We recently studied Ancient Egypt as well as the field of archaeology. One of our projects was these pharaoh mummy masks, inspired by the mask found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. We were quite excited that our masks were recently featured on the website Dollar Store Crafts; a big thank you to them for including them!
I first started out by creating bases for my children, using hockey masks from the costume section of Dollar Tree, and attaching them to cardboard from my stash. (We constantly raid our recycling bins for project supplies.) I attached the cardboard pieces (that I had traced to fit to the hockey masks) to the masks with masking tape. They were then ready for papier-mâché.
Above: after the papier-mâché stage. My children did the papier-mâché and painting themselves.
(For the papier-mâché stage, I prefer a glue mixture over the flour method. I buy school glue in bulk when it goes on sale for .15 during the back-to-school sales.)
The final stage: paint!
The DT hockey masks made a sturdy and ideal base! I have bought several more of them for future projects. I am planning to create a kokeshi mask to hang above my kokeshi collection next!
I have a Flickr set entitled Kid Created where I hope to put photos of more of our projects. We tend to work on more projects than I seem to have time to properly document, but am trying to remember to snap a photo, even if only with my iPhone!
