Netflix & SPC: Easy Character Masks

One of the first crafts I made with a teeny 18-month old Scar­lett was a mask of a cat. I could sit here and pre­tend that I don’t know what hap­pened to it, but being an overly sen­ti­men­tal per­son, I can admit that I have it lov­ingly pressed into an art port­fo­lio that houses many of Scarlett’s first crafts and art­work. I cre­ated it one after­noon, post nap, when I had that hour before din­ner to kill–you know the one, the one that actu­ally feels like two weeks. I made a cat because other than absolutely noth­ing else, a cat is the only thing I can draw well. How­ever, Scar­lett thought it per­fectly resem­bled our fam­ily pet, Abbie.

I’m proud to say that, at the ten­der age of 8, Scar­lett still finds it pretty awe­some if we sit down and make a mask. For instance, when I went to cre­ate the masks to be pho­tographed for this post, I enlisted Scar­lett for help. I made our craft ses­sion an after school project she could tackle post home­work. When I told her we could work together in front of one of her favorite movies (Mr. Popper’s Pen­guins which is, coin­ci­den­tally, on Net­flix this month), she excit­edly announced, “This is the great­est day ever!”

As you can see, I was inspired by our late-day movie treat. I think my pen­guin came out pretty good. Although, I was impressed by the close resem­blance Scarlett’s min­ion mask came to the actual ani­mated guys from Despi­ca­ble Me and Despi­ca­ble Me 2 (also on Net­flix this month). I think it’s one for the art port­fo­lio. Don’t you?

Here’s what you need:

Paper plates
Con­struc­tion paper
Glue
Pop­si­cle sticks
Scis­sors
Pen­cil
Mark­ers
Col­ored pen­cils
Duck tape

Here’s what you do:

Decide if you need cut your paper plate into a shape that resem­bles your char­ac­ter. For instance, I only cut down the size of my paper plate cir­cle. How­ever, my daugh­ter cre­ated an oval shape across the top of her plate to repli­cate a min­ions dis­tinct head shape. If you have a char­ac­ter or ani­mal that has ears (bunny or cat, for instance) that are notice­ably belong­ing to them, be sure to add them or cut them into the shape.

Using a pen­cil, cir­cle where the holes for each eye should be posi­tioned and then cut them out of the plate.

Cut and mea­sure col­ored con­struc­tion paper that can adorn the plate. Glue into place.

Using mark­ers or col­ored pen­cils, color any por­tions that need fur­ther detail. For instance, my daugh­ter used a grey marker to draw on the min­ions tell-tale goggles.

Place a pop­si­cle stick at the bot­tom of the mask in the cen­ter. Fas­ten into place using the Duck tape.