Masquerade

Some friends of ours are having a formal "Phantom of the Opera" masquerade holiday party this weekend.  I'm typically not a fan of most masks because they're very ornate and I'm usually more of a fan of simple things, so I figured I'd give making a mask a try.  

The first thing I had to do was to find a dress.  I'm a terrible shopper.  I usually get frustrated really quickly (especially when it comes to dresses) and leave before I've found something.  I went to a dress shop that was entirely too young for me.  Almost all of the dresses were too short with long chiffon type pieces hanging from the back.   I did kind of like one dress, but they didn't have one my size and the sales girl kept trying to convince me that I fit into the size smaller even though I couldn't get it zipped up.  So I took myself to Macy's in my last 30 minutes before naptime and found a gorgeous Betsy & Adam black lace dress in my size, and it was 20% off.  Sweet.  It's pretty much this dress, but it has straps on both shoulders.

Next was my trip to Joann.  Really not my favorite place to go around Christmas time - they seem to be swarmed with people trying to get good deals on Christmas stuff that is poorly organized because it's constantly being rifled through.  At least the mask stuff was way in the back away from the crowds.  

I was disappointed in their mask selection, but just as I was about to give up, I spotted a nice blank one in the shape I wanted, thrown in the feather bin.  

Here's the list of the supplies that I used:
Mask
Paint
1/2 yard of black lace
spray adhesive
feathers
black ribbon flower thing 
A spool of black ribbon
paint brush
glue gun & glue

First I painted the mask - I needed 3 coats to cover it nicely, letting it dry for at least an hour between coats. 

Then I took the spray adhesive outside and sprayed the black lace and covered the mask.  I let it sit in the garage for several hours to let it set.

 

I started with the eyes, cutting one slit across and a tiny slit up and then used my glue gun to secure the lace on the underside of the mask.  

I did pretty much the same thing around the outside edges, using my glue gun to put glue around the edges of the back, then folding the lace over and securing it, cutting small slits if I needed to.  I was a little intimidated by the cross at the top, but it worked just fine. 

Then I cut 2 pieces of ribbon that would be long enough to reach around the back of my head and tie in a bow.  I used my glue gun to secure them to the inside of the mask.  



Then to dress it up, I added a bunch of feathers on one side with my glue gun.

And finished it off with my black flower to cover up all of the messy gluey feather ends.  

It was actually quite an easy project and fit perfectly with my busy schedule - a coat of paint here, a coat of paint there, spray adhesive then a trip to the park with the little girl, and finish during a naptime.  Nothing too time intensive, you just need to start it early enough that you can fit the drying times in.  Probably not something I would have ever thought of making if I didn't have this party, but it was definitely a fun project.