DIY Waterproof Paper Mache for outdoor weather resistant crafts

Welcome to DIYEasyCrafts.com How to make your own outdoor weatherproof paper mache. Now our special mix of paper mache is actually made with mortar. It's actually a three step process. We're not going to use any cardboard or paper to fill any voids or to use as a backing. We're going to use foam insulation. This is very important because we don't want to use anything that's going to hold moisture if it gets wet being outdoors. The second step is to mix up a mortar mix. We're not going to use any mortar. We're going to use something called flex bond which is a little bit more durable, a little bit more flexible and it's more appropriate for outdoor use. We're going to carve the foam into whatever shape we like and then we can add details with strips of paper that are completely saturated with the mortar mix as shown. You want to coat both sides. It's easy to do with a brush. This particular piece of foam is just a test piece and I'm going to show you what we'll do in a minute. We're going to run this under water. We're going to run it through a variety of tests just to make sure that it is water and weather resistant. You want to have at least two layers of the paper when making any project and after you're completely done coating your foam object, carving, sculpture, whatever it is, you also want to give it a complete coat with a brush of that same mortar mix so that it basically has a nice thick coating of that mortar which in itself is going to make it water resistant. After you've applied that mortar mix completely, you want to set this aside for a day to dry. I usually just put them right in the boiler room of my house. It just facilitates the drying process a little bit. Now the first test, we're just going to take that piece of foam that has our outdoor paper mache on it and run it under some water. The results were pretty nice. The particular mortar, the dry spots as well as the wet spots continued to be hard. None of the water got through to the foam. But this really is just the first test and this particular piece is not complete. The final step of the exterior paper mache mix is to give a good coating of exterior paint onto your sculpture. This is going to really seal that paper mache, that mortar paper mache mix and prevent any moisture from even getting to the mortar mix. So we actually have a multiple layer barrier, water resistant barrier. So if water got through the paint, it would have a hard time getting through the mortar and the paper mache. And if it did, it wouldn't do any harm at all to the foam backing. Now in some cases, you don't want a solid foam backing on your finished piece. And for this, we're going to use acetone. You can pour the acetone through a small hole or directly onto the foam if it's visible. And the acetone is going to actually melt the foam into a liquid. It only takes a few minutes. You pour a little acetone on and it quickly dissolves that foam down into a liquid which can be poured out of the container. And this is appropriate. I'll put a link to one of the other videos that we did which was making an outdoor birdhouse out of this paper mache. And we were able to melt the foam and pour it out right through one of the drainage holes on the birdhouse, leaving a nice cavity on the inside of that exterior weather-resistant paper mache. Now you might have to mix it a couple times with the acetone to get out all of the foam, but that gives you the idea. Now one of the last tests we're going to do, and this is just the shell, which is pretty durable in itself. This only has one layer of paper and grout mixture, and it does have the exterior enamel, high-gloss enamel. I ran it under water for a substantial amount of time, a couple of hours, and it had no ill effects, not only on the paper mache, but none of the moisture got onto the inside of this cavity. And again, even if it did, if we had foam on the inside, it's not going to cause, it's not going to be able to hold any moisture or cause any damage. You can see when we flip over this cavity that the backside or the inside of this container is absolutely completely dry after hours of being soaked in running water. Now this mortar mix can be used in a variety of different sculptures and different paper mache projects. For making the wings and things and smaller pieces, you can use a cement board called a hardy board, and again, refer to that other video on exterior birdhouses to see how that was used. You don't want to use cardboard, you don't want to use wood, you don't want to use anything that's going to hold or absorb moisture. Using foam, hardy board, hardy backer board, cement board, as well as this very cool grout paper mache, you end up with a finished product that is lightweight, very durable, and certainly weather resistant. 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