How to Make a Mardi Gras Mask Craft
Mardi Gras is all about color, celebration and spirit. Whether or not you can make it to New Orleans for the festivities, bring a little Mardi Gras into your home by making your own Mardi Gras mask. This is a great activity for parents and children to do together. Little ones will enjoy getting creative with sequins and glitter, and adults will too!
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Things You'll Need
- Paper
- Thin cardboard (e.g. an old cereal box)
- Scissors
- Drinking straws
- Scotch tape
- Coloring materials (crayons or markers)
- White craft glue
- Feathers
- Sparkle glue
- Sequins
Instructions
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Print off the mask template of your choice from DLTK's craft page, linked in the Resources below. You can choose to print in color, or print in black and white and do all of the coloring yourself. The small templates work best for kids' faces, while the large mask templates are the right size for adults.
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Color the template piece as desired with crayons or markers. You might want to do some extra creative coloring of your own, even if you printed your mask template in color.
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3
Spread a thin layer of white glue evenly over the surface of your cardboard, covering the approximate surface area of your mask template. Place your colored paper template on the glue-laden surface, colored side up. Press down, ensuring that all edges and corners of the paper mask template are firmly attached to the cardboard. Wait a few hours for the glue to dry.
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4
Cut the cardboard around the mask's outline, and use scissors to punch and cut out the mask's eye holes. Adults should help younger children with this step.
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Glue sequins and feathers to the mask, and use glitter glue to add extra flashy details. Get creative! Try gluing feathers around the perimeter of your mask and pasting sequins at each of your mask's four corners, or create your own design.
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Beginning with two drinking straws, insert one straw into the other, pushing the first straw about an inch and a half inside the second. Tape the joint together, and reinforce your work by wrapping the straws completely with scotch tape. Tape the straws to the back of your mask--on the left-hand side if you want to hold the mask to your face with your left hand, or on the right-hand side if you plan to hold the mask in your right hand.
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Using the drinking straws as your handle, hold your creation up to your face and show off your creative new disguise.
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Tips & Warnings
If you need help thinking up some mask decoration ideas, run a Google image search for "mardi gras mask."
Don't let young children handle sharp scissors. Help out your young ones when cutting cardboard, especially when creating mask eye holes.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit mask image by BVDC from Fotolia.com
