Carnival 2023: masks, costumes, and fun DIY ideas

Discover our top tips for celebrating Carnival with your child

The much-anticipated celebration of Carnival! It’s the event children eagerly await so they can wear the masks of their favorite superheroes or beloved storybook characters. With pranks, parades, and traditional seasonal sweets, let’s discover how to make this festival special for both adults and children.

Family Carnival with masks, recipes, and city events

After Christmas, the celebration children look forward to most is Carnival—an occasion that brings joy, carefree moments, and laughter with family and friends. Between masked parties, parades with floats, and many other events in different places, fun is guaranteed. But Carnival also offers more intimate, cozy moments between parents and children, as you create masks, fun crafts, and homemade treats together.

DIY masks and crafts for kid-proof Carnival

Choosing a Carnival mask is never easy! For children, dressing up isn’t just a fun moment—it can carry many meanings. Wearing the outfit of a superhero or a favorite animal, for example, transports little ones into a magical world of special powers and more. Dressing up also lets children shift their perspective and feel more human —at least for a few days.

There are so many tutorials and printable templates available online. After a bit of research, once you’ve found the perfect costume for your child, you can also start from scratch, using lots of imagination and various materials. recycled materials you can find at home: felt, colored paper, fabrics, toilet paper rolls, and cardboard boxes.

Carnival Masks with paper plates

Tell us what animal you are, and we’ll tell you how to create a Carnival mask! Did you know that a simple paper plate, some cardboard, and a few colors are enough to make a mask of your child’s favorite animal, such as a koala, cat, panda, fox, zebra, or lion? The options are truly endless, and making these Carnival masks with paper plates is a simple activity that will keep little hands busy for a while.

Coloring Pagliacci

The clown costume is a timeless Carnival classic, and if you don’t want to commit to choosing a specific costume, you can help children create fun, colorful juggling clowns with just a drawing, markers, or colored pencils. Once the drawing is complete, to make the clown “three-dimensional,” all that’s left is to cut it out and glue it onto a leftover cardboard tube, forming a cylinder. If the tube is too small, simply cut around the top part of the clown and leave an extra section of paper on the sides at the base—at least 2 cm on the right and 2 cm on the left—then glue these two side strips together so the clown can stand upright. Once assembled, they create a cheerful, colorful collection!

DIY costumes using recycled cardboard boxes

Carnival costume: swan. Completely made from recycled cardboard.

The beauty of using recycled materials to create masks and Carnival crafts is that it’s not only useful for preserving our environment , but it also encourages free creative expression. For example, a simple LILLYDOO diaper box can, with just a few small tweaks, become a Carnival costume to wear: a swan with a crown, a box of popcorn, a robot, a horse, or the beloved Thomas the Tank Engine that children adore. You can find many templates online to create costumes by reusing the cardboard box from the LILLYDOO diaper subscription .

Creating costumes at home, step by step, by recycling materials is a wonderful exercise in imagination and helps develop children’s creativity. We’re sure that, in the end, your child will love the costumes you make together even more than store-bought ones. The costume will no longer be just something to wear, but also a memory of an unforgettable experience with their parents. On the website, you can find many printable PDFs with instructions on how to assemble everything.

To make the Thomas the Tank Engine costume, simply paint the box blue, add three paper plates on each side to serve as the wheels of your train, and print Thomas the Tank Engine’s characteristic friendly, smiling face on a sheet of paper. Finally, two cords will allow you to wear the finished costume.

Another idea is to make a butterfly costume. What do you need, and how do you make it? Watch our video to find out!

Easy and fun Carnival recipes for kids

It’s not Carnival without sweets! Between parties, parades, and snacks with lots of children, you can’t miss fun, simple recipes—perfect even if you have little time or confidence in the kitchen. And if a little mess happens, it doesn’t matter: at Carnival, every joke is allowed.

Carnival treats for children

What are they called? Cenci, bugie, frappe, chiacchiere—the name changes depending on the region of Italy, but the sweet stays the same!

This recipe is easy and quick and uses very few ingredients!

Ingredients

  • 300 g of 00 flour

  • 50 g honey or apple puree

  • 60 g of extra virgin olive oil or butter

  • 2 eggs

  • 2 tablespoons of orange juice

  • Icing sugar as needed

Procedure

  1. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and knead with your hands until you obtain a smooth, soft dough.

  2. Put it in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes.

  3. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it reaches a thickness of about 1-2 mm (the important thing is that the dough is smooth and well stretched; if it helps, use a pasta machine). Then, using a zigzag cutter, create many strips.

  4. Once the strips are formed, bake them in a preheated oven at 170°C for 10-15 minutes. Take them out, dust with powdered sugar, and the dessert will be ready to eat!

Carnival donuts for children without sugar

Did you say donuts? But you can’t give your child a fried sweet!

Yes, exactly—and we at LILLYDOO know this very well. That’s why today we’re offering you a delicious recipe for baked Carnival doughnuts, without sugar!

Ingredients

  • 150 g apple purée

  • 1 lemon

  • 110 g water

  • 300 g potatoes

  • 500 g of 00 flour

  • 1 egg

  • 1 packet of brewer's yeast (7 g)

  • 60 g of semi-skimmed milk or the plant-based beverage of your choice

  • 100 g butter or extra virgin olive oil

  • A pinch of fine salt

  • Icing sugar as needed

Procedure

  1. Wash the potatoes and boil them for about 30 minutes. Then drain them, remove the skins, and mash them into a purée using a fork or potato masher.

  2. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, add the yeast, and stir well.

  3. On a work surface, sift the flour and arrange it in a volcano shape. At this point, add all the ingredients and knead well with your hands until you obtain a smooth, homogeneous dough. Let it rise for about 2 hours, until it doubles in size.

  4. Let the dough rest for two hours, then shape it into small rings. Place them on a non-stick baking sheet and cover with a cloth, letting them rise for another 30 minutes.

  5. After 30 minutes, bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes (until golden).

Enjoy your meal :)

Carnival songs for children

Here are our tips:

  • All's fair in a Carnival

  • The three clowns

  • The Carnival train

  • Jumping

  • Long live Carnival

  • Mischievous Arlecchino

  • Filament rods

  • Long live Carnival

  • The craziest party there is

Frequently Asked Questions

Häufig gestellte Fragen

How to make Carnival costumes?

Actually, it's much simpler than you think; just reuse recycled materials or leftover fabrics to create truly original costumes.

When does the Carnival period begin?

Every year the dates vary, regarding Carnival 2023: Sunday, February 5. Fat Thursday: February 16; Fat Tuesday: February 21 and Carnival Sunday is February 19.

Where was Carnival born?

The origins of Carnival probably date back to ancient Greece and Rome, when Bacchus and Saturn were worshipped. Some, however, believe they originate from archaic rites of passage from winter to spring. Certainly, the origins are pagan; however, the event has been widely modified to fit Catholic rituals. Carnival is traditionally celebrated on Fat Tuesday , but the weekend before is marked by equally grand or perhaps even more significant activities. The most famous carnivals across Italy are those of: Venice, Viareggio, Ivrea, Cento, Puglia, and Acireale. These carnivals are characterized by elaborate masks and parades.

What is the origin of the name Carnevale ?

The word would derive from the late Latin expression carne-levare , which means "to remove the flesh"; a popular etymology traces it back to carne-vale , "farewell to meat".