7 DIY Plague Masks You Make At Home For Halloween

Hands down this is going to be one of the most popular Halloween costumes for 2020 but what is going to make your Plague mask stand out from the rest? Sure you could buy a plague mask or you could DIY something amazing!

And do you want to know a little bit more about the mask before you make your own plague mask for your costume? I had to do some research as to be honest I didn’t really know the history of the plague mask before writing this Halloween post.

A plague doctor was a physician who treated victims of the bubonic plague. In times of epidemics, these physicians were specifically hired by towns where the plague had taken hold. Since the city was paying their salary, they treated everyone, wealthy or poor. Wikipedia

So why the beaks? These doctors were all about the weird stuff, they believed herbs would cure them, so the beak was filled with herbs as if to “filter” the disease before reaching the mouth of the wearer. This mask is very popular in Venice and is worn at the yearly festivals. It’s not so fun now though is it.

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The costume is usually credited to Charles de Lorme, a physician who catered to the medical needs of many European royals during the 17th century, including King Louis XIII and Gaston d’Orléans, son of Marie de Médici.

Kids all seem to go through a phase of loving trivia, and if you’ve got kids who want to know about the tallest, biggest and weirdest things in nature, they’ll enjoy the book Once in a Blue Moon by Emily Hawkins.

The book explores wonders of astronomy, meteorology, big trees, weird animals, volcanoes and more to show off the rarest events and phenomena in the natural world.

Kids ages 7-10 will learn about the lake (Lake Hillier, on an island off Australia) that has water that’s bubblegum pink, the world’s deepst came (Veryovkina Cave in the country of Georgia) and the world’s biggest tree, a banyan in southeast India with a canopy that covers more than five acres!

Readers will learn what a blue moon is, how supernovas happen and about Haley’s comet and solar eclipses, among other space-related phenomena. Closer to home they’ll learn about stinky flowers, bleeding trees, glowing fungi and pizzly bears.

There’s content about times when it’s rained frogs (and when frogs have exploded en masse), when snow made giant snowballs all by itself and how clouds stack on themselves like pancakes. The book also explores ball lightning, sun dogs, St. Elmo’s fire and more.

I love books like this and I know kids do, too. There’s so much weird and wonderful about our world and even as adults we don’t know about all of these things. I found it fun to learn, for example, that there’s a volcano on the island of Java that not only sends out blue flames from vents near its crater, it’s also home to an acidic lake.

Illustrations by Vlad Stankovic illuminate these weird natural wonders and are sure to get kids interested in learning more about some of these remarkable animals, plants, rock formations and more.

About the book: 80 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $30.

Have you read?