Made by Liz B
Here are Belinda Cowlisle (left) and Haruki Moorakami! They’ll be worn in a small-town parade along with a third cow mask in progress. I used Jonni’s cow mask pattern and omitted the horns.
Here’s what I learned:
1) Everyone has a different hat size/face width and length, so try the mask on *before* the paper mache step! My masks came out several different sizes, I think due to variations in how I angled the cheek/jaw pieces. The first cow I assembled (Haruki) came out slightly too small to fit an adult’s head, which I noticed but kept that way so that kids can wear it, and it’s cute that he looks more like a calf.
2) To make a larger hat size for the second cow, I cut narrow triangles of corrugated cardboard and taped them in between the darts of the back of the cow’s head to increase the diameter.
3) You can use aluminum foil to shape the eyeballs if you don’t have Styrofoam balls.
4) I hot-glued a small tuft of white faux fur to the top of each cow’s head to mimic the little head tuft many Holsteins have.
Liz, thank you for showing us the cow masks you made, and for including the tips. Your masks look great, and your instructions will be really useful for your readers. Great post! 🙂