Paper plates are a great thing to make lots of different craft projects out of. Usually everyone has a few spare paper plates left from a party. Or if you are getting ready for a party, these are a cheap way to start your decorations. Once you have made some fun animal masks, making games and playing is really easy.

Here we are going to make a paper plate animal lion mask. But you could easily make any animal. Maybe challenge your friends to paint their favourite animals and then take turns guessing and making the animal noises.

Maybe try a bear, a dog, a cat, a mouse, an elephant with some cardboard tubes as a nose. What animal would you like to make?

Get our plate ready and pop some old newspaper or similar down to protect the surface you are working on. Paint the bottom of the paper plate yellow. Use a large brush to speed up the process. Let your painted plate dry.

Once dry, if you feel your plate could do with another coat of paint. Go ahead and paint it again. Sometimes one coat of paint is not enough.

Allow the paint to dry thoroughly, or things will get messy. 

Now next for our lion plate mask, we need to make the mane. Use a pencil and draw triangle shapes all around the edges of the plate. Maybe cut out one triangle and use it as a template to draw around for all the other triangles. 

You could use the same design to make a sun paper plate mask. Could you make a moon mask too?

Now take your scissors and carefully cut the triangle shapes around the lion's head. Ask an adult for help. Don't worry if it is all a bit wobbly and uneven, that is part of the fun.

Now we need some eye holes. Try and guess roughly the distance between your eyes and draw two circles on the plate's face. It doesn't have to be perfect. Ask an adult to help you cut out the eye holes. An adult could use a craft knife.

Now we just need to finish the lion's mane. Take the brown paint and paint around the edges of the plate. Paint further in than just the triangles, in around 2.5cms or 1 inch further. Or paint it how you like. It is your funny lion paper plate mask.

Now we can use a smaller paintbrush to paint on the lion's mouth. Once all the paint has dried, all we need to do is stick on the pompom nose. Use some glue and give that lion their sniffer.

Finally, we can glue the stick to the back of the plate at the bottom. Find some strong glue or use some strong tape. Maybe ask an adult who has a hot glue gun.

And there we have our super fun paper plate animal lion mask completed. Once you know how to make it, tell your friends and post pictures on your own studio. Then comment below with your studio name, so we can search you and see them.