Make a cat mascot head in two days with the following material: cardboard, balloon, tape, ducktape, papermache, felt, Googly eyes, 2 foam balls, hot glue gun with glue, felt or faux fur material. Totalling in about 25-30 dollars.This tutorial lacked some photos due to the time crunch. when I redo the material on the mask I will update the photos for the steps.

Step 1: Blow Large Balloon for Head.

You Measure the width of your head with a measuring tape or some paper. mark your eyes, nose, mouth and chin on said paper. ensure the balloon is bigger then the measurements. if it's too big you can fill in the space gaps in the mask shown in later step.

Step 2: Create Paper Templates for Your Mask

After your balloon is blown up and the eyes mouth nose and chin are marked on the balloon. you must create the mouth of the mascot which you will be looking through. The template shown in this step is for the top muzzle (the bottom of the mouth is the same template but without the curved top lip) of the cat. draw your 2 templates on some paper then trace onto cardboard. From there you can cut out the templates and use tape to tape it to the tabs to the balloon.

Step 3: Create a Sturdy Base/ the Rest of the Cat Head.

After you do the muzzle you create the nose. The nose bridge, the eye socket, the sides of the face. the back of the head. the top of the head. the ears. This is all done with regular tape, 1 small 14x14x14 cardboard box (i used half of the box) and the use of cutting 2 symettrical picies of cardboard to make both sides of the face look the same. (I mainly used large rectangular/diamond shape picies). The back of the head and jaw area used duck tape to keep it secure. This step contained few pictures due to the time crunch.

Step 4: Paper Mache the Eyes, Nose, Ears. Create Cheeks and Cat Mouth.

Get the foam balls. (I used a medium sized ball) cut the ball in half with scissors. and shape the foam with scissors, to desired shape for cat mouth (puffy section under cat nose). After shaping duck tape the foam to the cat mouth. Now create cheeks by balling up paper to an oval shape, it should be about palm size or bigger, yes it will be crinkly but you will smooth this out later. Duck tape the paper ovaly ball using two strips of duck tape to the desired cheek area. once ducked taped. Get a bowl, put the glue in the bowl with some water. using newspaper or printer paper, dip strip of the paper in the glue and cover the bridge of the nose, cheeks, eyes, ears, side of the face, jaw and mouth in 1-2 layers of paper mache. The back of the head only needs 1 layer. What about awkward gaps in the mouth cheek nose area? Take some more paper mache and fill in the gaps, or sculpt with papermache. Make sure the paper mache is mostly smooth if there is a crease or corner here and there it is fine. When covered with the material the sharp edges are not noticed. Do the paper mache until the front of your mascot looks covered in paper and mostly smooth, so no crinkly cheeks/ mouth will be noticed. Also cut out two ovals or curvy diamond shapes. for the googly eyes later.

Step 5: Cover in Material. Felt. Cloth. or Faux Fur

I bought a yard of material and still have a good amount left over. This step is the glue gunning portion. you will glue gun all the material to the paper mache/card board. so cut out your materials and plan how you want it to look or physically put it on you cat head and cut/adjust before you glue.
The first portion I added fabric to wad the mouth under the nose. I cut out two ovals with light peach felt. Glue a small portion (if not half) of one of the cat mouth part underneath the nose, so you can poke 2 holes with scissors for the pipe cleaner whiskers to go through. Once the two pipe cleaner whiskers are through (makes 4 whiskers) you can finish gluing the peach mouth. Make sure to buy two or three squares of the peach material in case you mess up, you will also need the peach material for the ears eyes and other designs for the fur. For the eyes glue gun the face material first then the eye material to the cardbaord wye ovals. once your eye ovals have material on them glue gun the googly eyes on, then glue gun the finished eye to material to the felt covering the interior of the eyesockets. I didn't make a template for the material portion. I used a total of 6 pecies or sections of black felt like material for the rest of the head. 1 large rectangular section for both sides of the face and the back of the head. 1 medium sized piece for the front of the head. 2 strips for underneath the eyes. 2 hand hand sized picies for the ears.