Things to Do With a Sycamore Tree: Make Masks!

Things to Do With a Sycamore Tree: Make Masks! July 10, 2013

I love sycamore trees. We had one growing in the front of my house as a child. They’re related to maples, but have weird seed pods in the fall and gigantic leaves.  Today I’m going to show you how to make Leaf Masks with those gigantic leaves.
First you need a leaf.
Then you need some string (I love string too!) some masking tape of some sort, and a tapestry needle or at least some sort of needle that can fit your string in it’s eye.  Also you will need scissors. I forgot to take a photo of the scissors.
First cut the stem from the middle of the leaf, that’s where the nose will go. Then you cut the eye holes. You will see that there are big veins that run at angles to the central vein.  The leaf will fold easily along those veins and it works really well to fold it there and cut the eye as you see I’ve done above.
Then you do it to the other side and try to get it to match.  After that you let your children paint them.  I didn’t take pictures of that. It was a little primal. Didn’t want to scare you. The painting of the leaves not only makes them pretty, it makes them sturdier. I also tried using a diluted wash of white glue to make them sturdier.  That didn’t work well. It just beaded up.  You might try undiluted white glue if you’re afraid of letting your children at the paint.
Then you let them dry. It’s okay to do that for a couple of days. Go for a walk in the woods or something. We went to the zoo. The girls favorite was the giant anteater. We thought it was an aardvark at first.
Then on the sides, near the tips, cut small pieces of tape to apply to the backside of your mask to reinforce where the ties will go.  Thread your string on your tapestry needle and carefully punch through the tape.
Punch it back up again and then tie it in a knot. 

There’s me!
There’s them. Life is good.  More on things to do with sycamores later.

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