The Masquerade Ball

It was my work's Christmas Party a few weeks ago, and the theme was Masquerade Ball. So I had to make a mask. I'm really pleased with this. Fliss gave me this picture as inspiration.

So I bought a cheap mask and took off the decoration it came with. 

 

Then I set about making a template for a butterfly to stick on top. I tested it by taping the paper to the mask and trying it on to see if it looked right.

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It took me a lot of tries to work out the best shape for it. In the end, I put the mask on top of the paper and drew around the edge of it as a guide, then I drew the top of the wing.

When I eventually had shapes I was happy with, I taped the card onto a piece of foam, which was folded in half, and I cut them out. Taping it all together was a brilliant idea - it made it much easier to cut accurately. Stabbing the thing with a pair of scissors to make the eye hole was a less brilliant idea - nearly five weeks later I can still make out the cut on my finger.

Two days later (after I'd stopped bleeding) I glued this lovely fabric onto the shapes with a standard all-purpose glue, making sure that all the glue was at the back of the mask.

Then I went through my craft drawer and found some bits to decorate it, including the original decoration that came with the mask. I played around with some designs then drew on it with felt pens and glued on my shapes.

After that, it was time to fix something quite annoying about the mask. It came with a ribbon attached to tie around your head. This is stupid because you end up tying your hair in knots. So I tied the ribbon onto a head band (not my idea, but fantastic).

It was time to cut the eye holes out of the fabric. I cut a slit down the middle (carefully this time - with a craft knife). Then I had to glue the wings onto the mask. Taking no chances here, I used superglue. And I pushed the excess fabric through the eye holes, supergluing down at the back.

Finally, my butterfly needed a bug. I cut this shape out of felt (or something very like felt but cheaper) and I glued it in place. For the antennae, I cut a pipe cleaner in half and superglued the pieces in behind the bug's head.

And then I went to the party, with loads of people in masks.