Masks: How To

Several people suggested that they would like to make masks of their own after my last post. It is very easy, and I think everyone should do it. My family has our masks hanging on the wall, as a symbolic family portrait of the four of us (yes, even Matt made one!). Here I am posting my directions on how to do it (athough this is not neccessarily the "right" way). It is a two day project because there needs to be a good amount of drying time between step one and two. It's not as complicated as these directions make it look- I just included every single little detail. But you could probably guess about most of this, and it would work too (cause that is how I figued it out).

DAY ONE

• Goop: In a large mixing bowl mix together one bottle of elmers glue, like 2-4 cups of flour and enough water to give it a very running pancake batter consistency. This measurements of these ingrediants doesn't need to be exact at all.
  
  
• Blow up balloons to approximately the size of the mask-makers head. Set the ballon in a bowl (to keep it from rolling around).



• Tear up strips of newspaper and dip them in the goop and then smooth them onto the balloon in a criss crossing pattern. As soon as the top half of the balloon is covered, turn it upside down and cover the other half. But don't cover the "belly button" of the balloon. The more layers of goopy newspaper you use, the more sturdy your mask will be. The more patient kids usually have a better mask.



• When the whole balloon is covered in 3-4 layers of goopy newspaper, hang the balloon upside down by its "belly button" with a clothespin on a clothes line.



• Spray all the kids off with a hose.



• Let the balloons dry over night. In the morning they should be as hard as a rock.
  

DAY TWO

• Cut the "belly button" off of the ballon with scissors. This is the funnest part. You will hear the balloon shrivle up inside, while the dried paper mache maintains the shape of the balloon.



• Cut the balloon shape in half starting at the hole where the belly button stuck out. Now you have two masks to make- one for the kid and one for a mom or dad.



• Measure the distance between the inner corners of the mask-makers eyes and then mark that distance on the mask (it is closer than you would guess it to be). Then draw the eyes on and cut them out.



• To make the features on the face, we used play dough. Smush the playdough onto the mask to make the nose, lips, eye brows, cheek bones, chin, pimples, worts, or whatever else will protrude from the face of the mask.



• Put the entire mask (with the playdough smushed onto it) in the microwave for 1 or 2 minutes to dry and harden the playdough. Don't put it in for too long or it will puff up (I don't know why).



• Then we painted white primer onto the entire mask. This step might be skippable if you don't have primer.



• Then paint the mask. I used my nice acrylic paints because that's just what I had. You could probably use cheaper craft paints though too.



• Decorate the mask with embellishments, if desired. I just let the kids use what I had on hand- beads, rope, gemstones, glitter. You could use feathers too, but I think they make them look tacky.



• Trim the edges of the mask to make them smooth.



• After the kids were all done, I painted over all of their masks with a polyurathane to make them shiny. This is something I had on hand, but if you don't have it, it's not neccessary.