The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project.

First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby.

Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request.

Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat would help, but that simply took off the first coat. So we abandoned the tempera paint.

We made a quick run to the store and picked up a can of the cheapest metallic gold spray paint that they had~one coat worked great. Then the kiddos took back over from there.

First they penciled on markings to help them remember where they wanted to paint their stripes.
Then they painted them! They simply painted stripes all around the face and then the beard section. After they finished painting them we helped them add the detail around the eyes with puff paint.

We think they are so cool! I loved the way they turned out!

I was just bummed that I couldn't get Mr. B to *walk like an Egyptian* ;)