We have been busy crafting up a storm here to fill our house with Halloween decorations, and my toddler is loving to help. She is absolutely in love with all things monster and scary. Looking around on Youtube for ideas, she instantly took to the idea of making a mummy, like found here. Needing a specimen to mummify, I asked my toddler who we should use, and she enthusiastically said, “Baby Belle.” So, we mummified her Baby Bell doll.
First, we wrap the mummification specimen in plastic wrap. Already looking very creepy.
Then it was time to prepare the wraps, to make sure they had plenty of time to soak. For the wraps, I got cheap stain/paint clothes from Lowes, cut them up into rough strips, and prepared a big pot of tea (the cheapest stuff we had).
We let the rags soak while we prepped the rest of the mummy. After the plastic wrap, we wrapped the doll in a nice, thick layer of duct tape.
Once the doll was totally wrapped in duct tape, I carefully cut her out of the back. We then grabbed the little newspaper we had lying around and stuffed the shell. Once the doll duct tape shell felt sturdy enough to handle, we taped the back up.
By this time our rags were ready to pull out of the tea. We drained the excess tea off, but since we were going to cover them in glue in a second, we didn’t have to worry about them getting too dry.
I was low on Mod Podge when we did this craft, so I mixed together white PVA glue and water until it had a nice loose consistency. Starting with her feet, we dipped each rag into the glue mixture and wrapped it around. As we worked our way up her body, it helped a lot to tuck the ends into the already wrapped pieces to secure it. This whole process was made a little tricky because of the short lengths of wraps we had. If you can get longer cheesecloth or loosely woven fabric for cheap, I would greatly recommend it.
After taking several days to dry, the mummy was ready to be displayed!
A very nice finished effect! The whole project was able to be completed in an afternoon and keep the toddler engaged for the entire time – which is a huge success!
Seritech Workbench 