mummy makers

We went to see the Mummies of the World exhibit last week with our nephew as he has quite the thing for mummies (and zombies). Before we went, he and I sat down in front of the trusty laptop and did a little research. We looked at pictures and talked about the spiritual beliefs, the embalming process and the accoutrements that went along in the tombs and such. As we walked around the exhibit we all took the time to explain the different mummies, processes, eras and geography of what we were looking at. He surprised me by remembering much more than I did from our laptop research. I wanted to keep the mummy lurve alive (heehee) so when we got homeish (we're house sitting) I rifled through the materials on hand and proposed we make our own mummies. So we did.

What we used:

*popsicle sticks
*pipecleaners
*masking tape
*paper
*white glue
*corks
*poly blend "linen"
*burlap strands

How we did it

The first thing you need to do is come up with a design. Each one of us assembled our own mummies from the same materials but we tackled it in very different ways. We used the popsicle sticks for the bodies and legs and we used pipecleaners and borken sticks for arms.The two corks became heads and since there were only two corks, I used wadded up paper for my noggin. More crumpled paper was used to fill out the bodies (I wish I used more on mine) and masking tape was used to anchor the mess together.The paper we had was the thin newsprinty paper we used in grade school to practice our writing. We tore long thin strips from the sheet and twisted them up all wonky so that they would be creased and look a little bit like bandages. The boys twisted theirs up tight while I took the scrunching method and applied my pie fluting skills to the whole shebang. Once the paper was good and scrunched, we unraveled it, added a dab of glue to one end, applied it to the body and wrapped.We continued wrapping until we were happy. Now it was time for finishing touches. You could stop right there if you wanted but to add a little more "authenticity" we tore strips from a piece of faux linen and pulled out strands from a chunk of burlap.
mr. a-go-gos mummy became a cat mummy using twisted paper and a few threads tied about. My mummy used the paper and then had a few threadbare strands of linen wrapped here and there topped of with a few strands of the burlap as well. The boy-ago-go used paper and then a large width of linen followed by a few thinner strands and some of the burlap. So there you go. I think we made some awesome mummies. Why not rifle through your craft boxes and junk drawers to see what you can come up with? I can't wait to see! Add your pics to the flickr group and maybe you'll see them here! More Egyptian fun:
Woodlands Mummies
The University of Chicago
History for Kids

Oh and we love, love, LOVE the Eyewitness books by DK Press.