This entry was taken from the TFPWK Blog (originally posted in October).
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Some recent conversations have found me remembering the crazy random things that used to fill my life. Here is one story – in light of the season, that might peak your interest.
It was around Halloween time. Year 2003, and we were preparing to throw the Halloween bash of the century – ok, maybe not that big. . . we were preparing to throw a party for close friends and neighbors. We’d seen jell-o molds for brains or hands or other creepy Halloween-like things. But we got this crazy idea to make a mold of someones face and use that for Jell-o.

As we investigated our options, we knew that we didn’t have the time, money, or means to make a real plaster cast and plastic mold – so we’d have to be creative.

One day while shopping around at Michaels Craft Store my roommate, Kari, and I came upon this stuff – a gauze type plaster that dries fast. Great, we thought – it would be a sort of “death mask meets jell-o mold”. So we bought a bunch of it, and set off to find some victims.

We had it all figured out. We’d cover the eyebrows and scalp line of our victim with Vaseline so the plaster wouldn’t rip out their hair, and we’d give them a pair of small air holes, one at each nostril. After things dried up enough we’d patch the air holes with more plaster. Let it dry overnight, cover it with a few coats of Mod Podge, and we’d be good to go!

Everything went smashingly! Well, almost.

(Aside: I have searched for an hour and can’t find any pictures as examples. I’ll post them when I find them. Alas, Alack!)

Meet John, and Tosh.
These guys were are neighbors and good friends. They were also really good sports.

As described above, we covered the necessary areas of their faces with Vaseline. Then we slowly took turns layering strip after strip of plaster coated gauze on their faces. Of course, we were laughing the entire time. We kept going until everything except the small nasal air holes were covered. I can’t remember how long we made them stay that way – covered in plaster masks – I just remember all the laughter. When the masks did come off it was a pretty smooth process. No loss of facial hair to speak of. We placed them on a baking sheet and dried them on a low temperature in our oven for a couple of hours. After the initial dry we basted them with a thick coat of Mod Podge and put them back in the oven. This process was repeated several times over the next 24 hours or so.

When all was said and done, we had some AMAZING new Jell-o molds. Wink. Wink. I think the main downfall of the guaze-type plaster was the texture that was left imprinted into the mold. (Note: I’m pretty sure that this stuff wasn’t meant for making Jell-o molds) Didn’t matter though. We sprayed the dried molds with some Pam, and poured in the jell-o.

After the Jell-o set up we popped the molded treat out onto a plate. It took a little dip in warm water to loosen things up a bit (just like any other Jell-o mold).

The Jell-o faces not only looked like their human counterparts, but they were the hit of the party. Much to our dismay, no one actually ate the jell-o though. Too Bad.

Anyway, to wrap things up. . .
For anyone else venturing to try this. I recommend a few extra coats of Mod Podge. The color from the jell-o dyed the plaster in a few places. Oh, the boys got to take their masks home.