Empty Child Gas Mask

For a Doctor Who birthday party!

Posted by fetisha

About

a friend's daughter loves Doctor Who and had that as the theme for her birthday party. she asked for guests to dress up, so i looked through a borrowed book of Doctor Who monsters to find something to inspire me (we haven't started watching the show yet so we don't know much about it). since the party is going to involve water play (lots of little kids!) i just wanted to have something easy to put on and take off, and thought this would be just the ticket!
my other daughter is going as a Giant Spider, wearing a homemade spider costume from last Halloween :)

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You Will Need (8 things)

  • Gold and Silver Paint
  • Thin Elastic
  • Hot Glue Gun And Glue Sticks
  • Needle And Thread Or Sewing Machine
  • 5 Silver Eyelets and punch tool
  • lightweight Cardboard (empty cereal box, etc)
  • 4 Styrofoam cups
  • 2 sheets Black Felt

Steps (9 steps, 180 minutes)

  1. 1

    first, i traced a mask we already had onto cardboard. i cut the tops off the styrofoam cups (about an inch or so, there was a sort of lip). they were too big as-is, so i cut pieces out and taped them back together to make smaller circles.

  2. 2

    then i laid the cardboard mask onto a sheet of black felt. i laid one circle under the cardboard mask to help get the shape of the whole gas mask, and traced it out in chalk.

  3. 3

    cut it all out, including a circle at the mouth so the kid can breathe

  4. 4

    in the book's picture, there is a seam that runs up the middle of the gas mask, so i sewed a super skinny seam down the middle of the mask

  5. 5

    then i glued 2 circles together for part of the mouth piece

  6. 6

    then i attached the metal eyelets to scrap pieces of the felt for some of the details on the mask

  7. 7

    then i made marks to see how big of a piece of fabric i needed for the rest of the mouth piece- some of the felt would cover the outer circle, then the whole other circle, plus a little extra to make it longer. that equaled 3 1/4", and i cut along the long side of a sheet of felt, which was longer than the circumference of my circles, allowing for room to make it flare out a little.
    (i totally forget to get pictures of the rest of this! sorry!) i folded the long strip of felt in half horizontally, and basically sewed a dart from one end to the other along the fold. i glued that middle seam onto the 2 circles glued together, then glued the sides around to meet on the opposite side. i glued them at an angle so it would flare out.

  8. 8

    next i glued the flared mouth piece onto the mask and added the bits that i attached eyelets to.
    then i painted the circle on the mask and the 2 leftover circles for the eyes with the silver and gold paint to make them look metallic. once that dried, i glued the eye circles onto the mask. i measured around my daughter's head and cut out a piece of elastic, gluing it onto the mask. i cut another piece of elastic to go on that piece on the top of the head and attached it.

  9. 9

    and voila, cuteness!