Making an elegant centerpiece for your table, that you can paint a design on to match your Christmas table settings. Here I will show you how to make a elegant bowl to hold fruit, nuts or sweets.

This will also help recycle your old news papers.

The art of papier-mch is one of the cheapest and easiest crafts to do and can result in some stunning beautiful pieces. This can be fun and rewarding to see your own work as center of attraction.

There are two techniques of papier-mch. Pulping involves mixing pieces of paper with water and boiling them to a pulp and adding an adhesive this makes a clay like substance. This type is used for sculpting and is for the more advanced person.

The second type and most popular is layering, in which layers of torn news paper are pasted over each other onto a mould, this method is used for more delicate projects and is the type I recommend for beginners, and this is the one I will be sharing with you today for your elegant centerpiece.

The materials you will need are.

News paper Several sheets of  waste plain paper Flat bottom metal, china or plastic bowl for mould Petroleum jelly PVA glue Scissors Craft knife Thin cardboard Masking tape White matt emulsion paint Paint brush Soft pencil and eraser Colored gouache paints Non-toxic watercolor varnish

What to do.

1.Tear news paper and plain paper into strips about 10cm to 15cm long and 2cm to 4cm wide.

Smear a thin layer of petroleum jelly over the mould. Mix the PVA glue with a little water.

Dip strips of paper into glue mix and start pasting to mould. To ensure a consistent thickness, alternate layers of news paper with layers of plain paper.

Apply eight to ten layers of paper, leaving each one to dry before applying the next.

2.Trim around the top and bottom edges of the bowl with scissors. Gently insert a knife between the mould and the papier-mch shell, and separate the two.

Bind the top edge of bowl with more strips of glued paper. Cut a circle of cardboard to fit the base and secure this to the outside with masking tape.

Remove the bowl completely from the mould and cover the inside and outside with two more layers of glued paper strips.

Allow to dry completely.

Note: Apply glued strips at right angles on the last layer to keep the surface as smooth as possible.

3. Paint the bowl with two coats of white matt emulsion paint to give a neat strong surface leave to dry.

4. With a pencil lightly draw your design on the surface, then fill in with gouache paints and again leave to dry. When completely dry cover with two layers of clear varnish.

I painted mine in a deep red and painted gold stars just here and there for a Christmas theme and filled with assorted sweets hanging candy canes around the edge.

This technique can be applied to most moulds that have straight sides or even plates and trays.

Plates can make a very attractive wall hanging with a photo of your family or pets in the center.

Let your imagination go wild and most of all have fun, these projects are suitable also for supervised children, you can make wonderful piatas for parties using balloons as moulds and when dry pop the balloon and cut a small hole in the top to fill with sweets then with tape stick the piece you cut out back and decorate with shredded tissue paper.