Carnival is approaching, sly and colorful and it’s time to think about masks, especially if your intention is to prepare them at home.
The charm of Carnival, in fact, consists precisely in this possibility of giving free rein to one’s imagination, trying to meet the needs of the little one without falling into banality. For sure, this will be the year of witches and wizards, fairies and flying brooms, in the wake of Harry Potter and the success of the film and the books.
Here, however, we want to suggest something different, masks that are easy to make and come from other realities, from other worlds than those of magic and spells, reserving space for us in the future to talk to you about the latter.
FROM THE WORLD OF ANIMALS
Here is an idea from the world of animals: dress your child as a hen or a rooster. The realization is simple: you will need a white sheet to make the actual dress, sewn at shoulder height and passed between the legs like a diaper. To fill it, use a rather voluminous pillow with which you will harness the little one tying him with cords around his waist. Get yourself, therefore, some orange tights and some feathers to stick on the ‘backside’. A cardboard beak and a few tufts of feather drawn on the face will complete the work.
FOR BABIES
Another nice and easy idea to realize is to dress the little one as a pirate: cut an old pair of jeans, sew a piece of cloth fabric like a jacket, maybe applying some patches and get yourself a pair of rather striped socks thick. A white shirt with a large collar (which if you want you can recycle later, using it for everyday clothing), and a black eye patch will make the disguise more believable. With a pencil draw some scars on the child’s face, while with a cardboard make the hook for the hand (you could use, for example, the finished roll of toilet paper as a prosthesis on which you will apply the actual hook) .
FOR GIRLS
For girls, apart from the classic ladies, gypsies, florists …, a nice idea, which you will also find in the shops, is to disguise them as Pippi Longstocking. Here, everything is really left to your imagination: a bag of lute, a pair of different colored socks, ruined tennis shoes and a shirt full of patches are all the material you need to make the suit. Comb the little one with two pretty braids, which you can hold tight with wire, and draw many red freckles on her face. A plush monkey will accompany her on her most hilarious carnival adventures.