Making a dragon mask

Nearly three weeks into the holidays and,amazingly, we're yet to hear the words "I'm bored"! I was prepared to be struggling for things to do but my sons have been happy to play with cars, meet up with friends and try out a few crafty things too.

In order to cope with six weeks at home, I bought the Sainsburys Boredom Buster book. It is full of great indoor and outdoor activities, many of which can now be found online with more activities being bought every week.

http://www.boredombustingideas.co.uk/activities

I gave my 5 year old the choice of any activity and he chose to make a dragon mask. it looked easy enough as you can see here:

http://www.boredombustingideas.co.uk/activity/dragon-mask-making

All we needed to buy was a newspaper for the paper mâché and so we began...

The first thing to say is that it took longer and was harder than I was prepared for. Firstly, none of the cereal boxes I had was big enough for my son's head ( and he is hardly a big child) so I had to fashion something from two boxes. The result was a rather strange shape. Secondly, the masking tape I had wasn't strong enough to attach the milk carton, but a trip to B&Q and their basics masking tape did the job well.

Once the basic mask was made, however, the job was simple, if time consuming. We did three layers of paper mâché over two sessions and the resultwas plenty strong enough. We used loads of PVA glue, which, luckily, was on offer at Sainsburys, so would recommend using a flour and water glue mix. It dried quickly, so it wasn't long before we were able to do the fun bit- painting!

Our final result is, well, original as you can see...but my son loves it.