I used a round gourd to cover with tufa for my pumpkin. However, my first attempt had a major flaw. After I applied the tufa, the gourd absorbed all the water and expanded quite a bit, cracking the uncured tufa. My second try was to drill a hole in the bottom of the gourd, fully soak it for several hours, them apply the tufa. The gourd, this time, shrunk away from the tufa as it cured, and I was successful in making my pumpkin. Learn as you go. I made a nice sphere using a basketball. I left a small hole near the inflation area, deflated it, removed it, (after it had set up real hard!) and patched the hole. This was a good way for me to do it. The firm basketball works great, but don't work in the sun, it will expand, and cause problems, and don't forget, deflate and leave in or remove it later. .

hey TMG :D last year I did some Halloween candy totes. I blew up small balloons and did it the old fashioned way with glue and torn strips of newspaper. I used Aleen's tacky glue in some water, and put a few strips of paper in it at a time. When I liked the look, I added some colored tissue paper to finish, but I think painting would be easier. I don't know how sturdy it would be to mosaic,lol, but they sure did get hard! I remember my daughter making a pinata for school that the class had to saw open, though :D hehe

Saw the cutest idea for placecard holders in a papier mache painting idea book yesterday. They used papier mache birdhouse ornaments (there's me and my birdhouses again)and here's what they did. They removed the ornament strings. Painted them fun, bright colors like bright yellows, pinks, seafoam green and decorated them with polk dots, swirls, zigzag lines etc. Then they curled a piece of decoarative wire to hold the placecard. They polked a small hole in the top of the birdhouse and put the other end of the wire into the roof with a nice bead between the roof and the curl. They used some glue to secure it. Needless to say I ended up buying the book (got it at a big discount at a local craft outlet store) because they also had seasonal stacking box characters including a gingerbread man!

We made dolls very much like this years ago....a styrofoam ball...make indentions for the eyes and mouth....shape a nose also...then we covered it with strips of cloth soaked in something like wallpaper paste. I think crafts stores have a fabric stiffener...when dry, paint and add features. We used smaller balls and made hands feet and legs also. Alas...I forget what the stiffener was called, but I'm sure you could go online or to a craft store and find it.