How To Make a King Tut Mask

Last week, we studied about King Tutankhamen and his famous tomb. I had pinned this idea from DLTK for making a pharaoh mask, and this was the perfect time for it!

(I just realized I spelled “pharaoh” wrong. I’m a terrible person. Do forgive me.)

So, with assistance from my little darlings, I now present How To Make a King Tut Mask. Ours is a decoration but if you wanted an actual wearable mask, you could leave the eyes free.

Here’s what you’ll need:

-one piece of poster board or cardboard (we used cardboard and it curled up a LOT. I’d recommend something sturdier)
-one plastic face mask from the craft store
-one toilet paper tube
-masking tape
-newspaper
-flour and water to make paper mache
-sticks and duct tape to stabilize and unbend your mask
-a sharpie
-gold spray paint
-black acrylic paint
-paintbrushes

Start by running a Quality Control Check on your mask.

It might be necessary to run multiple tests, just to be sure.

You can never be too vigilant about quality control.

(Have we completely freaked you out yet?)

Once you have made absolutely positive that your mask is of the highest possible quality, draw and cut out the shape of the pharaoh mask from the poster board. I just freehanded ours.

Use masking tape to hold the mask in place. You can also use the toilet paper roll to make a beard for your mask.

Cut out strips of newspaper to use for your paper mache.

Make your paper mache mixture using equal parts of flour and water. I ended making two batches of one cup each of flour and water. Now it’s time to do your paper mache. Dip the newspaper strips into the flour and water mixture, squeeze them out, and then carefully place them onto your mask, molding them over the features as best as you can. This is the part where Mommy has to take a deep breath and put aside her perfectionistic tendencies.

We did two layers of strips on the front of the mask, and none on the back. If I were going to redo this, which thankfully I’m not, I would use sturdier cardboard and possibly brace the back before I applied the paper mache. Because once it was dry, it got a bit curly.

I got a couple of sticks and some duct tape and braced it as well as I could, but it would have been better if I had braced it ahead of time.

It did look much straighter after I applied the sticks, though.

Now it’s time to spray paint your mask. I, of course, chose the windiest day all week to do this. I had to duct tape the newspaper to the sidewalk.

Once the spray paint dries, you can outline the details of your mask with a sharpie. Then you get to paint it!

I labeled the stripes with a B if they needed black paint, to avoid any catastrophes. And I painted the eyes and eyebrows, although I did a pretty bad job of it, so poor King Tut looks a little crazy.

Once you have your mask all painted, go back and touch up the paint as needed. Then you get to let it dry. Thankfully acrylic paints don’t take too long! Because I know you can’t wait for the best part– modeling the mask!

And letting your little sister model the mask!

And there you have it– your very own King Tut mask. Ours is hanging on the wall in the boys’ room. Which would totally give me the creeps, but they seem to like it. 🙂

Homeschooling Rocks.

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