Paper Bag Mask Monsters Made From A Vintage Book

I have a "way too big" collection of books about making things.  Recently my daughter was looking through one of my vintage "making things"books and wanted to create these paper bag monsters.  She actually really had a lot of fun making these (and so did I).  It just goes to show you that even old books have some great ideas.

This is my daughter C's mask.

Here is my mask creation.

Here is the book that this idea came from.  It is dated 1974.  When I researched further it is said to be Volume 9 of Worldbook's Childcraft Encyclopedia of awesome things.  I'm sure we'll be making more things from this book.

What some of your favorite books about making things?

(vintage or not)

Other Projects that we have made with Paper Bags:

Paper Bag Puppets Inspired by Fandango

Paper Bag Self Portraits

Paper Bag Puffy Heart

Paper Bag Puffy Heart

We are taking part in TinkerLab's Paper Bag Challenge along with many other bloggers.  Hope you check out all the ideas other blogs have done with paper bags after this post!  We've made a few things with paper bags before,  including our Fandango Inspired Paper Bag Puppets and Paper Bag Self Portraits...hope you check those out too.  Paper Bags are so versatile and the great thing is that you can cut them apart to create a surface to paint on or create a sculpture too!  We did both!  Since Valentines and hearts have been our minds, we decided to make a three dimensional version of our Heart Blotto Valentines that we did a couple weeks ago and we also did Heart Blotto T-shirts too!!  Here is one of our Paper Bag Puffy Hearts floating on a cloud of poly-fil stuffing.

To begin, I first cut apart a larger paper bag so that I could cut two identical paper bag hearts.  You want two hearts: one for the back and one for the front. Then we folded the hearts and created blottos.  First paint on one side of the heart.

Then fold over to transfer to the other side of the heart. You can keep repeating the process until you like what you see.

Here are two hearts that will go together.  Beautiful!

After the hearts are dry,  put a ring of glue on one side,  but leave an opening to later put poly-fil stuffing, newspaper, or even pieces of scrap paper.  Let dry.

Next stuff your heart. You can use a ruler or stick to get all the stuffing back in the tight corners. After finished stuffing,  you can either glue the opening and wait to dry or staple!  We were impatient and just stapled the last bit together.

We wanted to add yarn around the heart,  so first I punched holes all around the heart.  Then C sewed around the heart.  Great fine tuning of motor skills!

When finished sewing with yarn,  tie a knot and create a hanger for the heart.  Here is C holding two of our hearts.  She loved swinging them about....an active girl....no doubt!

Here is another Paper Bag Puffy Heart!  We had a lot of FUN!  You could make any type of stuffed shape....such as a fish, person, or even a cloud shape!   This is C's "Tree Blotto With Red Apples".

Thanks TinkerLab for inspiring us to create with paper bags!  Be sure to check out all the other Great ideas in the linky below!  Please let me know what you think of our idea too!

This post is linked to: Made By You Mondays, Craft Schooling Sunday, Link And Learn, Show And Tell

Paper Bag Self Portrait

If you follow me on facebook I mentioned we've been creating with paper bags for TinkerLab's Creative Challenge and now we have far too many ideas and we need to start sharing now!  For this activity I presented C with a bunch of supplies: paint bingo markers, pom poms, construction paper, stickers, scissors, markers, and more! And, of course, some paper grocery bags!!! She came up with a Paper bag portrait of herself! Perhaps she was inspired by our Paper Bag Puppets that we did about a month ago?  It turns out that this is an activity many Art Therapists use...keep reading to find out more!

C got working on her idea right away! She didn't like the writing on the bag,  so we quickly covered the words up with yellow construction paper!  Then she began drawing a face right away!

Soon after that, she began adding more with paint bingo markers, smiley stickers, hair like our construction paper strip sculpture (she reminded me),  and more construction paper , and pom poms! Then she said,  "I'm done!" Definitely the attention span of a typical 5 year old!

And that is why the post is over....that is about how long it took C to make this!

I think the paper bag self portrait turned out rather well.

 What do you think? 


An Art Therapy Activity?

***The interesting thing about this Paper Bag Self Portrait Idea is that it is featured as an Art Therapy Activity here from The Art Therapy Blog.  I researched a bit more and found this to be a popular activity that people do in an art therapy session!  On the front of the bag you are to make your self portrait (like C did), then on the sides and back express fears, dreams, and aspirations.  Then inside the bag put things that about yourself.  I love the idea about putting things inside the bag...C would love doing that!

Here is a Paper Bag Self Portrait that someone submitted from the post I mentioned above.  Pretty cool, huh? I think so.

Now I am inspired to create a Paper Bag Self Portrait! 

I would love to try this with a group of kids to see what they would create.  This would make a great "Getting To Know You Activity" too.

Are you inspired to create a Paper Bag Self Portrait?


Join TinkerLab's Creative Challenge...Feb. 6