To Absent Friends...

I miss you, my friend. Hope you're well. 

More Hallowe'en goodness from Pumpkinrot here.

ShellHawk's Resources for Hallowe'en Goodness!

Looking for Hallowe'en anything?

I know a guy...

Well, I do! And if I don't personally know a guy, I can find out where you can get a thing! And I've put it into a Pinterest board for you, too!

If you're looking to own the best Hallowe'en sounds, click here for recordings you can purchase. Vintage songs, spooky soundtracks and sound effects for the big night abound here!

If you're looking to stock up on horror movies, my Oh, the Horror! Pinterest board won't fail to satisfy. Old films and new, they won't fail to satisfy!

Check out my Jack-o'-lanterns board for ideas to carve yourself a spectacular pumpkin pal to ward off evil spirits on Hallowe'en night!

Curling up by a Fall bonfire with a good book will be easier with a selection from My Scary Bookshelf. It features stories, collections of short stories, DIY and so much inspiration, it's just spooky!

Eleventh hour prop building people need this prop-building library as a permanent home resource, so when you start building next Spring, you'll be rarin' to go! (This is an especially great resource if you have kids in drama class and you help with set design, building, and decorating.)

Lastly, but not least, This is Halloween will fulfill all of your Hallowe'en hunger. These are random things I've collected over the years which inspire me at this most spectacular time of the year.

Have fun, kiddies!

Stewie's New Gig - I'm SO Proud!

Stewie, who once graced my front yard at Halloween, has gone pro, as many of you are aware.

I just ran across this picture, posted by Joel Watson of Heartstoppers Haunted House (now a part of DireWorld).

Makes a momma/creator proud!

Makes me itch to start making a new monster for my next display in L.A....

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...

Via Vilseskogen on Flickr.

Halloween Overload

You've probably already seen this on a couple of other blogs, but just in case, I wanted to make you aware of a new website out there: Halloween Overload!

Halloween Overload is essentially a Craigslist for haunters. If you're looking for a change in your haunt, you can trade, buy or sell your props on the site and at least have a possibility of getting your materials cost back. Looking at all the pretty pictures might inspire you, too!

Here's another great resource for haunters to take advantage of, so go for it!

Qualified Helper!

This is the year the cemetery fence has to go up. I simply can't have people poking, kicking, tripping over (and suing), etc., my props. Also, it at least serves as a mild deterrent to thievery, too. So Saturday, as the mercury in the garage hung around 100 degrees, a brave guy from my CalHaunts group showed up to help me with that, and also a prop1 controller setup for my zombie groundbreaker. (Thank all the gods for that. I would have NO clue how to set that up!)

It was up to me to start cutting pipe, and up to him to start measuring the cross beams for where to drill the holes for the PVC. I realized that drilling and cutting couldn't happen at the same time, and my buddy had to head for home at 2:00p.m. I called a neighbor to beg for drilling help. He came by and said the magic words: "I have a drill press. Let me take these over to the house to get them done." After he was done, he also loaned me his brad nail gun, which cut my labor in half. I would have had to drill pilot holes, than screw in a bunch of screws to hold the pipes to the furring strips. What a pain in the royal behind that would have been! What a guy! I really need to bake him some brownies...

My husband actually came out at one point, found out I had the neighbor drilling, and asked, "How the Hell do you get people to do this stuff for you?" Just charming, I guess...
Another friend, pictured below, stopped by to help. He's great with the spray paint.
Here's a somewhat finished fence panel, next to one that needs some finishing. It does need a patina treatment, but we'll have to see how the time goes. It may have to stay plain black this year. I picked up the finials at King Architectural Metals for pretty cheap, so if you need some, that's the place to go. I took the brad nail gun to the finials, as well, so I didn't have to screw them on. Since the nails poked out the other side, I cut the poky ends with wire cutters, so at least any vandals won't cut themselves and sue me.

The fence is going to look fantastic with the fog, etc, that I have planned for the yard. Tonight, which is the unofficial Cocktail Night in the Garage of Doom, there will be some more extra hands to help out. Maybe it'll cool off to 90 degrees by then...

Remember-

as you slave away with Igor in your laboratories this weekend: You've got a friend!
I get to build cemetery fence today with a buddy, who will also help me with my Casa Fear groundbreaker. Nice to know I've got friends who will give me a hand:

Creative Mess

I am about to reveal to you a secret: I am not perfect.

I know it's shocking, and that you're horribly disappointed, but there it is.

Witness my house, in disarray in every corner, because of the multitudes of projects I have going on for the Halloween season.
Let's see... Glaze for the last of this season's jack-o-lantern pots. Beads, chain, wire and jump rings to finish some of the hanging pots from the last firing. Wig head being modified with leds for the eyes for the stirring witch project. Vintage postcard reproductions for my save-the-date postcards going out this week. Last night's glass of wine and remote controls from watching The Haunted Mansion while glazing pots. This morning's cup of coffee.
Garage of Doom has exploded. Stewie in the way (as usual), a number of pvc candles in the process of being made into candles, small fog machine for the witch's cauldron awaiting the new fog machine timer I ordered. Large mache pumpkin waiting to be put together, small mache pumpkins waiting for faces and the old shop towel and carpet glue treatment, PVC dummy, who may not see the light of day this year if I don't get some help in the Garage, pneumatic groundbreaker that needs finishing, plus all the accoutrements that go with making a gazillion projects with different materials lists.
In short, Halloween in the making.

Crow Repair

Among last year's casualties were several of the crows I put up in our tree, as Stewie's accessories. We had an unexpected rain on Halloween night, a downpour, really. I went out the next morning to start tearing down the haunt and discovered that several of my crows had no beaks. I looked around on the ground for them, and only found black mush that used to be beak-shaped. I contacted the gal I bought the crows from, but she was unable to replace the beaks. Apparently, they just aren't sold by themselves. Since I need them for the haunt again this year, I had to figure out how to make some myself. Enter Sculpey.

