A Simple Construction Paper Mask to Satiate His Disguise Obsessions

My toddler has been obsessed with masks since Halloween. He is even obsessed with his little toy people that have masks on. (He has a set of Fisher-Price Super Hero Little People, and he is constantly showing them to us saying, "mask, mask, mask.") He is also obsessed with Batman. Whenever we play hide-and-seek, he says, "hide, Batman is coming," and if he see a billboard or an image of Batman in public, he grabs onto us showing in a bit of fear and makes sure we know about it. 

I don't even think he really knows who Batman is, and we try to tell him Batman is good, but any shady character with their face covered or with any type of disguise is Batman. Today, we were playing, and I pulled the hoodie on his t-shirt up over his head, and he turned and said, Batman. So, I asked if he'd like to enhance the look with a mask, and he was thrilled. And that's what inspired this craft project. 

Essentials are a string and some paper. I asked him what color he wanted his mask to be, and he said red. (Another reason why he can't possibly know much about Batman, haha.) I have never made him a mask before, so I got a pencil and drew a simple outline, cut it out, and then tried to hold it up to his face to figure out where to cut the eyes, but he wouldn't let me, so I eye-balled it (and had to make them bigger later, but that wasn't a big deal).

I used a hole punch to create holes to attach the strings and had a leather string laying around, which has some stretch and a non-slick texture, which proved perfect for keeping the mask in place when he was wearing it, but you can use any string.

Like I said, I had to adjust the eye holes and the notch for the nose several times until perfect (or at least workable). And because I get a lot of my art supplies from the dollar store, my construction paper is thin and flimsy, so I covered the whole mask with clear packing tape on both sides, trimmed off the edges and eye holes, and it looks nicely laminated--not to mention pliable.

After the mask was complete, he had a costume for the day, (or at least for the next hour or so, lol.)