The Plague Doctor's Ugly Mask!

  I had to laugh during the recent clue hunt that we held here on the Bayou. One of the biggest hits among the props was a plague doctor's mask that held one of the clues.  With the theme of the hunt being works of Edgar Allan Poe, it seemed only natural to include his "The Masque of the Red Death".  Although this was inspired by Poe's wife's death from Turberculosis, in his story he writes of it as the Red Death or plague.  I figured that I needed a plague doctor's mask.  Once again, creativity came into action.  The mask started out as egg cartons.  Yep, the cardboard type of cartons lent themselves to be recycled into a fine material for making the mask.  After tearing them into small pieces, I threw them in the blender (yep, my blender is used for everything!) with a good amount of water.  This made a big, ole, gooey mess!  Perfect! Next, I need a form for that odd shape of a mask.  Ha!  Another recyclable material met the need.  Inside the box of canned catfood, there are cardboard dividers.  These were cut, shaped and taped together to make that weird duckbill shaped mask.  The egg carton goop was plastered over this and allowed to dry. Now I had a mask.  It was horrible but I had a mask.  What to do, what to do?  Ok, it needed some definite work.  I covered it with brown paper that was recycled from a packing box.  It was still ugly as can be!

  Ugly crafts can usually be salvaged with a bit of paint so that came next.  My niece had given me a bottle of copper colored paint that she had leftover from a home repair project.  So...my mask became copper. It still looked like some very deformed duck.  About that time, Elizabeth came up with the idea of doing "Steampunk Poe".  All of our props were to be steampunked!  This meant I could cover the ugly blob of a mask with any doodad that I could find....and I did just that.  A broken belt became the straps, clock springs, keys, cords, a clock face, springs, gears and a fly-tier's magnifier soon were added to the mask.  Ok, now I was beginning to like this thing a bit better.  The more I added, the better I liked it.  I guess applying all of that junk sort of covered up the mask a bit!

  The final product seemed to be an interesting tidbit to most everyone who came to the hunt and also to those who just happened to be at the Little Bayou House before the hunt started.  I had no idea that this monstrosity would ever be such a hit!  More people tried on the mask and some even begged to take it home.  Why?  Who knows?  I am still in a quandary about that!  Sure, it looks a lot better than just a fat, copper duckbill but, my goodness, it is still ugly!  Interesting but ugly!