DIY Paintable Faux Lace Masquerade Masks

It's the Halloween season! Favorite season among sewers and crafters. One of my favorite parts of this season is the COSTUME MAKING! Yes, I will be making costumes this year! And to kick off the new season I've made some Masquerade faux lace masks with the help of Martha Stewart Crafts! I'll show you how to make these amazing simple masks in just a sec. But first check out the amazing goodies I received! A crafters dream! One blogger called it the Marthaload! (LOL, I loved that;) And I couldn't have agreed more.

Some of the especially exciting items were the magnetic paint, stencil film AND something called a Spray Paint Kit which is AH-MAZE-ING. It basically allows you to create your own custom spray paint! HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN SAYING I NEED SOMETHING LIKE THIS?! (about what seems like forever).

What I love about doing masks this way rather than using real lace is that you can make any design you want. The drawback to using real lace is that you're limited to what you can find in the store. For instance, with my gold mask, the entire perimeter and eye area are outlined like a custom mask. You couldn't do this with ordinary lace unless you wanted to crochet one (this takes way less time than crochet).

Also what's neat about making a faux lace mask with paint is that you can make it in whatever paint color you can find! I used a copper paint, a white paint, a black gunmetal paint with coarse glitter and classic red but the possibilities are endless! Paint yours then dust with gold flecks.

The only recommendation I have about the paint is to always use a water based one with the silk screens. With my first attempt I tried to use the liquid gilding that came in the Marthaload. It looked BRILLIANT but washing it out of the silk screen was another story. Unless you don't ever plan on using the silkscreen again, just stick with water-based colors.

I suppose if you were really desperate to use an oil based paint you could wash it out with paint thinner but that seems like an awful lot of work. I used the Martha Stewart Crafts glass paint in copper instead of the gilding and it came out just as good.

Another nice thing about making the mask this way is that if you make a mistake you can easily wipe it off (if it's still wet) or scrape it off if it has already dried.

For today's craft I'll be using Martha Stewart Crafts'

-paintable plastic sheets

-adhesive silk screen templates

-the squeegee

-Martha Stewart Glass Paint in copper, white, gunmetal black and red

-painters tape

In addition you have to use

-hot glue

-scissors

-paper punch

-1 yard of ribbon

-any extra embellishments that you choose

-this printable mask pattern to know where to place your eyes 

 For these photos I used shots from various masks. Just follow the directions and you should be fine. Leave me a comment if you have any questions.

So, FIRST, cut out the silkscreen of your choosing. I used one of the templates that looked most like lace. Take one of your paintable plastic sheets and place your silkscreen design on the sheet keeping in mind how much space you'll need to use for the rest of the mask.

Tape off part of the design that you won't be using.

Now, here's a really important part that you don't want to forget to do. Take your squeegee and drag it across your entire design getting all the air bubbles out. If you don't do this, you'll get bleed through in your design. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.

Squeeze your paint onto your silkscreen just above the design. Be sure to tape off all the spaces around the design. I usually taped of at least half an inch around my design.

Take your squeegee and pull the paint down your design. Then drag it back up. Repeat from side to side.

Then gently pull the silkscreen up and away from your design. Voila! Isn't it pretty?!

Now you must immediately wash off your silk screen if you want to use it again. If the paint dried to it, it will block the paint from coming through the screen when you use it again. To wash off the design what I found to be the easiest method was to stick it on an unused plastic sheet then run it under the running water in my sink then dabbed the water off with a paper towel and let dry in the sun (about 5 minutes).

Once your silk screen AND design is completely dried (about 15 minutes) you can move onto your next silk screen. You really must wait for your paint to dry completely or else when you place tape over it for the next silk screen, you'll pull off the design you just completed, and you don't want that. I put mine out in the sun for 10 minutes and it was good to go. But if you can't go outside or it is too cold, I'd wait at least 15 minutes between silk screenings. If you're making multiple masks now is a good time to start the first few steps of another one while you wait.

To place the silk screen in the right place, place your silk screen sticky side up, then flip over your plastic sheet, paint side down. Match up the silk screen to the painted design, then press the plastic and silk screen together. Flip plastic sheet over and squeegee silk screen in place. Then add your painters tape. (I usually didn't press the painters tape with the squeegee in the places that covered my previous design because I didn't want to pull it off later when I removed the tape).

Repeat these steps until your design is complete. Then cut your design out of the plastic sheet.

Then take your mask template and place it under your plastic sheet. Outline the eyes onto your mask with pencil. Take a pair of scissors and cut out eye holes.

Take your glass paint and squeeze the surrounding eye area with paint. Let dry.

Once everything is dry take your paper punch and makes holes on either side of your mask.

Take your ribbon cut it in half. Take each piece and thread it through each hole. Knot the end.

If you want to add more embellishments use hot glue to adhere them to the mask.

I also added ribbon tassels to the sides of my masks. To make the ribbon tassels I took 2 strips of 1 foot of ribbon and knotted them to the ribbon so that 6" of each foot hung down to make 4 ribbon strips.

Done! Enjoy your new masks! So much fun!

I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Plaid Crafts and Blueprint Social. The opinions in this post are my own.
"Find my post disclosure here." 

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Check out other fantastic Martha Stewart Crafts Projects!

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