Swan mask }{ Tutorial Thursday

Today's tutorial was inspired by Angelina Ballerina, one of the few cartoons N. actually watches once in a blue moon. (we gave up the tv years ago, but that's a story for another post)

At the end of each episode of Angelina, she narrates a short segment called "Little Stars" where they show young girls in ballet classes doing all sorts of activities. In one particular segment they were showing the little ballerinas making costumes and playing in character for a short while. N. was fascinated by the costumes - and one of them I figured I could actually make! This is my version of the mask they had for the swans in the "Little Stars" Swan Lake.

Materials

• paper or styrofoam plates
• ribbon or elastic
• markers
• orange and white construction paper
• scissors or craft knife
• glue
• feathers (or any embellishment you want to add, we kept ours simple)

How to make it

Step 1: cut the plate across where your nose will be.

Step 2: cut a small triangle to fit over the bridge of your nose.

Step 3: draw and cut the eyes.

Step 4: cut a medium triangle of orange construction paper and fold 1/8" of its base. Make a half cone shape and glue the folded part over the nose triangle on the plate. 

Step 5: trace the outside of the plate on the white construction paper. Cut the paper about 1/2" below the shape you traced (so you'll have paper to glue on the plate). Cut triangular shapes of different sizes and directions around the line you made on the paper. These will be the swan "feathers."

Step 6: Glue the paper under the line all the way around the edge of the plate. At this point, make one small hole on each side of the swan mask to hold the elastic or ribbon.

Step 7: using a black marker define the edges of the eyes, then using a pink or red marker make swirly "eyelashes" or any shape to make the eyes stronger and more interesting.

Step 8: glue feathers (or other embellishments) to the paper feathers on top of the head. warning: the feathers I used to do this made a mess in my workspace! Even after vacuuming I'm still finding little pieces everywhere. They're taking over my craft area. *sigh*

Step 9: add a piece of ribbon to each side of the mask ti-eying it through the holes made in step 7. These will secure the mask on the wearer's head. I prefer using ribbon because then I can adjust the size depending on who's wearing it, but elastic works wonderfully too.

Here's the finished mask.

We had a lot of fun pretending to be swans and "dancing ballet" around the living room today.

Have you ever been inspired by a show your kids watch? Where do you find your inspiration?