Plaster is a versatile craft tool. Kids can expand their imagination and creative juices with a variety of children's crafts. Adults may enjoy the many uses of plaster for home decoration and accents as well. Plaster can be messy but is a relatively easy medium to work with. As with any craft, the details are what make the craft more than just something to do; they make it an art piece to admire.
Kids Crafts
Working with plaster not only helps kids explore their creative side, it gives them a tactile lesson with the feel of plaster before it is mixed with water, as it is being molded and after it dries. A very simple plaster craft for kids is to make handprints or footprints. These can be a plaster plate or plaque or a three-dimensional embrace with mom or dad's hand. Kids also enjoy making flower pots or pen holders using plaster and molding it into the shape they desire. For the child with more artistic skills, he can make a fossil with leaves or flowers laid on sand in a cup filled with plaster. It takes a day to dry before you can wash the sand off and see the fossil.
Home Decor
Plaster is wonderful to make a variety of home decor projects. You can add special touches to your child's room with a plaster lamp poured into a mold of a cute teddy bear or horse. You can create candle holders or money banks. Once you have become adept in setting an object into the plaster, you can make a mirror frame unique to your home and style. Jewelry boxes, vases and angels are also very popular crafts made from molds, painted and fired in a kiln to accent your home. For larger items either inside or outside, you can create busts, pedestals or large vases. Custom wall brackets are another great home decor idea.
Working With Plaster
While plaster can be used with very simple molds such as a paper cup, it is most often cast in a latex mold. Many who work with latex molds will use an exterior support mold to help the latex maintain the desired shape under the weight and pressure of the latex. When you pour the plaster into the mold, give the plaster time to release any air bubbles within the mixture by pulling and shaking the mold. Once you have removed any air bubbles, fill the rest of the mold to the top to set.
There are also lumps of plaster that you can work with if you want to carve a sculpted piece. It is best to carve only completely dry plaster and use a tenon saw to lump off large sections to achieve a basic shape. From there you should use a variety of chisels, files and knives to work the details in. Finish the sculpture with various grits of sandpaper for a smooth finish.
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