What I Made
Holly King Masks for Litha
What Inspired Me
I was searching for Litha children's craft ideas and stumbled across a Holly King mask made of leaves gathered from the person's yard.....
Living in an apartment without a large yard and feeling uncomfortable with the idea of raiding the neighors yards, I adapted the idea and used poster-board, fuzzy-tinsel pom-poms, glitter glue and pipe-cleaners.
* 1 sheet of poster-board was large enough for 2 completed masks.
* Draw & cut out a face template as well as a large & a smaller holly leaf on scrap-paper to use as a tracing outline. (Check that the face template is the right size & use it to double check eye-hole placement).
* Trace face template/s first as close to corners/edges as possible.
* Trace 9 large holly leaves, placing them as close as possible to borders/edges/corners. If making 2 masks double the number of leaves.
* Trace 11 smaller leaves as above.
* Cut out all pieces and the eye-holes and punch a hole one each side of the face mask just above ear-height for pipe-cleaner head ties. Carefully insert the pipe-cleaners and twist to secure.
* Staples leaves on.
* Apply glitter glue & fuzzy-tinsel pom-poms.
* Wait until everything is dry then fit to your child's head gently but securely twisting the pipe-cleaners at back to hold in place.
Bright blessings!
Tips and Tricks
- The eye-holes on our masks could have been a tad lower down the mask.
- A mouth cut-out might have looked pretty cool too.....
- A little bit of glitter definitely looks better than loads...... my younger child was disappointed with his mask when he saw the one that his older brother made; gentle coaching.
- I am totally doing this again for Yule in an Oak King version; probably going to throw in some cellophane leaves as well to give more depth and texture and lighting effects..... need to find some acorns. :)
