Design Your Own Paper Plate Masks for SING Family Movie Night

If you’ve been following the blog lately, you know we are head-over-heels for the film SING which has such inspiring and empowering messages for everyone.  Thanks to our partnership with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, we’ve put together this cute paper plate mask craft to help celebrate the release of SING Special Edition on Blu-ray and DVD!

As a substitute teacher, I’ve had to master the ability to be creative on-the-spot.  When you have a room full of restless children and time on your hands, you really need to keep those little hands busy and minds engaged quick!  One of my go-to crafts is paper plate masks.  I always keep a stash of plates handy in my day bag along with construction paper and glue sticks.  Often you can find these items in the classroom, but it’s always best to be prepared.

If scissors are not available or the children are too young to use them effectively, you can simply help them tear the paper and put the paper plates together in more of a mosaic style.  Whatever you choose, everyone always loves this craft and it’s so easy to them it to any subject matter or book the children may be reading in class, from animals to famous figures or even bringing science topics to life with proton and neutron paper plates!

At home, I use the same concept sometimes for family movie night.  My children have always loved crafting and it’s fun to use the masks before and after the film to mimic favorite character or to hang on the fridge or wall as a great reminder of our special family time.

The limits of this craft are simply your imagination.  When I’m in the school setting, I draw a concept on the board for the children to base their crafts on.  This is as easy as simply deciding what image you want to make and converting it into easy basic shapes and colors.  If visualizing crafts doesn’t come easy and you have a tough time doing this, look to the pages of a book or the cover jacket of a film like SING for inspiration.

At home, I use pen and paper to quickly sketch out my ideas.  As you can see, my art skills are pretty basic, so you do not have to be a master artist to come up with a cute paper plate idea.

The next step, of course, is to select your color pallet for the plate… and be sure to keep things simple.  Two to five colors is generally ideal, especially if you are teaching children to create the images.  If you have a group of teens, you can leave the color selection up to their imaginations and let them use as many as they feel are needed to create their masterpiece.  With that age group, you will definitely be surprised by the exceptional creativity they produce on their own without much structure.

I also like to use the paper plates for color as you can see from the beginning of the Buster Moon koala bear plate (pictured below.)

Once you have your basic design, cut out the shapes desired from your color palette and begin to layer them on the plate.  Don’t glue anything down until you are satisfied with the results.  Many times, we find ourselves trimming shapes to fit better, revising colors or changing direction on how to best represent the character.

Once you have a pattern you are comfortable with, it’s simply a matter of gluing all the pieces in place and viola!  A fun character mask to celebrate the film SING or any other interest.

Additional Tips:

Add special details to bring the character to life.  For example, if you are creating the vibrant Rosita from SING, create a large right angle triangle for the ears and fold the upper third of the shape downward to create the flaps on her ears.

Or crinkle your rectangular elephant trunk on the dynamic Meena character:

And add a bow-tie to the dashing koala character, Buster Moon:

Above all, have fun creating your paper plate masks and enjoy your special SING family movie night!

Be sure to check out our additional ideas for SING family movie night fun HERE.