Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone has ideas on how to make paper sturdier? I want to make some earrings using painted paper, and I don't want the paper to bend or be flimsy. I was thinking maybe using paper mache, but I don't know if water colour would look good on it. The idea of the earrings is to have a nice watercolour painting on them, and that's why I need to use paper... What about paper mache with plaster? Will watercolour work?
I tried using PaverPol, but it didn't harden the paper, just made it shiny and plastic-like :/
Any ideas?

You could try using two separate pieces of paper for each earring and gluing them together this should make it stronger, you could even add a couple layers in between to make it really stiff.

Elmer's glue and water, soak and dry

if your worried about the color bleeding I'd just coat it in elmers glue or mod podge

I like matte mod podge, but it can be finnicky to apply evenly. I like using a sponge brush with mod podge that's been watered down a little for a smooth consistency.