Thursday, May 26, 2011

Egyptian Mummy Masks

Oooh, I loved this project! It did take quite a bit of work on my end, though, but so worth it! Here's a glimpse:
I thought of this project after seeing King Tut's death mask. First I ordered some cheap plastic masks from Oriental Trading. Then I traced around them onto posterboard and then drew an oval shape around that.

I cut it out and taped the mask to the inside.
Some of the masks came a bit crushed, but once I taped it to the posterboard you couldn't even tell. I taped it in about 8 places so there would be no gaps. (Sorry these pictures aren't so great.)
After making all 24 (yes, we have a full class!), I took them out to the garage to spray paint them gold.
I wonder what the neighbors thought as they walked by! The first 12 I just sprayed normally, but then I went out and bought a spray attachment and used it on the second set of 12. What a difference! It sure saved my fingers! I have to thank my husband for helping me with the spraying. Even though the garage door was wide open, the fumes were getting to me so he took over.
They dried within minutes. I was able to stack them up right away. This is what they looked like when the kids got them.
I set out some acrylic paint and let the kids decorate them any way they wished.

We had some very surprised and impressed parents at pick-up time! Aren't they great?! And on a side note, later I played "Walk Like an Egyptian" and took pictures of all the kids dancing walking!

3 comments:

Ghawayesh said...

Hi, I'm an Egyptian mom living in Switzerland, and the school of my kids asked me to organize a crafting session about Egypt, and you saved my life! lol Thanks- I love it!

Betsy said...

Oh, you are so very welcome! Glad I could help!

Carrie Roer said...

I'm a youth librarian and this craft will go perfectly with our summer reading program! A couple of questions:

1) How many of the oval headpieces were you able to cut from a single piece of posterboard?

2) How many can(s) of spray paint did it take for your 24 masks?

3) Was it any special kind of spray paint that "dried within minutes"?

Thanks for your input! :)