The Fanny Hill mask

I am going to a MASKED BALL tonight. After showing up to the last masked ball thrown by the same crew with nothing better than a £10 plastic number I picked up at a local costume shop, I resolved to put my back into it this time. I have spent roughly 20 hours making my mask.

First we made mask forms using plaster strips. There’s few better ways to get to know new friends than to spend a Sunday together swathing your heads in saran wrap, covering your faces in scary mummy-like wrappings and trying to convey beer into your mouths without moving your lips.

After prying the plaster off my face, I trimmed the damp mask form into shape with scissors and left it to dry for a couple of days. Then I covered it with two layers of papier-mache strips, and sculpted some cheekbones and eyebrows and a new, perkier nose in papier-mache pulp made from toilet paper and PVA glue. Then I coated that in another layer of plain white papier-mache strips, and then I put on the decorative outer layer — steamy text and smutty pictures from my old favorite Fanny Hill.

Then I painted some pink-tinted glue on the cheeks and sealed the whole thing, inside and out, with two coats of Mod Podge.

I sewed a pink satin ribbon into a casing for some elastic and stitched that to the mask. Then I superglued on some feather trim from Macculloch and Wallis.

Ostrich and emu! That shit ain’t cheap!

The only way I can hope to recoup the cost of making this mask is by winning one of the bottles of Hendrick’s Gin they’re giving away as prizes. Still… pretty good, no?

Good luck! Try not to FAIL!