#TBT The Upcycled Mummy’s Curse! A spoOky DIY

Continuing my Throwback Thursday posts, this time highlighting my love of Halloween, Ancient Egypt and upcycled crafts! Posted in 2015 on the Amazing Casting Products blog,  I had some rather odd inspiration for this project and it all started with me finding some fun plastic Halloween skulls at a Thrift store. With two of them, I made Ghoulish Glam Skulls and the rest I saved for Halloween decor around the house.

While I was outside in the garden one of our dogs, Luna, decided to play in the house, the skulls were close to her toys and she cracked one of them. I of course couldn’t be angry with her playing though her rather adorable “I totally did NOT do that” face also helped. When I was about to throw out the skull, an idea came to me: why not use the cracked skull as a base for a Halloween mummy head prop? 

Supplies: 
Amazing Casting Resin
Alumilite Dyes
Liquitex Gloss and Matte Varnish
Acrylic Paint
Aluminium Foil and Paper Bags
Stir Sticks
Plastic Halloween Skull
Cotton Muslin Fabric
Black leaf tea bags
Beacon’s Gem-Tac
Paint Brush
Paper Tape Roll
Hot Glue Gun and glue sticks

With the crack being along the side of the eye socket and most of the left side of the skull I needed to stabilize the now-fragile skull. I thought of using Casting Resin but I needed to seal the hole before filling the skull with resin. I taped up the crack with clear packing tape, creating a temporary seal for the resin.

Knowing that if I were to fill up the whole skull with Casting Resin it would not only require a lot of resin but make the skull on the heavy side I needed to put some sort of filler inside the skull. Using used clean paper bags and crumpled aluminum foil I slipped them inside the skull through a hole in the bottom.

Next I made small batches of Amazing Casting Resin and poured it through the hole in the bottom of the skull. By pouring small batches and then tilting the skull I was able to make sure all of the inside of the skull was equally covered with resin, stabilizing the plastic skull. This process went very quickly because Amazing Casting Resin sets up in 10-15 minutes. I ended up using 3/4 of a resin kit to fill the inside of the skull.

Once I had filled up the inside of the skull I hot glued a tape roll to the bottom of the skull to create a neck for the mummy head. Any gaps between the tape roll and the skull I filled in with aluminum foil and hot glue.

I then mixed up some Casting Resin and poured it into the newly formed neck of the mummy head. I put some extra foil into the neck cavity and filled it up with more Casting Resin, using up all of the kit.

Once the resin was cured, I removed the tape from the now resin-filled crack and removed any excess resin spills off the skull.

Since not much of the plastic would be visible under the wrappings but I didn’t want it looking like a skull. I painted the skull with a mixture of yellow, brown and black acrylic paint. I glued on used tea bags to create eyelids and created a nose out of paper bags and tin foil. I glued on some loose tea grounds to give the look of sand/dirt and sealed it with Liquitex Matte Varnish.

To create wrappings: I dyed cotton muslin fabric in a bath of hot black leaf tea and bags. I let it soak for a few hours to stain and then let the fabric dry. Once dry I tore the fabric into 2 inch strips to make wrappings. I started applied the wrappings to the skull with a bit of Beacon’s Gem-Tac and started to wind it around the skull. I didn’t use any set pattern or style; I just had fun and made sure to cover up any of the more skull-like features of the head.

Once I was finished wrapping the skull I liked the overall look, but felt it needed something more to create the look of age.

Since real mummies still have old oils and resin still visible on the surface of their wrappings, I created some out of Liquitex Gloss Varnish mixed with some Brown Alumilite Dye. I used the varnish instead of resin because I wanted to control how it dripped and needed it to dry quickly. The Alumilite Dye allowed me to tint the varnish without losing the transparent nature of the varnish.

Once dry, this spooky décor is a perfect addition to my creepy curiosity cabinet on display for Halloween!

Until next time, safe travels!

This is an affiliate post, which means I received an assortment of products as a compensation for the creation of art. To read my full disclosure, click here.