Replicas Project

The first thing I did was measure the original light switch. I then multiplied those measurements By 10 to come up with my new measurements. Originally it measures 1.75 inches by 3.5 inches., The new measureme3nts are approximately 17 inches by 35 inches.
For materials I used a 1 inch thick piece of foam core board, a piece of 1/2 inch foam core board, and semi- gloss house paint.

After measuring, I cut the pieces for the plate part of the switch out of the 1 inch foam board. I then cut the pieces for the switch itself from the smaller foam board. I used a hot glue gun to assemble the pieces together, because the edges were pretty rough, I used painter's tape to smooth out the edges. I then mixed a batch of paper mache' paste and cut strips of newspaper which I put on two small water balloons. I set these aside to dry.

Then next step was to cut the center hole for the switch. I glued the switch in place, and then painted the entire piece using semi-gloss house paint. It took three coats of paint to get a uniform finish. When the paper mache' was dry, I measured and cut out the screw heads and hot glued them into place. I then painted them using the semi-gloss paint for the main body, and acrylic paint for the screw divot.

The problems that I had with this project were that the inch thick foam core board, was very hard to cut. Even with a utility knife and a good straight edge, it was difficult to get perfectly straight lines. The biggest problem was the corners. the outside edges of the light switch plate are curved, and I really struggled to get the corners right. They still are not perfect, but I did the best I could.

Overall this was a pretty fun project.
Teresa Neal