papier-mâché stool

It's not a secret that I'm no fan of plastic, but because we're on a budget, always accept and appreciate hand-me-downs and gifts from friends and relatives and have limited skills for larger scale building projects, we do have a few plastic items in our home.  One of these is the perfectly sized little four-legged stool from Ikea.  Naiya sits on it when she draws or paints at her easel or uses it for various games, structures or vehicles.  For months I was trying to find tree rounds to make one from wood but, more from lack of tools than from lack of materials, eventually I let go of the idea.  The one she uses is really sturdy and also serves as a table, a boat, a car and a doll house (among other things).  Aside from it's plastic-ness and shocking green color, it's great.
So last week I decided to just hide it's true nature under a layer of re-used natural-ness.  (I actually did this same thing to the hideous pink and gray bathroom tile that surrounded my fireplace when I first moved into my house.)  I covered it with torn up paper shopping bags.

 Weird, eh?  But I dig it so much more than the day-glo green and there's (seemingly) no more plastic furniture in Naiya's play room!

The torn bag bits were dipped into a mixture of about 4 parts white glue to 1 part water and the stool dried in about 3 hours next to the heater vent.  One could also paint the surface I suppose, but I like the organic look of the brown bag.