September 29th, 2012

As we approach Samhain, one of my favorite sabbats, I do about a zillion crafts, doing everything from altar decoration to the more secular "spookifying" the house and front yard. I ran across a post by a fellow Pagan blogger the other day, and her Pagan version of a Mexican Dio de los Muertos skull inspired me to make my own. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and thought I'd share:

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Dio de los Muertos, or the "Day of the Dead" is one of many celebrations similar to the Celtic Samhain. Like All Saint's Day, Day of the Dead's origins have been traced back to Samhain, as well as to an ancient Aztec festival honoring the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The Aztecs, however, celebrated the entire month rather than a single day. Dio de los Muertos is a time of remembering family that has passed, and is celebrated with festivals, parades, and prayers at the graves of loved ones. Ancestor shrines are constructed, and gifts of food and drink are left at grave sites as gifts to the deceased. Flowers may also be offered, especially a Mexican variety of marigold, as well as toys for deceased children, and pillows and blankets, so that the spirits have a place to rest. Skulls are a popular symbol of the day, with candy sugar skulls being made and intricately decorated up to a year in advance. The decorative skull I made is a non-edible version of one of these.
To make your own decorative skull, you will require the supplies highlighted in yellow. The craft itself can take anywhere from an hour to several hours, depending on how intricately you wish to decorate, but be aware that the skull may have to dry overnight before it can be decorated.

• Begin with a piece of aluminum foil that is at least two feet long (the more you use, the bigger your skull). 
• Crumple the foil into a general skull shape - a lot of detail is not required here, but try and create a defined nose and indentations for eye sockets. Everything else can be very loosely defined at this point.
• Tear paper into thin strips. You can use newsprint, computer paper, etc., but I found that paper towel works well for this application.
• Dip the paper towel into a mixture of water and liquid glue. You may want to do this in a disposable bowl, to ease cleanup.
• Wrap the wet paper towel around the foil skull. Continue adding strips until the entire foil shape is covered by two or three layers, at least. At this point, really shape the eyes and the back of the head. You can add a lot of detail to the mouth if you wish, though I kept it simply defined and just added detail with paint.
• Allow the skull to dry completely. Depending on how much paper towel  and watery glue you used, this could take as long as eight or nine hours.
• Paint the skull a base of white. It will look something like this:

• Once the white is dry, use paint to add meaningful symbols. Flowers are a traditional way to decorate the skulls, so if a certain flower holds meaning for you, you may wish to add it. Other possibilities include a pentacle, an Egyptian eye, ankh, patronus animals, etc. Any symbol can be used, provided it has meaning to you. However, if you don't find that an image resonates with you, don't feel obligated to use it.
• For the eyes, glue on paper or silk flowers. If desired, use black paint to define eyes in the flowers' center.

Mine came out like this:

The purple circle in the middle of the ankh is also representative of the O in the )O( symbol.

Here you can see one of the ) in the )O( symbol, as well as a gold spiral for the God, and an owl and fish for air and water, respectively.

On the back of the skull I painted a pentacle with a lotus flower beneath it.

And on the final side, I painted a silver spiral for the Goddess, a bison for earth, and a phoenix for fire (the phoenix was the idea of my friend, Steph). You can also see the final ( to complete the lunar trinity.