Elephant Appreciation Day Craft Project
Make An Elephant Mask

Completed   Your completed mask is sized for an adult's face. You must scale it down to fit a smaller face. Later in this project you will come across the actual paper patterns for duplicating this mask as it is shown. If you wish to make a more realistic mask you can use a scaled up image of an elephant head on this site and glue it poster board or you can use your own artistic ability to shape the mask and fill in details by drawing with markers, pencils or whatever.
Materials & Tools   You will need the following: 1. A standard 22" x 28" posterboard or equal cardboard sheet and some string or elastic to hold it on your head. 2. A pair of scissors and a stapling machine. (don't use without permission). 3. A pen, pencil, or marker for outlining the pattern 4. A pattern. We will show you how to get one free later on. We used a colored posterboard just to make it easy to see the parts and processes. use any color you want or use more than one color. If you make a wonderful or bizarre elephant mask we would be glad to post a photo of it on this site.
Step 1 - Trace The Face   Lay your pattern on the posterboard. Draw an outline around it to draw one side of the face. Do NOT draw a line along the edge which will join the other half of the face. FLIP the face over and draw an outline of the other half. When you remove the pattern you will have the entire face and ears.
Step 2 - Trace the Trunk   Use the same procedure for trunk. lay the pattern down and outline the top edge and outer edge. Do NOT draw a line down the straight side. Now flip the trunk pattern over and outline the other half of the trunk.
Step 3 - Score The Pieces   The gray lines you see on the cut out pieces are not drawn there ... they represent 'score' lines. If you score posterboard it will bend nicely and sharply. If you don't score it, when you bend it you will get an ugly looking bend. HOW to Score: use the point of one blade of the scissors, or a dull edge like a butter knife, and make a shallow groove in the posterboard where you plan to crease it. You need creases at the place where the ears stick out form the face and at the top (wide end) of the trunk.
Step 4 - Fold & Staple Ears   When your mask is done, the face will curve around your face but you want the ears to stick out from your head rather than follow the curve of the face. To make this happen you will staple (or glue if no stapler available) the ears in a certain way which is shown in these pictures. With the mask face UP, fold the ear forward on the crease (score line) nearer the face and lay the ear over the face. The bottom picture shows detail of how the staples are placed. You need four or five staples along the strip behind the ear. This doubles the thickness of the part where you will attach the string or elastic. EYES: at some point you must cut out holes through which you can see. This is best done on the paper pattern as explained later. In the pictures here you can see the outline made from the eye holes in the pattern.
Step 5 - Holes for String   Now the mask is flipped over face down with the ears still folded forward over the face. See the two holes punched in the double thick part? You can attach a string or cord thru the holes and tie them together behind your head. Better yet is to staple a piece of elastic to each side. The ey holes have been cut out. This could be done at any step in the project.
Step 6 - Attach the Trunk   In this view, the face is up facing you with the top at top. The TRUNK is upside-down at the moment. In this position, staple the trunk to the bottom of the face. When you fold the trunk down on the crease (score line you made) it will hang down and cover the staples holding it to the face. IF you want TUSKS on your mask, the time to attach tem is now. Staple them on so the staples will be covered by the trunk when it is folded down.
Face with Trunk & Tusks   So; here it is. Through the ey holes you can just see the elastic connecting the two sides at the back of the face. When you put the mask on the face will curve around and fit your face and the ears will stick out from the sides because of the how they were cresed and stapled.

Now we'll explain the pattern and show you how to get it or make your own.

How the Pattern is Made   The pattern is made from three (3) sheets of ordinary 8½ x 1 white paper as used in a copy machine or from a tablet. It doesn't matter what kind of paper you use. The FACE is a single sheet turned to landscape orientation ... that means 11 inches WIDE by 8½ inch HIGH. This fits most faces. Only HALF the sheet is used to make the pattern so it is a piece 5½ inches wide by 8½ inches high. You set the eye position using this half sheet of paper. Either measure from the middle of the you nose to the center of your eye and mark the paper at that position, or stand in front of a mirror and hold the edge of paper along the bridge of your nose and use your finger to locate the center of your eye then mark the paper. Draw an oval the size you want and cut it out of the pattern. Part 2 is the ear. The ear can be as large or as small as you want it. We used a sheet of paper in the portarit mode, 8½ inches wide by 11 inches high, and drew the shape of an ear. TAPE the ear to the half face. Now you have the same face patern shown above that we used to trace the face and ears on our posterboard. The TRUNK pattern is made by cutting a sheet of paper int two pieces the long way so each is 4¼ inches by 11 inches. Tape them together into one sheet 4¼ inch wide by 22 inches long. Draw the shape of half the trunk on it and use the remaining space to draw a tusk if wanted. When you cut the pattern out you have everything you need to follow the steps above.

If you will PRINT this web page you will have the patterns below for the ear, trunk, and tusk. There is no face pattern; it is simply a half sheet. The patterns will not print to full size because of browser limts on page size printing. You CAN get the full size pages in .JPG format by clicking on the patterns and downloading the files to your hard drive. You can open and print them from a suitable application.

 
 

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*Mission Media, Inc. is the originator and hence only 'Official' sponsor of Elephant Appreciation Day. All the world is encouraged to participate.