Our guest blogger today is Susan Peterson, the force behind craft blog (and online leather goods shop) Freshly Picked. Susan lives in Utah with her husband and two small kids.

Super hero masks are an easy way to make any T-shirt and jean combo into a super hero outfit. Leather masks are great because they’ll last long past Halloween and are fun and easy to make. Plus, your kids can help!

I recently created this project as a birthday party favor for my friend Meta’s super hero party.

For this project, you’ll need tooling leather. You can buy a bag of tooling leather from your local craft or leather store for about $15. One bag of tooling leather will make about 20 masks.

Tooling leather is moldable when wet and will dry into whatever shape you’ve molded it into.

You’ll also need to download the super hero mask pattern.

Start with a piece of tooling leather. Wet the top side with a spray bottle. Print out the mask pattern and place it on the wet leather. Use something pointy to trace the outline. This will transfer the mask shape to the leather.

Cut the leather and then shape. For this mask, I used a face piece from the craft store. You could also use your own face to get the shape. Let the mask air dry until it is thoroughly dry.  Ours dried for a couple of hours, but you might want it to dry overnight.

We painted each mask white as a base and then let the kids embellish to their hearts’ content. It was so fun to see each child’s personality come out in the masks.

Photos by Ashley Thalman