PREP

Spent a few hours this evening laying everything out in the garage so we can set it all up tomorrow. Doesn't look like much but the garage is full.

HALLOWINDOW

We've got our window animation up and running and it looks great. We discovered Hallowindow about two years ago. All you need is is a sheet hung in an inside window, the animation DVD, a DVD playe and a projector.

Here is our dining room window with the animation projected onto the sheet.

Notice how the words are projected backwards. From the outside they read correctly. The DVD has options that allow you to flip the animation.

Here is a REALLy bad photo from the outside. I just took a quick shot. It was windy and my shutter speed was super slow because of the dark. A tripod would have helped but I was to lazy. I'll get a better shot on Halloween night. We'll have a different animation that night.

DEMON / WITCH

This year we are adding an animated demon and skeleton. This is a first for us. We did some research and found some great tutorials on line that walk you right through the process.

First we started with PVC and made the frame of the body. Bought a foam head and added a mask. The head had a whole in the bottom which fit perfectly over the PVC. We then attached him to our heavy umbrella stand.

We took an old sweater and pulled it over the frame of the body. We then stuffed it with brown packing paper and tied string around the waist to hold it all together. This gave him a chest and makes him look not so wimpy. We added last years Grim Reaper cloak over the sweater stuffed with paper.

We bought some Halloween rubber gloves and put wire inside them so we could bend the fingers around the broom stick. The wire is then shoved up inside the PVC.

I didn't get a chance to take any pics of the rigging of the motor. But this is what it looks like inside the cauldron. We used a windshield wiper motor. We also drilled out a large whole in the cauldron to pump in fog from our fog machine. Just used more PVC for this.


I threw some of that tattered cheese cloth like stuff that you can buy anywhere right now, over his shoulders. So this is what he looks like with the lights on.

And here he is with the lights off. I have only a red flood light lighting him up. We also added LED lights for eyes, one of those battery powered strobe lights inside the cauldron and orange xmas lights around the base. Once he's outside we'll have twigs wrapped around those lights. I love the effect the strobe light and fog give off. And we weren't anticipating the beams of light shooting from his eyes. It's a cool effect from the LED lights and the fog.

I will be getting video of this guy when we set him up outside.

WILL'S TOMBSTONE

Shape drawn out on blue insulation foam.

Used a plain old utility blade to cut the foam. Glued the pieces together with wood glue and clamped it. Then I glued it to a 1x6 with liquid nail.

Used my hot exacto to make it look like cracked stone. Also used this to carve the words. I then caulked the seams.

Primed it with acrylic gray primer.

Painted it to look old and then glued on spanish moss.

CAULDRON

Our plan is to have a witch standing in the yard stirring the cauldron. But with or without the witch this cauldron will have dry ice inside as well as a small strobe light inside. The base it is sitting on will have orange twinkle lights inside of it along with twigs around it. I'll need to go pick up some broken tree limbs in the woods behind the house.

This is your typical cheap plastic cauldron, I picked this one up at Target. Not very creepy looking.

Decided to paint it. Took a gold paint pen and painted the handles on the sides. I also used black and brown flat spray paint to paint the cauldron. I didn't like the shininess of the black plastic. I then went back and dripped white and grey paint over the top of it. Had a chain left over from a hanging light in the house so I painted it and wrapped it around the rim.

COSTUMES COMPLETE

This year I'm dressing up as Alice and Violet will be The Queen of Hearts.

I used two different patterns to create this costume. The dress is Simplicity 4015. As you can see I added length to the skirt. 15" to be exact. I don't really need to be a slutty Alice. Weird.

And the apron is Simplicty 4282. I've used this pattern a lot. I just left off the sleeves and pockets, and didn't add the two back panels which would have made it to full.




Here is Violet's costume. All I have to do is add the zipper. I'm waiting till we go to have pictures taken before I add it. My luck I'd put it in and in the next 4 weeks she'd go through some crazy growth spurt.

I used Simplicity pattern 4024 and used the Glenda the Good Witch pattern. There is no pattern in a toddler size for Queen of Hearts so I just made it up. The hardest part was figuring out the cutaway opening that shows the black and yellow stripes. Piecing this together was also time consuming. It's actually sewn into the side seems, so it's not really a skirt on top of another skirt. I also made a black tulle skirt for underneath that fills out the skirt.
Cant's wait for Halloween.

GRAVE SLAB/COFFIN FROM 2008

I'm currently working on finishing up costumes. I think those will be done early next week. I'll post pics of them when I'm finished. For now enjoy this project from last year. It's pretty much the exact same process as the tombstone I just finished.

Grave Slab/Coffin 2008
Two years ago I made a bunch of headstones out of insulation foam. This year I decided to make a grave slab which turned out to tall and is now a coffin. Anyway I used pretty much the same technique with this as I did the headstones. Only difference is the headstones did not need a wood frame.

Here you can see the wood frame made out of 1x2's. Each side can be taken apart to store flat.

Then I covered the wood frame with the foam. Wood glue and a few pressure clamps is all that is needed. I could have used Liquid Nails but didn't have any. Then the fun part. I used a hot knife, looks like an exacto knife you plug in, and start to add the detailing. This knife can be found at any hardware store. I advise cutting this foam with this knife outdoors. The fumes are horrible so wear a mask. The top is not attached at all. If I want it can slide to the side to look partially opened.

I also used white caulk to fill in any and smooth out any gaps I had. this also helps hold it all together as well as the glue. Caulk also works well for adding texture.

Then I primed it with a grey primer.

Once the primer was dry I just painted it to look old. It doesn't need to look perfect. There's a lot of splattering and dripping of paint to get the look I wanted. I also ragged on some paint.

And I'm done. Any imperfections in it won't be noticeable in the dark so I'm not going to worry about them.