Mardi Gras 2014 is Tuesday, March 4th. Here is a simple craft we found at DLTK Crafts for Kids. We are making our masks this weekend, so I will update this post with some of our pictures when we are finished. Have fun!

Materials:

construction paper or card-stock, any color - Mardi Gras Colors are purple, green and gold (See meaning of of colors below)
glue
scissors
tape
something to color/decorate with (green and purple markers, sparkle glue, glitter...).
Piece of thin cardboard (we like to use cereal boxes).
2 drinking straws OR a Paint Stir Stick OR an unsharpened pencil
OPTIONAL:
- sequins
- lace scraps
- feathers
- Anything you want to decorate with
Instructions:

Trace hand-print onto construction paper or coloured card-stock. We prefer yellow -- it's a mardi gras colour and is light enough to decorate.
Trace a second hand-print. Try to keep your fingers spread about the same as you did the first time.
Cut out both hand-prints.
Overlap the palms of the hand-prints with the fingers facing up the same way and glue.
Glue the whole thing onto a sheet of thin cardboard (cereal box).
Make sure you glue the edges firmly so they don't peel up during play.
After the glue is dry, cut out your mask -- this may require adult assistance.
Cut a circle for eyes in the palm area of each hand.
Decorate your mask however you like -- I actually prefer it with just the hand-prints and maybe a green or purple line of marker or glitter glue around the eyes. I find if you decorate too much, you lose the fact that it's hands.
If you'd like to practice fine motor skills, encourage the children to draw a border with purple marker all the way around the mask.
If you're using straws, slide one straw into the other one
tape the joint of the two straws.
not all straws are created equally.
- Our straws were sturdy enough to hold the mask without bending (after about 4 hours of heavy duty play, we had to reinforce ours too).
- If yours aren't sturdy, wrap them once all the way up in scotch tape or masking tape before attaching them to the mask. This will reinforce them.
OPTIONAL: Tape some feathers to the end of the straw. We'd used a bendy straw for the top, so could tilt the feather end a bit.