from an old shoe to a cat princess

Homework time again with my little monster princess- she may look sweet here but looks are deceiving. The old adage of "I hope your kids are just like you" is sometimes not far from my mind. Anyway she is a dear, almost 5 going on 25.

This week I was informed that my daughter, with my help, was to convert an old shoe into something "fabulous!!!". Princess monster being cat crazy (especially since we don't have one) decided we will make a cat.

So we found an old shoe ( sorry no pic of the old shoe before the paper mache (Papier-mâché) as I did not think about taking pic until later :( ); then I found some supporting material for the ears, tail, nose and hind legs. I used that white thingie with the holes as it was around the house but cardboard would do as well. I made the desired shapes; attached the shaped to the shoe - I did this by slicing the shoe in the appropriate place and inserting the shape. For the whiskers I used the inner wire some old compute cable, sliced the top are of the shoe and threaded it through.
While doing this the monster was shredding old newspaper- just a couple of sheets . Then we made the glue - water and flour. To add a little spice we added some rose oil and ground clove (no reason except the think the later may help stop it been eaten but I am not sure)

Next we dunked the paper into the glue and covered the shoe ( minus the straps because they have butterflies on them - you know).

We Papier-mâchéd the shoe twice, drying in between with a hair drier .
I added 4 wadded up Papier-mâché balls for the paws and papered them into the whole.

Next I painted the cat white with acrylic paint, got a long skewer and wrapped the wire around it to curl the whiskers. Then painted the whiskers white.

After it dried well (the next day) , I cut the tail a bit - it was too long. Then the long awaited fun began - up to the point princess monster was very unsure about her cat and was looking at me with suspect glances - we painted the cat, added some essential lace and it is now ready to be transported to school on Monday!!.