The tapioca glue definitely hardened the material (I used layers of sheer polyester material for most of it, with a few lines of thicker cotton material). I thought the two different materials would act to stabilize each other, but when working with them while they were wet, they reacted differently - the polyester tended to cling to the balloon underneath, while the cotton became limp and couldn't hold it's own weight.
I had to work upside down to let the glue drip off. I'm thinking the glue was too watery, although the structure held it's shape after drying. The end product was still pretty flexible, could be flattened and then would pop back into shape, and not as brittle as I imagined.
Since the opening at the top was smaller than that at the bottom, I turned it upside down (had I used a lightbulb I probably would have flipped it). I like the light effect I got from the tea light, but did notice the material started to burn on top, but it did not ignite (not at least during the hour I had the candle burning).
As for other building uses, I would have to play around more with the consistency of the glue mixture and experiment with other fabric types, to get a more stable product, and would have to work on a larger scale.
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