I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about my movable mummies and how to make them, so I thought I’d repost this tutorial for you. I’m so happy to hear you guys are enjoying this! Thanks, Camilla
I like to come up with funny & original Halloween crafts for my kids – this project is super easy and perfect if you’re looking for a party activity…
Mummies made from rubber coated flexible wire and strips of muslin are easy to make and a look cute hanging around the house for Halloween.
The bendable wire frame allows you to position your mummy any way you like.
Relaxing Dude Mummy.
Yoga Mummy.
To make these you will need: flexible wire (I used a flexible garden tie that I picked up in the dollar spot at Target - but I have seen these at dollar stores too. If you can't find this - look for any flexible wire at craft stores), wire clippers and muslin.
Using the flexible wire, make the frame for your mummy body.
Tear muslin into 1/2-inch strips. I do the "snip and rip" method to speed this up; make a small cut and then rip the rest of the fabric.
Wrap your wire form with muslin strips. Add strips by tying ends together. End muslin with a knot and trim ends.
Let your mummy hang out.
Julia Stratman
September 2, 2011 at 11:33 am
seriously so much fun! thanks for the great idea (s)!! love your blog 🙂 and taste in music….
Darcie
September 2, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Who knew mummies could have such personality? Even without a face. Cool idea, Camilla.
Jess @ Daydream Mom
September 28, 2012 at 9:27 pm
IKR Darcie! I’m over here cracking up at how hilarious these mummies look! Their poses are so realistic. I LOVE it!
Leah
September 3, 2011 at 8:29 am
I love this, it looks pretty easy and a perfect Halloween decoration!
Marie
September 3, 2011 at 10:02 am
You are a complete genius!!! These are adorable, fun to make and really cute/funny! People like you really inspire me, thanks so much!
Grapsan
September 3, 2011 at 1:41 pm
What a great idea. Easy and fun, will try this with my children!/Karro
Beth C.
September 3, 2011 at 4:10 pm
What I like more is the cleverness of the message!
Kat
September 6, 2011 at 7:43 am
love love LOVE this idea! Brilliant!
Bonnie@WhatAboutPie
September 6, 2011 at 10:44 am
Oh yes…I am liking this guy! How cute are these mummies!!! My kids would get a kick out of these for sure!
Heather @ Life Gluten Free
September 7, 2011 at 3:15 pm
What a great idea! I want to make one! 🙂
mary chap
September 9, 2011 at 6:54 am
You are one clever chica!!
Val
September 11, 2011 at 4:27 am
Great idea! How much muslin is used for 1 mummy?
camilla
September 16, 2011 at 5:46 am
Hi Val – thanks for stopping by! It’s hard to say – I made a few in one sitting and I tore up the muslin in advance – but I would say perhaps 1/2 a yard or so. Depends on how bulky you want it. Take Care, Camilla
Andy
October 19, 2012 at 10:59 am
I would love to do this with my grade five class for Halloween but I am unsure as to about how much garden cord is needed for each mummy. It is surprisingly difficult to find so I don’t know if I can get enough.
Andy
October 19, 2012 at 11:01 am
Ignore my comment, I found the answer lower in the comments. Sorry!
Michael @ Blue Velvet Chair
September 14, 2011 at 9:39 am
What an adorable decoration! I am definitely going to be giving this one a try this year! Love it, and I’ll be featuring it on my blog in the coming weeks. Already added to my Halloween board on Pinterest. Thanks for the inspiration and share.
Michael
Whatmom
September 16, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Thanks so much for sharing! I love this (maybe I’ll put one in each of my kids’ lunches on Halloween…)
Heather @ Life Gluten Free
September 20, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I looked at Joann’s the other day for something to make this with but I couldn’t find anything… they definitely didn’t have flexible garden ties. I do have to make a strip to our local hardware store soon, maybe I can find something there. I hope so, I really want to make one!
camilla
September 20, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Hi Heather – you can buy flexible garden tie online too – if you google it you will find it. I find it to be the most effective wire for this project. Hope this helps 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Take Care, Camilla
Heather @ Life Gluten Free
September 21, 2011 at 3:20 pm
It does look like the most effective. What I saw at Joann’s was very thin wire and it wouldn’t hold up. I will google it online if I can’t find it at my hardware store. Thanks 🙂
Karen
August 16, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Just a suggestion …if you know an electrician or cable repair guy ask them to save their scrap pieces of wire…they are usually easy to strip the outer casings off and are plenty sturdy for this type of craft…
Laurie Laizure
September 25, 2011 at 1:47 am
What an awesome idea! I am so trying this!
Melissa Evans
September 27, 2011 at 3:20 pm
This is one of the best halloween crafts I’ve seen all year! Awesome job! I’ll definitely be making one or two of these guys! Thank you : )
Cheryl
October 12, 2011 at 8:54 am
I agree! A fantastic project, the best I’ve seen this year. Fun, festive, not too scary… and it looks potentially easy! You are so creative with the poses, and fabulous photos, too!
Ginger
October 12, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I love this so much I am going to have to make these as prizes for the kids at the Church Harvest Festival.
Thank you for sharing our talant
Alison
October 15, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I just made one – used regular thick wire and it is A W E S O M E ! ! ! Thank you SO much – fun, fun, fun!!!
