Materials!

Is it too early to start hoarding materials for this year’s haunt… Only being almost 4 months into the year? 🙂

Last weekend I went out and picked up a big piece of foam, hoping to make some new tombstones. Yes I know it may be early to some, but I it relaxing to put on a pod cast and chip away and paint on one of them.

I also picked up some top pieces for the cemetery fences, I had re done these last year, there’s a post on here about it, and made them a bit stronger and changed the style. Knowing the spring stuff was already at the Dollar store, I thought I’d head over on my lunch and pick up a few pieces.

Pretty excited that these are black this year! I don’t have to use any spray paint on them. Two more panels to be made. Should bring it up to a total of 7 panels.

 

 

I’m still here!

My apologies for the long gap between posts. With only 225 days till Hallowe’en. I’m beginning to get the prop building itch.  I think I’ll start working on something soon! The other night I had a conversation at the dinner table with one of the kids about what I had planned for this upcoming Hallowe’en. This is one of them that I didn’t think really liked the holiday because they scare so easily, but I could hear the passion in her voice to the attention to detail about how the tombstones should be painted and aged.

One of the things mentioned was to make a some sort of cave dog house for Cerberus, not this will hide the exposed back and fog machine (Which also needs to be replaced since it burnt out last year) and more tombstones in the works.   It was pretty awesome to wake up today and see the podcast app on my phone alerting me there was a new Hauntcast episode available. I was listening to it on my way to work and over the lunch hour. Transworld kicks off this week too, I’ve never been able to make it down there for one, hopefully one year.

Stay tuned for new prop builds coming soon! and remember….. Just be scary!

 

Happy Friday the 13th!

Halloween 2016

Well Halloween 2016 is over, Lots of planning and time to get here, but the day was a success. The Weather plays a big role in this day and I couldn’t have asked for a better night. No wind, no rain, it was cool but not freezing. Our big hit for the year was our dogs “Cerberus’ they got lots of attention and lots of pictures taken with them. Now to pack it all away tomorrow.  This time we are doing inventory so we know what we have.  Thanks to everyone who came out and took part of it and helped out.   Froggys Fog Backwoods Bay fog was awesome! It was half way down the block and AtmosfearFX Videos were as always a big hit and drew lots of crowds. We counted just over 400 kids came by to see our display and take part. There is a YouTube link here of the video of our yard.

 

 

1 Week Countdown!

Day 3… in the graveyard

Cold and very windy today, Halloween is 9 days away, it was time to roll out a few bins of yard props and monsters.  The kids helped out as I promised them I’d save them a few bins to decorate with, they always like placing the skulls, hands and spiders around the yard. Spoke to a few people passing by, giving their praise and comments.

Prop finds!

Well, when I pretty much thought I was done buying and or building props for the season. I was at work on lunch and was browsing Kijiji  for some Halloween stuff for sale, and came across a free mannequin.  That’s right FREE! I had saw one at a yard sale store but they wanted around $100 for it, these things generally are pretty expensive. I picked it up today after work, I asked him what they used it for. He told me it was about 30yrs old. She used was used by the police for CSI / Blood Splatter analysis. I thought that was pretty cool, Used for something like that in the yard / haunt, better than just wearing designer clothes in a store!

I called her Mary, (AKA Bloody Mary)  then right away I thought of my costume from two years ago, this would be perfect. So this happened

She is currently waiting in the dark mudroom in the corner, waiting for my girlfriend to get home. 🙂

Lighting!

Last night I was walking to the store and thought I’d take a quick snapshot of my lights on the graveyard. I started off with one because they were $20 a light bulb and wasn’t sure how much I would like it or how much of a difference they would make.  I tried hard at the till to use $5 off energy saving coupons, but for some reason they didn’t apply which made no sense to me since these are 14w compared to 100w a conversation I had with the cashier that got me nowhere.

The picture isn’t the greatest quality, Phone camera…. Hoping to get some better ones this weekend when more of the props make their way to the front lawn. The old lights bulbs looked white with a hint of blue and barely lit up half the yard, these two light up the entire yard and the side of my neighbor’s house, which I need to go over and speak to them about to see if I need to reposition things.  I could see this light from over a block away from the highway.  It’ll look great when the projections are going in the windows too.  Won’t be long now!  Stay tuned for my photos this weekend.

I also constructed my last tombstone of the season.  It’s up there with one of my favorite I’ve only made foam tombstones this year, I started with a few last year and all the previous ones before that were wood.  I’m glad I made the switch to foam and will likely phase out the wooden ones in time. I drilled 3/4″ holes in the bottom of the tombstones and banged PVC pipes into the ground then slid the tombstones over the top.  We had pretty strong wind yesterday and they stayed in place.  Also reconstructing the end of the fences with larger PVC pipes have kept them standing straight, usually after a week they start to lean back a bit due to wind and rain.  Typical October weather.

Day 2

My fingers are healed up a little better today, and I’m back at it in and out of the rain. Fences are up, and all the chains and hooks inside the porch, wired some of the lights up.

Yes, I know the flowers don’t really go, They’ll be moving to the side or back soon. 🙂

It’s Begun!

Finally the weekend is here and I get to setup the yard for Halloween.  I didn’t get as much accomplished as I hoped.

The pilars are out too now.  (More pictures to come) as I was getting ready to put the fence out.  This happened.

A minor set back. I shouldn’t be aloud to use box cutters, we have a bad history.  So until tomorrow which i think is suposed to rain all day or there’s always next weekend. I heard a few kids and neighbors pass by and comment. 🙂