How to Make a Halloween Mask from a Sheet of Felt
This may not look much in this state but felt is a great material to use in Mask Making. You will need a few days for this – it’s not one for a last minute costume make!! Two thirds of one A4 size sheet can be used to make a basic ‘zorro’ mask or you can use the two pieces to make something a little more complicated such as a Cat Mask.
Take your larger piece of felt and put it into a solution of pva glue and water mixed to the consistency of milk. Once the felt is covered, place it on top of a paper or plastic mask blank. Covering the mask blank in cling film allows you to use it over and over again and stops the felt sticking to it. Make sure the wet felt is pushed into all the contours of the mask and weigh it down with stones. You can either leave the edges at his stage if you are going to make a ‘Zorro’ mask or you can carefully trim to shape and use clothes pegs to set in any necessary folds to make the felt curve into the mask shape. You will need to leave it for a couple of days to dry thoroughly.
Once dry, the felt has stiffened into shape. Use the paper mask mould to mark out where the eyes holes should be and use a sharp pair of scissors to cut them out and trim the edges to shape.
A Cat Mask is made in the same way but the the folds have been set across the forehead section to create the curve at the top of the mask. The smaller piece of the sheet of felt can be cut into ear shapes.
Make sure that the ears are left longer than they will stick out from the top of the mask. Soak the ears in the same PVA solution and clamp to the main mask shape. To do this, place your mask – front down – on a table. Take your Cat’s Ears and position so that there is enough of a tab to adhere to the mask and enough of the ear showing above the mask.
Take your cling film-covered paper mask blank again and push it into the Cat Mask. Clamp it all together with Clothes Pegs. Gravity will make the ear shapes lie horizontally whilst it dries. Again leave for a couple of days to dry. As the felt stiffens, you can remove the pegs and lay the mask – front up – on top of a radiator to ensure all the pieces are really ‘set’.
With the ‘Zorro Mask’, we have added lengths of Starmist Glitter Thread to create a Spider Web design…
…and, with the Cat Mask, we have added some eye detail with thick paint but this is just the basic for you to add whatever embellishments you wish.
See our Seasonal Craft page for details of how to make other Halloween props and custume ideas.
