I wanted to make wearable masks for a themed birthday party, and thought i’d try to make them myself using some of the portraits I have on flickr. Of course any photo can be used, but i found high resolution frontal picture work best when working on the eyes. I cropped the images below to keep only the face and printed them in A4 size in laser color printer.
Then I cut around the faces and glued them onto sheets of cardboard paper (I used the extra thin one so it would be easier to cut holes in it):
Once dry I cut around the faces again, cut the eyes out with a cutter, and punched some small holes on both sides of the head. I then used some basic string to make the mask wearable.
The end result is kind of creepy, but also funny. We tested them out on the banks of the Seine. Some people had a laugh, others were scared by the big smiling faces.
And don’t forget to wear the crap out of those masks!
I recently got access to my mother’s photo archives which she’s saved and accumulated from relatives over the years. I wasn’t able to go through them all, but here are some of my favorites:
A couple of years ago we found some very cool wooden chairs by the curb. they were clean, in a good state, and they looked pretty comfy. But they were brown and ugly. So we took all of the stickers we had accumulated from exchanges with street artists on flickr (stickertraders and stickerbombing), and customized them. Here’s how:
First off, scrape off the original coat and finish of the chair with some sandpaper:
Then decide carefully how you’re going to cover the chair using varnished glue. We chose to do a first layer of those big “Hello My Name Is” stickers so that once we put the ones we liked on top there wouldn’t be any blank spot on the bottom:
Let the chair dry overnight, and you’re done! Now sit the crap out of that chair!
Last year I wanted to do something special for my brother’s birthday. So I thought what better than a traditional Mexican piñata? But all the ones I found in Paris were either ugly or expensive (esquipulas and lapinata)…So with my girlfriend we made our own, based on the Japanese character Domo Kun. here’s a little recap in photos:
You’ll need balloons, old newspapers, plaster, cissors, color paper, normal A4 white paper, two buttons (black), and some liquid glue.
Start off by choosing the right shape of balloons, which will give the piñata its ultimate shape once covered in paper maché and plaster. I needed one squarish balloon, but since i couldn’t find any I took two long balloons and taped them together. One was slightly longer than the other, which was pure accident, but in the end it was perfect to get Domo’s final pose. Once the balloons are properly covered in paper maché (not too many layers, don’t want to make it unbreakable!), let them dry, and apply plaster. One cover should be enough.
Then let it dry off for a couple of hours:
Once dry you can cover the plaster base with the colored paper of your choice, which in this case was brown:
Then let it dry again.
Then we get to the details. We cut a red mouth using a square piece of red paper. The teeth were regular white paper cut in triangles. For the hands we used two toilet paper rolls with one end stuffed with newspaper and the other one shut and glued to the plaster base.
The we glue two black buttons for the eyes, and voilà!
Now that the piñata itself is done, you’ll need to cut a hole into it (could be on the side or on the top, depending on how you’re going to hang it in the air. We used regular pointy cissors and a wire hanger to make the pulley-thingy which will allow to hang it up:
Now just stuff it full of fun stuff like chocolates, candy bars, gum, cigarettes, whistles, and that’s it, you’re done!
Take lots of pictures of your finished work, and then beat the crap out of it!
