1920's history crafts for elementary age kids (Bonus if it's related to Disney Princess Tiana)

I've been wracking my brain about this for months, and I'm still at a loss. You guys were all so helpful with helping me find Living history crafts for the Northern Wei Dynasty for Mulan, and I want to do something equally awesome for Tiana.

The movie, Princess and the Frog, features Tiana and is set in the 1920's down in New Orleans. There's lots of cooking in that movie, so I was thinking maybe the kids could make their own restaurant menu. But, that that might be hard for the kids to make look nice and feel proud of.

There's jazz music, Marti Gras, a fancy ball, and cooking in the movie. And frogs. Anyone have ideas for historical crafts for the 1920s?

Paper mâché masks are a fun one to do. Works for Mardi Gras and the fancy ball. Paper clay, homemade or other can be used and mâché paper strips work too.
( I made and sold gilded Venetian masks for 10+ years)
If you have any local thrift stores, they might have some ceramic or plastic masks you can use as molds to make masks. A layer of wax on the ceramic ones and you can just pop mâché pieces right off them after a day or 2 of drying. Easy to do a whole bunch so they can have a range. I would do strip mâché over the whole thing and then cut the eyeholes after, to fit each design.
Lace bits, cording, leather scraps, ribbons, beads, leaves, fake or real and any other bits around can be used to decorate them and then paint. Gilding isn't too hard, but it can be a bit pricey to get all the supplies to start.
It's a very old craft too. Lots of history.

Ooooooh! That's a marvelous idea! I spent a good hour going down a deep rabbit hole about Mardi Gras in the 1920s last night.

I'm almost tempted to have the kids make Mardi Gras crowns like the Queens of Mardi Gras wore (and Charlotte in the movie is the Mardi Gras Queen). But, crowns are probably trickier (and more expensive) to make than crowns.

BuuuUUuuut, my class is called "Historical Disney Princesses," and it's full of girls. And they might all really like the excuse to make crowns. But, I have no idea how to make one.

Next weekend, I'm helping make corn husk dolls for a big festival.   It's easy to get corn husks these days as people in grocery stores, but at this festival they are selling steamed corn so lots and lots of husks.  
I made them a few years ago but forgot how so I'll spend the first 10 min with a refresher course.

Towards the end of art nouveau and the start of art deco which is really neat to see the two side by side.

Be fun to try doing a picture of a frog in one style or the other.  

I did a group of gilded tiaras/crowns/headbands. Salvaged leather was cut into a strip with some points in the center to make the crown shape. Then glued down heavy lace for the details and gilded over it all. Punched holes in the ends and then added ribbons which could be tied to make it fit. Paint would work here too.

They didn't really take off as an item but they were pretty and easy to make.

A couple of pics of the headbands. A friend modelled a few for me, at the time.

r ranson wrote:Next weekend, I'm helping make corn husk dolls for a big festival.   It's easy to get corn husks these days as people in grocery stores, but at this festival they are selling steamed corn so lots and lots of husks.  
I made them a few years ago but forgot how so I'll spend the first 10 min with a refresher course.

I should probably see about getting some of those corn husks and  learning how to make the dolls. If I get corn husks now and keep them in a relatively dry place, will they still be fine in February when we're studying Pocahontas. (Also, did the Powhatan actually make corn husk dolls, or is that just a myth/stereotype? There's always so much research needed in history!)

Oh, thank goodness, they were made by the tribes of the Eastern Woodlands. And, there's videos made by the tribes with the original methods.