Covid-19 masks made for children flying out from the kitchen table

Levin five-year-old Ella Phillips models a mask made by her mother Sarah.

Homemade child masks designed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19 have gone viral themselves.

And what began as a bit of Covid-19 fun for Levin mother-of-two Sarah Johnson has suddenly got serious as she struggles to keep up with demand for mask orders.

After sharing pictures of the different designs on social media, kindly modelled by her five-year-old daughter Ella, the amount of orders had ballooned each day.

So much so that Johnson, an early childhood teacher on leave to look after Ella's baby sister Indy, had received more than 100 orders for masks in the last 24 hours.

"It started off as a bit of fun. We made one for Ella and she liked hers so much...now we are inundated with orders," she said.

Johnson said she wasn't the type to sit and watch television all night and liked to be doing something, so was already dabbling in making hair accessories like hair ties and selling them online.

Levin woman Sarah Johnson with her daughters Ella and Indy.

But she was ill-prepared to have so many mask orders and had to ask her mother to plug in her sewing machine to help meet the orders.

One day last week they started before breakfast and were still sewing after dinner.

The masks sell for $10. One customer placed a third order, after friends had seen hers and wanted some too.

"I suppose it shows you what you can do from home," she said.

All the materials to make the masks were sourced from local Levin businesses like Cherry Pie and Cordell, while the transfer paper for the prints of animal faces came from KapiNua.

Levin five-year-old Ella Phillips models a mask made by her mother Sarah.

They were able to make bears, dogs and cats. Orders could be made through Facebook: @EllaMayHandmade