Trash to Treasure DIY: How to make a masquerade mask

This mask is made from recycled materials. My goal was to use whatever craft supplies I had lying around the house, and not buy anything new except for the paper mask itself.

When this challenge was announced, there were only two things I wanted to achieve: 1. My piece should not look like crap; and 2. I had to finish it.

Given my special circumstances (I breastfeed, I'm a hands-on mom, and we have no nanny!) those two simple goals are pretty tough to achieve. It took me a week to finish my mask, even if it's pretty easy to make!

The materials:

• Paper mache mask - store bought
• Blue and violet metallic acrylic paints -old supplies
• Black lacy fabric - found in my mom's fabric stash, cut from an old blouse
• Polymer clay roses - old project
• Filigree - old supplies
• Feathers - recycled from a 5-year-old, crumbling venetian mask

The steps:
1. I painted the mask with blue metallic paint. For an ombre effect, I painted the ends violet, and blended towards the middle. Hard to see the ombre in the photos, my camera refused to pick up the violet tones.

2. I wrapped the mask with black lace fabric. When I was designing this project in my head, I knew I wanted it to look classy. I was planning to buy some lace. Imagine my delight when I asked to look at my mom's magic bag of fabric scraps and discovered this piece from her old blouse! Perfect!

3. I glued on the filigree and the flowers. The chicken feathers were a last minute addition - the mask looked bare without them.







There you have it! My simple DIY masquerade mask out of recycled materials. Perfect for Halloween, don't you think?