Plaster of Paris

[Cait]

Has anyone ever tried mixing plaster of Paris with PVA to give a more bondable crafting material? I am planning to use cardboard frames with polyfilla or this plaster/pva mix on, into which children can stick screws, pasta, shells, sequins, beads or whatever to make a frame for Father's Day. Then they'll draw a picture of themselves to go inside it.

 

If I just make the plaster with water it may wet the card too much and not bond the materials as it dries. I have a lot of plaster, but no tubes of polyfilla - the cheapest of which I can find is £2 in any case! We'd need a few tubes too I think!

[sunnyday]

No - sorry.......

 

Hmmm - is it OK to use plaster of Paris with children - well obviously it is or you wouldn't do it...........but why have I got a niggling doubt about 'burns' or somesuch? :blink:

[sunnyday]

plaster_of_paris_0708.pdf

[Cait]

Yes, you have to be careful as it gets quite warm when it has a chemical reaction when it sets, but this would be only a thin spreading. We use it to make fridge magnets and sometimes plaster dinosaurs and fossils and things.

[Guest tinkerbell]

you can buy 'mod roc' which is plaster of paris bandage (what they use to set broken arms) you cut it to size and dip in water and mold what ever ,over a newspaper ,cardboard frame eg quick way of making volcanoes sculptures....because it dries quickly and can then be painted.

So technically speaking if you had some hessian or net (curtain) you could probably wet it and dip it in the plaster of paris and then mold it onto and around your cardboard frame....

maybe worth a try

[Cait]

I'm just wanting a medium that the children can press nuts and bolts, pasta, buttons or whatever they want to. I thought the plaster of Paris on its own might just drop off the cardboard frame when it's dry, hence the mixing with pva. Thinking about it, we could actually make them on baking parchment and then glue them on with bostik or something, that would love the problem of keeping the cardboard frame dry.