Sue
October 18, 2011 at 2:42 pm
These are awesome. I would like to do this craft for my daughter’s school party. How much wire and fabric did you use for each one?
camilla
October 18, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Hi Sue – I used about 1/2 a yard of muslin and about 3 feet of garden tie. You can make these larger or smaller – depending on your preference – so those amounts would change. So glad you like this craft. It is one of our favorites around here. Take Care, Camilla
Michael @ Blue Velvet Chair
October 20, 2011 at 10:21 am
Hi Camilla – if they say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, consider yourself flattered! I used your idea to make my own mummy man. He’s quite skinny, but he may just stay that way. Thank you so much for the tutorial. I just love looking at my guy each time I walk past!
Michael
http://bluevelvetchair.blogspot.com/2011/10/running-late-and-diy-halloweens.html
Carin
October 24, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Brilliant!!!!!
I saw this on pintrest…and my daughter is excited to try it for her class halloween party! Thank you for sharing!!!!!
camilla
October 24, 2011 at 5:12 pm
That is great, Carin! Kids really love this guy! Have fun with it and please let me know how it turns out – take care, Camilla
Amanda
October 29, 2011 at 6:48 am
Just stopping by to let you know that I have featured your project on Fun Family Crafts! You can see it here
http://funfamilycrafts.com/moveable-mummies/
If you have other kid friendly crafts, I’d love it if you would submit them 🙂 If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above.
gail
November 7, 2011 at 7:18 am
I owe you an apology. I featured this project (your post) that was on another blog, as though it was her own. I missed the tiny little snippet at the end where she credits you.
I have since changed the link on my site to give credit where credit is due. I think these little mummies are adorable! Great job!
http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/2011/10/catch-as-catch-can-47.html
If you check it out, you’ll notice that YOUR project was the most visited that week, and you didn’t even get the traffic for it. I highly recommend watermarking your photos.
I’m sorry you didn’t get credit initially.
gail
camilla
November 7, 2011 at 7:37 am
Gail, you are so kind to contact me – I really appreciate it! Your site looks great – I am following you on FB and twitter 🙂 Have a wonderful day, Camilla
Kara @ June & Bear
November 8, 2011 at 6:51 am
Super cute. I especially love the yoga mummy.
Joy
August 20, 2012 at 1:07 am
These are so dang cute! I think I will make class sets for my fifth grade math classes and add a mini candy bar to them. I figure I can pose them according to each students’ personality. These will make amazing take home treats at the end of our celebration. Thanks so much for the wonderful idea(s)!
Rag Dolls Rising
September 8, 2012 at 9:38 am
This is so neat! Simple and very effective!
Silmariñecas
September 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm
I like your mummies, much.
Last year I did one, but I thought of sewing a coat, a scarf and a hat, beside doing a few sunglasses to him. It was born: the invisible man.
Two in one: the mummy and the invisible man. It was brilliant!!!!
You can see it in my blog. http://silmarinecas.blogspot.com.es/2011/10/una-momia-o-el-hombre-invisible.html
Regards from Spain
Thanks.
Alexis
September 8, 2012 at 6:10 pm
I totally love this!
patty
September 30, 2012 at 10:09 pm
This is terrific!
judy
October 8, 2012 at 8:16 am
I make these with twisted pipe cleaners andthe rolls of gauze from the dollar stores.I will have to try this way for sure.thanks for sharing
Loralee
October 13, 2012 at 12:23 am
I love the way they pose so realistically, but I’d like to be able to make them less mummy-like for other occasions. What would you wrap them with to make them smoother?
Thanks for sharing your know-how, by the way!
Anna M.
October 15, 2012 at 2:27 pm
It’d be funny if you had several of them doing the YMCA poses, at least I think so.
Laura
October 15, 2013 at 3:50 pm
that is funny!
angeles
October 26, 2012 at 4:25 am
me encanta
Rose H
October 26, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Thank you for sharing the instructions, they’e so funny!
THE Bombshell*
October 26, 2012 at 3:59 pm
I don’t even celebrate Halloween– but those are just too cute!!!!! lol! They make me giggle! 🙂
studio50
October 31, 2012 at 10:54 am
These are so great! We loved them so much we did them as one of our maker’s workshops that we run with kids in the community! They all had a great time creating their mummies. Will be posting a link to your site on our blog. Cheers Kim
theresa
November 1, 2012 at 5:13 am
this craft is simply perfect to use as the character lazarus in the bible.great job
martine
August 5, 2013 at 2:43 pm
this is one of the coolest ideas, thanks for sharing!
Courtney Decker
August 20, 2013 at 11:29 am
LOVE this, how easy and fun! So going to be making this for Halloween. Thinking this could be a new tradition for our family for every October similar to elf on the shelf at Christmas, but mummy for Halloween. Thanks for the inspiration! Now I need to come up with some creative things to do with our family mummy.
Brenda Beatty
September 12, 2013 at 5:16 pm
If you can not find garden wire, you could use multi- purpose wire.They have this at Lowe’s with the picture hanging supplies.I got the wire that was not coated because it was a lot cheaper $6.95 for 100 feet and it worked great.
Cassi
October 12, 2013 at 2:27 pm
My kids and their cousins made these last year and they were a huge hit, even with the older ones. I’ll be featuring this on The Crafty Crow soon 🙂
Kristen
October 15, 2013 at 9:25 pm
How much time required for 1? How tall is the wire of the body, 12″? And how long are the muslim strips? Great idea!