Instructions on Making a Bird Mask

Make a bird mask to go with a bird costume.

Creating a costume for a halloween trick-or-treating or a costume party can involve a quick trip to a costume shop. For people who want a more creative look, however, crafting a homemade costume allows them to express their artistic abilities and use their imagination. Many people discover that assembling the costume itself doesn't tax their creative abilities as much as preparing the mask to match the costume. An individual who wears a bird costume can quickly put together a bird mask in a short time with readily-available materials.

Things You'll Need

• Strong paper plate or stiff heavy cardboard
• Scissors
• Tissue paper of different colors
• White glue or carpenter's glue
• Acrylic paint, multiple colors
• Flexible cardboard
• Paint pens

Instructions

1. Measure the eye holes in the paper plate/stiff cardboard by holding the plate/cardboard up to the face of the person who will wear the mask and marking the eye area. Cut oval eyeholes out. The eyeholes should allow the wearer to see properly (measure with glasses if the wearer will wear glasses). The paper plate/cardboard will serve as the front of the mask.

2. Cut out approximately 50 triangle shapes and 15 feather shapes from tissue paper for decoration. Use varied sizes (keeping the triangle and feather sizes at approximately 2 inches in width, but cutting some a little larger and some a little smaller) and colors. Cut long thin ovals for the feathers, bringing them to a point at one end.

3. Glue the feather shapes around the top and side edges of the paper plate/stiff cardboard, overlapping the feathers. The pointed ends of the feathers should point outward.

4. Work inward toward the center of the mask with the triangle shapes. Glue the triangles facing upward at the mask's top and outward on the mask's sides. Do not glue triangle shapes in the middle of the paper plate/cardboard because this is where the beak will go.

5. Cut three 6-inch long triangle-shaped pieces of flexible cardboard. Decorate these pieces with colorful lines and patterns using the paint pens. Decorate the area around the eye holes with the paint pens. Allow to dry.

6. Glue the three triangle pieces of flexible cardboard together with white glue or carpenter's glue to create a three-dimensional cone-shaped triangle: the bird mask's beak. Leave one inch of the base of the triangle cone unglued and fold that one inch outward at the base of the cardboard. The folded base will glue onto the mask's middle as the bird's beak.

7. Glue the beak onto the middle of the bird mask. Allow to dry and add pen decorations around the base where the beak cone glues to the bird mask.

8. Punch out a small hole on either side of the bird mask with scissors. Hold the mask on your face. Measure the distance between the two holes on the back of your head. (You may need assistance to measure.) Cut a piece of elastic to that length. Tie each end of the elastic into one of the holes so that the bird mask is complete.

References

• Zartart: Making a Bird Mask