I show you how I made a turtle shaped lamp using a balloon as a base, some cardboard for the paper clay and acrylic colors. This is a creative way to teach children about recycling and also stimulate their imagination.
The little turtle is inspired by a cute Light a Way character called Turtie. Light a Way is a fairytale-inspired mobile game about a girl who ends the eternal darkness with the light in her heart. You can play the game here:
Today's video is sponsored by Appxplore, the developers of this awesome game, to celebrate Earth Day.
I started by making the paper clay from the cardboard. It is really easy and cheap to make because we only use two ingredients: cardboard and P. V. A. glue (polyvinyl acetate glue, commonly referred to as wood glue, white glue, carpenter's glue, school glue, Elmer's glue in the US. I used an old blender to make it really smooth. I tear the cardboard to pieces and place them in the blender. I add hot water over the cardboard pieces and start the blender. When it looks like a homogeneous mix I squeeze the water out trough a sieve. You should squeeze as much water as you can. I then add the glue. I used about three tablespoons of P. V. A. glue in the mix you saw, but you should add one spoon at a time and mix it to see if it has the consistency you want, and keep adding glue until the paste is the way you want it to be.
The next step is covering half of the balloon in a thin layer of paper clay. After the paper clay is dry I cut stripes from some toilet paper tubes and glue them to the bottom of the shell to make the little waves Turtie has. For the legs and neck I used toilet paper rolls and made little cones out of them. I glued the legs and neck to a cardboard base. I connected a smaller balloon to the neck so I can make the head shape. I also made some leaves for the top and for the tail. I covered all the new elements with the homemade paper clay. To reinforce the curly tail and curly top of the turtle I used some wire from a hanger. After it was dry I sanded the surface and added a lot of little holes in the surface of the shell. The lamp will have a cool light effect from those little holes and spread the light in an awesome pattern on the walls. This is way different from the fairy house lamps I made in the past, where the light was coming out through the windows and doors. The video can't really show how cool it looked in the dark. I painted the turtle in acrylics. I started by making the whole turtle white, then I added layers of acrylics. I placed some battery operated LED lights in the turtle so it looks awesome as a night light Date: 2022-04-28
Tanya Hi Creative Mom, Hopefully you're having a great weekend? The first time I tried this turtle light it didn't work due to using the cardboard and pva glue. This time I'm trying it again but with plaster cloth wrap and paste for the rest. Hopefully it goes all well. Thank you for the inspiration. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Regards Tanya
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vector3d Hey I wanted to ask whether these articles start smelling after some weeks? BTW I loved this. And I want to make it as a gift for my mom's birthday
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valerie7008 I think this might be the coolest thing Ive ever seen in my 39 years on earth. Making this will now be on my bucket list. Fantastic! reply
