Paper Mache Giraffe Bank

A friend’s son’s birthday was coming up and the son is into giraffes. I decided to make an interesting present for her son, thus the idea of making a paper mache giraffe bank was born.

If you ever know of anyone who is into giraffe’s as well, here are the steps to making this giraffe bank.

You will need

Lots of paper  (I used circulars, junk mail, newspaper inserts, and kindergarten writing paper…. I find that the softer the paper, the easier it absorbs the glue and the easier it is to mold it into form)

Lots of crafter’s glue

A kitchen towel roll

2 toilet paper rolls

empty container of Nestea Iced Tea

a small balloon (the ones used for water bombs)

yellow and black acrylic paint

brown fuzzy pipe cleaners

brown sticky felt cloth

brown felt ( a tad shade lighter than the brown sticky felt)

sand paper

scissors, cutter

masking tape

2 spherical pencil toppers

black foam sheet

hot glue gun and glue sticks

Step 1: Make the skeleton for your paper mache project

Take the iced tea container, this will be the giraffe’s body, and make a slit or hole on one side. This is the hole where the money can be dropped in. The top or lid will be the giraffe’s bottom. This can be screwed off to take the money out.

Then, cut the toilet paper rolls in half, these will be used for the giraffe’s legs. .

Blow up the balloon into the desired size. This will be the giraffe’s head.

Tape the legs to the container. Tape the kitchen towel roll on one end of the container. This will be the giraffe’s neck.

Tape the balloon on the other end of the kitchen towel roll. This will be the giraffe’s head.

Step 2: Glue paper like crazy

Cut paper into small pieces. Put glue in a small tub or container. Rub glue on the skeleton of the giraffe project and glue layers of paper. Keep gluing and gluing and gluing paper. Make a lot of layers. Mold the paper while still wet with glue so the edges and joints are smooth. Let dry. Do the same for the lid of the container. Make sure that you put the same number of layers so that it will be consistent to the thickness and size of the body.

As you glue the paper. Mold the tail, and the ears, and the horns.

Step 3: Sanding and Painting

When the glue is completely dry, your project will feel hard. Then it is time to sand off the rough edges. Then paint over with yellow acrylic paint. You may need to put two to three layers of paint to make sure that the print on the paper does not show. Don’t forget to sand and paint the lid. Let it dry.

Paint the spherical pencil toppers with black acrylic paint and let those dry as well.

Step 4: Coat with Glue

When the paint is completely dry, paint over the surface with white glue. This will give the paper mache a nice finish.

Step 5: Embellishing

Cut the sticky felt cloth in circles of varied sizes. Stick over the felt cloth and cut around it leaving a small border. Hot glue in several places on the giraffe’s body.

Paint black acrylic paint on the feet of the giraffe. Make it about a third of an inch. Cut 4 circles from the black foam sheet and glue this on the bottom of the giraffe’s feet. Make sure they are the same size as the feet. Then glue around the base, a strip of black foam sheet with the same thickness as the paint.

Cut strips of brown felt and paste on the neck. This will be the giraffe’s mane. Paste a strip of fuzzy brown pipe cleaners to make the joints for the mane look cleaner.

Cut out a tail, ears, nostrils, and hair from brown felt cloth and glue this on the giraffe as well. Glue the painted pencil toppers on the top of the horns.

Glue googly eyes or paint on some eyes for the giraffe.

Put it a ribbon on the neck and  your present is ready to present.