Papier-mâché Puppy Mask

Does anyone else find that balloons start piling up in their house? I do. Every time I go to the mall or Bunnings we end up with another 2 balloons. Then when we have a birthday party there are even more balloons to add to the growing collection. These linger forlornly around the house until they pop or I get sick of them. I always feel guilty if I have to bin them, so I while there are balloons in the house I collect newspapers for papier mâché.

I started Christopher covering one balloon with paper and glue, when a little tug on my leg reminded me that there was another boy who didn't want to be left out. A second smaller balloon was found and the boys happily covered the balloons with paper strips. It wasn't long before the boys gave up and left the balloons to finish the next day.

To make this puppy mask we used 1 large and 1 small balloon. When the balloons had received 2 days worth of attention and 4 days of drying (the middle of winter is possibly not the best time to do this) we were able to begin constructing our mask.

When they were completely dry we popped the balloons inside and trimmed the larger shell into a nicely shaped mask. We marked the places for the eyes and cut out 2 circles. Now we used the second smaller shell to tape on as a nose. Some more paper strips and glue to hold it in place and we left it to dry for another day.

Now to paint the mask. This seemed to be the most difficult decision yet - do we want a back puppy or a golden one? In the end we settled on black to match the only felt to be found in my cupboard. Christopher cut out the ears while James painted. Christopher also found a small ball of black wool for the nose. Once the paint dried we attached the ears and nose with glue and some string to hold the mask in place.

Time to go and play.