Free Mardi Gras mask SVG files

Feathers that cut cleanly

A carnival mask is two things: the mask, which is a simple shape with two eye holes, and the feathers, which are not simple at all. The feathers here are drawn as curved leaves with a slit down the middle for the quill and two notches in each edge, which is enough for the eye to read them as feathers without hundreds of fine barbs to weed. Every file is 100 mm on its longer side, and at that size the quill slits are about 1.3 mm wide and the notches several millimetres deep, so the feathered masks cut well in vinyl, card and glitter card down to about 70 mm.

The eye holes are real holes. On a shirt or a card the surface shows through them; for a mask to wear, scale the simple eye mask to about 180 mm wide, check the eyes against your own, and cut it from stiff card or craft foam.

Purple, green and gold

The colours of Mardi Gras are purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power, chosen by the Rex parade in New Orleans in 1872. Cut a mask from purple and back the eye holes with gold, or cut the feathered mask three times and keep the feathers from the green and gold copies to layer over the purple one. The mask with beads and the mask with a jester hat suit king cake parties and parade throws.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions