Living On Purpose

In my last post I was thinking about doing some soul searching, emotional healing work with real masks. This post isn’t about that.

I hosted a party this weekend. It was in celebration of my 40th birthday, though it wasn’t my actual birthday; it’s still coming up.  I’m not a party person. Not a hostess. There are families I know that have parties every month. There are families that make a habit of cooking enormous amounts of food just for kicks and invite all their friends over for no special reason other than to share food together. I’m not that kind of person. Usually the thought of hosting a party triggers an increased heart rate as I panic over the state of my house, the amount of preparation and money needed, and the amount of cleanup needed afterwards.

For my 40th birthday I decided to “just get over it.” I hadn’t had a party for me since my tiny little baby shower five years ago, and before that….ummmm…..not since I was turning 21 and invited some girlfriends to go hiking with me in honor of my birthday.

I was internally driven this month to make papier mache masks and had a moment of inspiration as I said, “heeeey wait a minute, I actually like doing this. I bet my girlfriends would like painting these masks. I bet their children would like painting something too.”

So I did what no one I’ve met has done before with a party. I turned it into an arts and crafts party. I took a week to make about seven or eight masks. I bought 20 plaster of paris figurines for the children to paint.  I gathered paintbrushes, paints, sequins, feathers, yarn, hot glue for the glue gun, and 5 plastic masks for backup.

This party went so well it was unbelievable for me. I invited mostly married couples and they all had children so the kids started painting figurines first. Then I invited the grownups to paint the masks and two jumped right in. Later during the evening about four more ladies decided to paint masks. I was impressed with the amount of concentration and creativity shown. The adult men stuck close to the grill where my husband was making carne asada. But two teen boys asked for masks to paint and they impressed me with wrestling masks.

Here is yours truly, Jessica, wearing my mask. I made this mask before the party as an example and a prototype. I wanted the camoflauged, blending right into the woodwork look. That’s the figurative mask I wore as a teen, barely able to speak up. So I plucked some leaves and painted the veins, then pressed the leaves right onto the mask. Then I hot glued silk ivy leaves to the sides during the party.

This mask above is awesome.  It was designed with paint, sequins and feathers by the mom of the girl in the picture. Those store bought molds, the only ones in the craft store, were sized for a three year old’s face, so it fit her daughter perfectly. This is one of the masks I made with papier mache. Above this photo is an example of a store bought plastic mask fully decorated.

On a final note, the woman pictured in this photo thought she wasn’t creative. She didn’t believe she could paint a mask nicely. I think her mask turned out wonderfully, and she thought outside the box. To get the sequins to line the top of the mask, she put a thick coating of glue and scooped the sequins onto the mask by the handful. Any that didn’t stick went right back into the jar. I think a creative themed party really helps people tap into their natural abilities and sometimes hidden & buried creativity.

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