarily using cardboard since that's what i have a surplus of, and shredding that into a random mystery bucket i found on the street which has proven to be incredibly useful :P

I then pour hot water all over the cardboard until it's all submerged in the bucket and leave it to soak for 24-48h.

Once its all soaked, i decant the cardboard in small amounts into a seperate bowl and use a hand blender to blend it into a pulp, then straining it through a tea towel to squeeze all of the water out.

The paper clay! I use a washing up glove so it doesnt cement itself to my hand because it can get sticky /:

I then throw this all back into the empty bucket and mix in a wholeeee bunch of random stuff lol. I use PVA glue, Wall Filler, Salt, Vinegar, Cinnamon etc etc. I kinda just eyeball it but i mix these together with the cardboard pulp until the texture resembles clay. I keep this in the tub and cover it with clingfilm until i need it!!!

The clay should last for a week or so, but if i actually made it airtight, it would probably last longer lol.

The vinegar, salt and cinnamon are all to prevent it going bad and evil. Anti-fungal and bacterial ingredients! The glue and filler are used for structural integrity and binding it all together.

I've then been moulding this 'clay' onto my shelf bit by bit, and when it dries, which takes a few days to fully solidify, it is super duper strong and rigid! And it smells of yummy cinnamon ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Although... since my shelf is getting quite big now, it's also getting heavier and heavier )))))))):

My progress on the shelf so far! Ive been adding clay to some of the boxes that arent attached yet to speed up the process and make it stronger!

I'm about halfway-ishhh with it, but i've really got into the flow of the process of making the paper clay and how to make the structure as strong as possible.

I probably need to go to a hardware store soon so i can choose some colours to paint it. Im thinking some combo of baby pink, light yellow, and brown? Probably spotty or something adjacent. Or maybe brown with pink and yellow interiors for the boxes? I need to sketch a few plans out i think.

Once i finish this shelf, i really want to work on some sort of jewellery stand for all my necklaces and bracelets, as well as some smaller shelves to pop around on other surfaces in my room? Just to make my room a bit more interesting, and DOUBLE because i'm not allowed to put stuff on my wall with this new house contract... (⩌_⩌)

If you have colour suggestions, lmkkkkkkk

Hopefully my next update on the shelf shouldn't be too far away... and then it will be painting time! Yayyyy!!

Cya around, Wens! (:

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Magdalena Bay