Hello,

I'm new to papier mache. I'm in the process of creating two boxes and a dog. Everything -- for the most part -- is going well; however, some of the paper won't stick and keeps peeling partially off. I'm using a flour and water paste constituted as follows: 1/2 cup flour in 1 cup water, 5 cups boiling water added to mixture, then entire mixture boiled. It's about the consistency of pea soup. I added two drops of clove oil. Other than that, nothing.

Process: I started with a styrofoam armature for the dog and acid-free foam core for the two boxes. For the first layer of the dog, I used wet paper (no paste) then -- when it dried -- I pasted paper strips from newsprint and magazines (using a brush) followed by colored craft tissue paper. The boxes were the same process, only I started by pasting a tissue paper layer, then alternated layers between tissue paper and newsprint/magazine paper.

The stickiness problem began after I applied layer three. Any help would be appreciated.