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Carnevale Mask

As this month’s theme is carnival a Venetian mask was the very first thought that came to mind to make.  After that, it was of the greatest showman Sir Elton John himself, with his fantastical costumes and dazzling eye ware …… so I’ve made both.

You will need:

  • Patterned fabric for mask front, matching coloured felt for mask back, bosal/stiff wadding, grey board, downloaded mask template
  • Dowling, paint marker pen, fancy lace, peacock feathers, braiding, fringing
  • Iron, scissors, craft knife, PVA glue, hot glue gun

To make:

Pin your trimmed mask template to the bosal/wadding and cut it out. Snip out the eye sockets with smaller scissors or use a sharp craft knife. The bosal used was a single-sided fusible version.

Place the bosal fusible side down onto the wrong side of your fabric. Iron onto the fabric to fuse together. Cut around leaving a 1.5-2cm seam allowance. Make small snips into this seam and glue down around the wrong side with PVA glue, leave to dry. The small snips make it easier to fold over and leave a neater finish.  Cut a + shape into the fabric in the eye socket, PVA glue down to the inside back. The seam allowance is much smaller so you will need to hold each cut piece down until it holds. An afterthought is that I should have cut out bigger eye sockets!

Cut another mask shape from grey board. Cover with PVA and glue onto the felt. When completely dry use a sharp craft knife to trim around the outside and inner eye socket. Draw round the outside edges and eye sockets with a paint marker in a similar colour to the felt to blend it in.

If you prefer to make an elasticated version use bosal/wadding with the felt mask back. Now you have your mask sandwich complete it is just a matter of deciding how to decorate it.

On the mask front I hot glued 1cm wide picot edge lace to the bottom, then braid across the front of the mask at the top edge. I had wider picot-type lace and cut three points from this which were hot glued to the centre top gathering it in as I did so. I then added more of the 1cm picot lace to either side of this.

On the inside mask back I arranged five trimmed-down peacock feathers until I was happy with their placement adding a small amount of hot glue at the bottom of each feather to keep in place so they didn’t move. Starting in the centre of the mask I added hot glue and brought the front and back together before gluing the remainder of the mask together.

Paint the dowling using the paint marker and hot glue to the side of the mask at the back. Hot glue a small piece of felt over the dowling for additional strength. Hot glue fringing to the top part of the dowling. You’re now ready to be incognito if you so choose...