What a weekend!
When we planned the trip, we knew little of the fact that the Mardi Gras actually starts almost a month before the official dates in February. We were in for a lovely surprise when it turned out that there are a couple of parades that started that weekend. We heard from our local tour guide that these parades are smaller in size and hence they can actually go through the french quarter. Also, he recommended to be ready for a much naughtier and explicit parade than the later ones. Nevertheless, we were very happy to be in the midst of all the buzz...
The day of the parade we stopped with our rented bikes at the artisans market and purchased a few Venetian masks "for the girls".
I just had to do a lesson with Venetian masks with my 5th graders! So here it is:
We started with heavy duty foil cut into squares about 8 inches by 8 inches and folded 2-3 times.
We then shaped it over our face to form our unique face shape. We used a store bought paper mache masks as a guide to cut the eyes in the right place. 
We then covered the foil with a few layers of brown paper bag pieces that we dipped in wall paste ("Jelly glue" as the kids call it).
We used containers (takeout soup containers) to keep the drying paper layers in round shape. After 2-3 layers of more brown paper, it was stiff enough for applying decoupage and embellishments (third lesson) but not too stiff, so it will be comfortable with wearing. We cut it to the desired shape.
We used Mod Podge to glue tissue paper pieces, music sheet pieces, napkins, and feathers.
When I took these pictures the glue was still wet, hence the white cloudiness...
Happy Mardi Gras!
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