Spooky Halloween Lights- Mummy Hand Wall Mount

We're continuing with the Halloween theme this month, moving now to spooky lights. Todays project is actually inspired by both this and this. Does anyone else besides me like to blend two or more ideas together to create something new and fun? I find I do that a lot when I'm making a birthday cake and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to decorate it. The layering will look really cool in one picture, but I'll love the decoration or pattern in another. That's what happened here. I loved the look of the duct tape mummy hand, and somehow convinced myself that I could mount it to a wall and use it to hold a lantern.

Supplies:

-Masking tape, preferably an inch wide or less

-Lightweight lantern

-Flameless tea light

-A 5" Wooden plaque

-Spray paint

-Hot glue gun

-Super glue, if necessary

-Command strips, or however you want to stick this to the wall

I know that duct tape isn't the most sturdy material and that it's not going to hold up an actual lantern, which is why I searched for the lightest lantern-looking thing I could find. This cute little pumpkin lantern was what I found and I actually kind of like the cute/spooky contrast.

I didn't have anyone available to let me tape up their hand, so I ended up doing it on myself. It is totally doable, but very easy to accidentally tape your fingers together. The first layer of tape needs to be sticky side facing out so that you can slip it off after you're finished. Original instructions said to start with the palm, but I started with my fingers and it still turned out fine. And yes, I do like to do the opposite of what the instructions say just to see what happens. I tried to make the tape as loose as possible without it falling off, but it still felt uncomfortably tight towards the end, most likely because of the extra layer I made in an attempt to make it a little sturdier, but also because I kept my knuckles bent so that my lantern would have something to hold on to. The biggest thing to keep in mind when wrapping up your hand is to make sure that the fingers are securely attached to the rest of the hand, since the fingers are going to be supporting the weight of your lantern later.

Once you get your hand fully wrapped in tape and you feel that it will be sturdy enough, you need to get your hand out of the tape. As carefully as you can, cut the tape from your wrist down your palm to make enough room to wiggle free. Getting the tape off of my hand was tricky, even with the first layer of tape facing out, some tape stuck and I had to try to peel it off as I was attempting to free myself. Of course, this was the moment that my husband came home and asked what the hell I was doing. Once I explained, he agreed to help me, and in the process, completely ripped off the thumb. After that the rest of the tape came off quickly, and I was able to tape it back together. I mean, the entire thing is made of tape, so taping it back together didn't even look any different than the rest of it. While I was at it, I taped back up the cut I made.

Because I wanted to give my hand some structure, I decided to fill my mummy hand. This was a difficult task since I knew that the lighter it was, the better chance it has of staying on a wall mount, but duct tape alone wouldn't hold up my lantern. After playing around with a few (bad) ideas, the solution was pipe cleaners in the fingers and poly fil in the palm. Fold pipe cleaners in half and if you can manage it, try to stick a little poly-fil in the fingers too. I couldn't and one of my fingers looks just a little flat. Tape up the end of your hand, making a few new layers if you need to. You need the end of the hand to be as flat as possible to mount it.

This is the time to check and make sure that everything is sturdy, and add some more tape where it's needed. If it all looks stable enough, then you can prepare the plaque so we can put it up on the wall. The plaque I found was unpainted, so I applied a coat of black spray paint.

Using a hot glue gun, cover the back of the hand with a thin layer of glue and quickly attach it to the dried wooden plaque, then add more glue around the edges to hold it in place. If you need to use a lot and it looks a little goopy, that's okay, you can add another layer of tape around the edges to cover up the glue. The pictures below have a before and after with my extra layer of tape. Just scrunch it up a bit after you put it on and it will look just like the rest of it. Yay, it's mounted to the plaque, now we just have to get it on the wall. I used command strips here because it seemed like the simplest way and I didn't want to put holes in my wall. If you use the ones for picture frames it holds well.

All that's left is hanging the lantern. I used a flameless tea light because I didn't want the tape to catch fire. I had my doubts that this would work through most of the time I was working on this, especially since masking tape isn't generally regarded as the most sturdy material to work with, but it came out so much better than I expected. Considering I took two random ideas and blended them together, I was pleasantly surprised. My daughter did ask if the hand is going to be holding the bucket of candy on Halloween, and I think she's a little disappointed that it's not. My husband thinks I should have found a slightly scarier looking lantern, but I still like my pumpkin one.

I will be playing with these flameless tea lights all this week, and be sure to come back next week for my final week of Halloween crafts.