DIY: Mummy Luminaries

Well, it’s October, which means that Halloween is right around the corner.  I’ve never been a huge fan of Halloween.  Don't get me wrong, I liked it when I was a child and got to wear cute costumes and go trick-or-treating, but as I've gotten older, and the focus of Halloween changed from fun costumes and candy to alcohol and wearing the skimpiest thing you could find, my enthusiasm for the holiday waned.  Dressing up and consuming too much alcohol has never been my thing, so I was fine to skip out of the drunken festivities.  Halloween has just been one of those holidays that hasn't really interested me. 

Until now.  As I’ve continued to get older, the focus of Halloween has changed yet again, and I’m learning to find a new appreciation for the holiday.  It’s no longer about drinking too much (well for some people it still is, but luckily I married someone who shared my views on the holiday and we’ve decided to treat it a little differently).  Now, I get to stay home and pass out candy to the cute little trick-or-treaters.  I love seeing all of the kids in their clever little costumes.  And now with Drew around, I think I’ll start liking Halloween even more.  We’ll get to find him costumes and take him trick-or-treating.  I can’t wait for that! 

I 've also found a new love for decorating my house for Halloween.  Last year was the first year I really put any effort into decorating the house, and I actually really liked it.  I stay away from scary decorations (I scare easily!), but I've been on the lookout for cute and festive ways to get in the Halloween spirit.

The other day, I was browsing on Pinterest, and I came across a pretty simple little Halloween craft.  I just happened to have all of the supplies on hand at home, so I thought I’d give it a go.  Here's a simple DIY tutorial for making a family of mummy luminaries! 

Mason Jar Mummies

What you need:

1.    Mason jars (or any other type of glass jar)

2.    Gauze

3.    Googly eyes

4.    Hot glue

5.    Tea lights

 

 

Basically, all you do is wrap the gauze around the jars and secure with hot glue.  I ran out of the white gauze so I also used a foam type tape for two of the jars. 

 

 

I had four inch gauze and I found it worked better to cut the gauze in half.  It made the gauze look less perfect and more mummy like.  You can see that it added some fraying which was a good effect.  Just wrap it around the jar, and attach the end with hot glue.

 

I put the gauze on two mason jars and then decided that the look was a little too uniform, so I emptied out an old pickle jar and used that as my third mummy.  I wanted to have a different size jar so that my mummy family would have a little more depth and they wouldn't all look exactly the same.

Once you have the gauze attached, hot glue two googly eyes to each jar.  Put tea lights in the bottom of the jar, and there you have it, a family of illuminated mummies.

I haven’t put my Halloween decorations up yet (I don’t like it enough to decorate a month in advance quite yet!).  Once I do get all of my decorations put up, I’ll probably share some pictures of them on the blog.  The mummies were a quick, easy addition to my other Halloween decorations, and they look pretty darn cute, especially when they are lit up!