Paper Maché Aliens

Let your child’s imagination go wild and help them create adorable alien “pets”. A super fun craft & literacy project for all ages!

You will need:

• -Newspaper
• Paper towels or serviettes
• Masking Tape
• Wood glue
• Paint

What to do:

Ask your child if he or she had an alien creature as a pet, what would it look like? Use their ideas and help them make a basic drawing. My son designed his “pets”on the Spore online game, but note that the game is recommended for ages ten and up.

Once you have an idea of what your alien should look like, take some pieces of newspaper and scrunch it up. Cover the scrunched-up pieces with bigger sheets to form basic shapes to use as the head and body. Secure with masking tape.

Use strips of newspaper to form longer pieces for arms and legs. You can twist or braid the pieces together. Add smaller balls to form the feet and hands. You can fold the newspaper in triangular shapes to make flipper feet.

Form smaller balls for the eyes and secure to the head with a piece of masking tape. Tape all the body parts together.

Dilute your wood glue to 2/3 parts glue, 1/3 part water and mix well. Paint your creature with the solution, while sticking small newspaper squares as you work. Once the alien is covered, let it dry properly. This may take a few hours. Use the same paint and stick method with paper towel or tissue paper to cover the smaller pieces of your alien for example the pieces in between the fingers. Use long narrow strips around the eyes if your alien needs eyelids. Let dry, preferably overnight as the tissue paper takes ages to dry.

Once completely dry, you can start painting your alien. Start with lighter colours first, add darker colours and lastly details like the eyeballs.

You can take it a step further and let your child do some creative writing. Make a “care”sheet, give your alien a name and add details such as diet, exercise routine and sleeping habits.

Such a fun project for kids of all ages to enhance creativity plus sneak in literacy skills too!