Mardi Gras Masks!

Hi Everyone! For Mardi Gras this year I suggest making some easy masks that are fun for the whole family. You can also make these anytime of year. We made them on New Year's Eve and it was a lot of fun. All you need are a few craft items of your choice and your creativity. I suggest using glitter, feathers, sequins, ribbon, anything!

To prep for this activity, go buy some plastic masks. We bought the type of plastic mask with the elastic strap. To make the masks more fun, I suggest cutting out the strap and attaching a small stick to the mask, so you can hold it to your face. I also suggest using old newsprint to protect your table from any glue or excess glitter.

Once the glue has dried, (I suggest giving it a few hours) then it is time to create! We bought ribbon that had an adhesive side so we had one less element to glue.

Here are some examples of our masks:

If you want to make the mask decorating a competition, then have everyone vote at the end to decide who made the best mask. We just set all the masks on the table and wrote everyone's name. You can also put a number for each mask, if you want them to remain anonymous.

I hope you have a lot of fun creating your masks! We certainly did!

Valentine's Day is Just Around the Corner!

Here's a craft that is fun and easy to make with the whole family: A Valentine's Day tissue paper flower bouquet! This craft is great for all ages and can brighten up any room and bring a smile to everyone!

Valentine's Day Tissue Bouquet

Here's What you Need to Do:

1. What You Need.     Tissue Paper, Pipe Cleaners, and Safety Scissors (or if an adult is helping to cut, regular scissors)  For Valentine's Day I suggest using tissue paper that is pink, red, or white, but you can easily make these out of any color. You can make single colored flowers or blend colors together. I decided to blend pink and red together, as shown in the picture above.

Supplies

2. Prepare Tissue Paper.     You will need 4 or more sheets of tissue paper. I used 4 in the above picture. Overlap your sheets and cut out even squares.

Cutting Tissue Paper

3. Fold Tissue Paper.     Make sure your tissue paper sheets are all aligned. If you are blending colors, I suggest placing them every other color, but you can be creative and do whatever you want. Then you will fold the paper, just like a fan or an accordion. I make the folds about an inch in width. First fold it one direction, and then fold it again going in the opposite direction. It is a little hard to explain, so here is a picture of what it should look like when you are finished.

Folded Tissue Paper

4. Sizing Your Flowers.     You can really make your flowers whatever size you want, but I find that a more realistic size is about the size of your safety scissors.

Sizing Your Flower

5. Shaping Your Flowers.     Take your folded tissue paper and round off your edges. I think this makes a nice looking flower, but you can play with different shapes. It will change the type of flower depending on how you decide to shape it. For these I rounded the edges.

Shape Your Flower

6. Wrap the Stem.     Take your pipe cleaner and wrap it around the center of your tissue paper. I suggest using green for the stem, but you can use any color.

Attach the Stem

7. Spread the Petals.     Take each end of the tissue paper and pull them towards each other to stretch out the petals. See how it's starting to look like a flower?!?

Stretching Out the Petals

8. Fluffing the Petals.     Once you've stretched the petals a bit, now it is time to fluff your flowers. Slowly pull each layer of tissue paper apart from the others. It will start to really look like a flower now!

Fluffing Your Flower

9. Admiring Your Flower!     Now that you've finished fluffing, you should have a beautiful flower! Now it's time to share your flower or make more so you have a whole bouquet.

Finished Flower!

And remember, you can make these in any color. So if you want to make these all year long, you can! I hope you have fun making this craft!

Other Fun Flowers