Hi guys and welcome to my page! Hopefully it’s not your first time, but if it is, I’m so glad you’re here!
Today I’m going to show you how to make a wooden mummy just in time for Halloween!
My mom has been wanting this for awhile now, and my dad and I finally made it yesterday! We even made 5 so each one of my sisters could have one, too.
Okay, let’s get started right away as there’s not much time until Halloween!
First off, let’s get all your materials ready. Here’s what you’ll need:
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- Particle Board for the backing and base
- Cheap Wood. We chose cedar fencing because it was the cheapest wood we could find. $1.23/board to be exact. I’d say 4-6 boards would work for one mummy.
- A 2 x 2 for the base
- Wood of choice for the sign the mummy is holding.
- Jigsaw. We love this jigsaw.
- Tablesaw. We recommend this one if you have your own workbench to set it on, or this one if you want a free standing one.
- Nail Gun and Finishing Nails (Hammer and nails works too). We like this nail gun set.
- Permanent Marker, because if you don’t have any they’re always good to have on hand.
- White Paint. We have our Mummy outdoors so I recommend using an outdoor paint.
- Black Paint
- Chalkboard Paint. Here’s the spray paint version, or the regular paint version. I’ve used both kinds, and they both work well!
- Chalk or chalk markers
- Wood glue. This is what we used.
- Mummy Eyes
- Ribbon to tie the sign around the mummy. Here’s a bunch of cute options.
- Optional* Black Spray Paint for the base. We used spray paint because we were doing so many, but if you’re only doing one, then the black paint that you use for the head would work great.
Now that you have everything, let’s get started!!
Gather up all of your materials.
Cut your particle board down to the size you want your mummy. We made our mummy 4ft. tall x 2ft. across. Then cut out another rectangle for the base. We made our particle board base 1ft. wide x 2 ft. long.
Trace out the shape you want your mummy to be. Here is what ours looked like traced out.
Grab your jigsaw and cut out the shape of your mummy. 
Paint the head with your black paint, and while that is drying we’re going to make the base of your mummy.
Now let’s finish your base so we can finish with the fun part, the mummy!
- Grab your 2 x 2 boards and cut them the exact width you cut your particle board for base. Ours was 1 ft across, so we used our table saw and cut the 2×2’s at exactly the 1 ft. mark. You will need 2 of these 1ft. 2×2’s.
- Now that you have those, you’ll need to figure out exactly how wide your mummy is so that those can tightly hold up your mummy. We measured the base particle board to see what the exact middle was, marked that with our marker, set the mummy on it, then placed the two 2×2’s tightly next to it, and marked out lines on the outside of the 2×2 boards to see how wide we needed them.
- Once we had our lines drawn, we removed the mummy, grabbed our nail gun and nailed those 2×2’s into place by lining up the outside of our boards with the lines we drew. Once you have those nailed into place, set your mummy in to make sure it is a good, tight fit and will be a sturdy holder for your mummy! That’s it! Your finished with the base! (For later purposes when you set your mummy in to make sure it fits well, draw a line at the bottom of your mummy where the mummy meets the base wood pieces so you know how low to go with your wood pieces that you’re putting on your mummy.)
4. Paint your base using your black paint or spray paint.
Now it’s time to nail your mummy boards on! At first, we were painting the boards white before we nailed them on, but then we realized it was easier to nail on the boards and then paint them white at the end. After making 5 we learned all the tricks of the trade!:) Starting at the top of your mummy’s head place one board at a diagonal direction making sure you cover the very top of your mummy’s head. Also make sure you place the wood piece as far to one side as you can to save yourself as much wood as possible. When you cut the piece you’ll have bigger pieces leftover compared to if you used the middle of your wood piece you’d have two small pieces leftover that may be unusable due to being too short. Using your nail gun, nail that board into place. You can cut your boards down in advance, but we just kept ours long until the end. See below pic. 
- After that top board is nailed on, you will place your next piece of wood going the opposite direction leaving a triangular gap for the eyes to be glued on later. Nail that piece on once you get the eye gap exactly how you like it.
- From there it’s easy. Just repeat that last step going all the way down the mummy making sure you are covering your mummy with the wood on both sides of his body. Yes, I decided mine is a he:). Once you run out of wood stop what you’re doing, grab your jigsaw, turn your mummy upside down on some sort of work bench or maybe even a storage container like we used, if need be, and cut the wood around your mummy following it’s body outline. Once those pieces are cut off, you’ll have more wood for the rest of his body.
- Keep going all the way down until you get to the bottom where you will need to figure out how to fit pieces on going to that line you drew previously that will be where your base board piece goes to. We would place pieces down, draw lines on the wood pieces of where the wood meets the bottom line and then cut using a table saw(recommended for ensuring straighter lines), or a jigsaw.
- Now you’re done with the bottom layer of wood! We are almost done! Now we took three more pieces and nailed them on going the opposite direction on top of our bottom layer to give that mummy the wrapped up look. We started near his lower chest area and nailed them in. Then followed that same angle with the other two pieces using the same distance for a gap. I didn’t measure I just eyeballed the gap, and it turned out fine. You can also use more than 3 pieces if you want, but since we were making so many we went with 3, plus don’t forget we made a sign to go around his neck so that covers the top part of his body as well.
- Cut those pieces off following the shape of his body. Our jigsaw blade wasn’t long enough so we couldn’t flip the mummy upside down to make the cuts, which meant we had to eyeball our cuts. We had to do a few cuts over, but other than that the top layer turned out good, too!
- Your finished with the cutting! Now paint the wood pieces, sides of the mummy, and the back (optional, but it would look better) of your mummy white!
- Grabbing your wood glue and the eyeballs that you chose for your mummy, glue the eyes onto your mummy. He’s starting to come to life now!
- While your mummy’s drying, it’s time to make the sign that your mummy will be holding. Either buy a good size piece of wood for a sign, or make one! We made ours 14 inches across by 12 inches high. Then, paint that with chalkboard paint.
- Let that dry, and then drill two holes in the top corners to tie your ribbon to that will also go around your mummy’s neck. We poked the ribbon through the holes using a nail.
- Now write whatever cute saying you want your mummy to say, and you are done!!!
*We wrote “Trick or Treat”, “Boo”, and “Where’s My Mummy (for our pregnant sister’s mummy:), to give you guys some ideas, but maybe you’re way more creative than us! If so, I’d love to see what you come up with!
You did it! You’re done, and now you have a super cute homemade mummy sitting somewhere in or in front of your house! Yay!
Thank you so much for coming, and I hope you have a super happy Halloween!
XOXO,
Lauren
The Decor Mama