Rock climbing wall for American Girl Doll

Overall dimensions: size 2' x 3'

 

See my other free Rock Climbing tutorials

What you need

• 1/4" sheet of plywood or similar (2' x 3')
• 1/4" sheet of insulating foam (optional)
• roll of paper towel (I use the one with the smaller pieces)
• 1 pint of Elmer's glue
• water
• acrylic paints in the color of your rock (for granite I used grey, white and black)
• matte acrylic sealer
• primer (I used a spray can of primer)
• 5 colors of FIMO or Sculpey
• hot glue gun

This project takes a few days because of drying times in between !

How to make the rock climbing wall

1.  Mix 2 cups of Elmer's glue with 1 cup water (or whatever quantity you want)

2. Tear off a whole bunch of paper towels

3. If you want you can cut shapes from foam to create overhangs and other big forms.
    Glue to board.

4. Dip a paper towel in glue mixture and make thoroughly wet then form a ball and wring out.
    Put ball on board.

5. Repeat putting ball shaped paper towels on board until you have the conture you want

6. Cover whole board with 2 layers of paper towels
    (I went in different direction on second layer, not shown in picture)

7. Let dry 24h (or until dry)

8. Put 2 more layers of paper towel on board and let dry again 24h

9. Put 2 more layers of paper towel on board and let dry again for a couple of days.
    You should now have 6 layers

10. After everything is completely dry (I let mine dry for a week) you can prime it.
    If you don't like the seams of the paper towel, you could hide them with drywall spackeling
    before you prime (let spackeling dry before priming)
    Make sure you don't use acrylic paints as primer, they will soften your glue again.
    Let dry.

11. Paint wall with acrylic paint in your base color, mine was a lighter grey.
      Let dry.

12. Take a sponge or crumpled up paper towel and paint spots in your other colors
      Make it look like rock, then let it dry.

13.  Seal with acrylic sealer.

How to make the grips

1. Take Sculpey or FIMO and form different shaped grips.
    For the bigger grips I used 1/4 pack for the smaller ones I used 1/8 of a pack.

2. Bake according to manufacturer's directions

3. Glue grips with hot glue gun to wall.

If you want, you can have the wall free standing by adding a triangular plywood piece on a hinge on the back.

You are done !!!


See my other free Rock Climbing tutorials