It already comes in black, so all I had to do was form it into beak shapes and sort of mold it around the faces of the crows so the beak would stick properly.While not the most perfect sculpting job ever, I did manage to turn out some serviceable beaks. A dab of hot glue, and ta-da! Beaks! While I was at it, I touched up the faded feathers of the crows with black fabric paint. Much better!

I keep reminding myself that they will be seen from a distance, and at night. For those purposes, I think they look fine.

Tombstone Progress

As usual, there are more projects than time left before showtime. I'm just now starting on tombstones, the most complex first so if I don't get them all done, at least the ones done will be really cool!

For this one, I used a quote from Father Malone's grandfather's journal from the 1980 version of The Fog, which is my favorite version of the movie. (Thank you, Frog Queen, for the help!) Since this epitaph is detailed, I used the treasured pink foam for it. I do wish I had bought more to play with! Anyway, I cut the smaller parts of the font out with a fresh Xacto blade after I had used the transfer paper to tranfer my epitaph onto the foam.
Then I took my Dremel and a smaller attachment to clean out the larger parts.That seemed to make relatively short work of the job. I did go in with my Xacto blade to touch up the sharper lines, though. After that, I marked out the curve of the tombstone using a string and a marker for a compass. This really should be done first, but it's been a bass-ackwards kind of weekend, so it got done after the carving. I used the scoring technique Steve-O recommended for straight cuts. Though it doesn't work as well on curved cuts, it works well enough. I took my power sander to it afterwards to even it up.I also used the power sander to give the tombstone some dings and weathering. If you decide to do this, make sure to have a good grip on your sander! After I was done with the sander, I hit the tombstone with some cheap black spray paint to age it a little more. Of course, since I made my monster mud for the Beloved tombstone, I'm out of gray paint and will have to pick up a gallon. At least I have a $5 coupon!

Steve-O is a Know-It-All Smarty-Pants

There's been a thread on the Garage of Evil's Yahoo Groups that had proven helpful, but too late for my Beloved tombstone. Someone asked about what is the best method for cutting pink foam board. Lots of answers came in. Some lucky dog had a table saw and gave his advice about that. Someone had a hot wire foam cutter they suggested be used. I used a jigsaw, which doesn't work well if you have 2" foam. Come to think of it, it doesn't work that great because you have to sand things down and hope for the best.

Please note massive gap, later filled in by Great Stuff.So after we had all pretty much proven we didn't know what the Hell we were talking about (in great detail, by the way) Steve-O from the Garage of Evil put his freakin' two cents in:

"For long straight cuts I have really good success marking out the line,then I have a sharp (don't laugh it works great) lock knife. I run itsorta lightly down the line, more interested in getting a perfect linethan cutting deep. With about 3-4 successive cuts the blade will gosmoothly through, deeper each time. You'll be surprised how well thisworks. After 3-4 scores thinner foam will just separate, the 2" stuffyou can then snap like you would drywall/wallboard.Try it on some scrap, you'll be surprised how quick and clean it is."

Even though I had already made my ugly cuts for Beloved, I had a bunch of boards (both pink and white beadfoam) left to cut for tombstones, so I tried it late on Sunday. To thoroughly test the ease of use of this technique, I had a gin martini first. Now as fun as power tools and alcohol, but I figured a sharp blade would run a close second.

It worked like a champ on both types of board. While it may take longer, it is by far the best result for straight cuts.

Freakin' smart-ass. Oh, and thanks, Steve-O.

Helpers, not "Bananas"

Saturday brought some help to the Garage of Doom. In spite of the 105 degree heat, several kids showed up to help, which meant I actually had to close up the garage door and turn on the small air conditioner in addition to the fans I normally use to try to cool the place down a little. It maybe brought it down to 98 degrees, but the kids were troopers, anyway.

It's interesting, as a childless adult, to listen to teenagers talk about each other, once they've forgotten you're around. The one behind me in this picture looks like a younger version of Drew Barrymore, and is fun to have around. Even though I urged her to go home because of the heat, she protested, "I'm not going to abandon you!" She's so sweet!Neighbor V's daughter (on the right) was mugging for the camera, and had this interesting expression immortalized on this blog for her shenanigans. That'll learn her to make faces around me!
She's another one who is super-helpful, though, and is more detail oriented than one might expect. I was really glad to have them all there, that's for sure!
There's a tentative work party planned for Friday night, with a few of the teachers from the high school I'm donating to coming to lend a hand. I can't wait! All the parts I have ordered should be in by then, and maybe Mr. ShellHawk can wire up my witch's eyes with lights so we can move on to sculpting her head. I also ordered the finials for my cemetery fence from King Architectural metals, and they should be here any day. Their plastic finials seem to be very reasonably priced, and I like the styles they have available.

I just have that sinking feeling that I'm forgetting something!

Small Sewer, Isn't It?

It's really interesting how things work. I recently took a page from the Frog Queen's book and gave it a slight twist... I've decide to raise funds for the local high school art department. Due to budget cuts, they're suffering, too. I thought, "Why not pass the hat and see what comes out? Haunters can raise money, too. Look at the Garage of Evil's 'Save the Boobies' campaign!" And they weren't talking about birds, either.

Last week, I called the high school and left a message for the vice principal, who apparently then passed it on to the art department. A lovely lady called back today and talked to me about it. There were a couple of kids in the classroom, too. Guess whose kids they were? Spider Rider's! How freaking cool is that?! A neighbor, and I didn't even know it! Neat-O! To the third degree!

Anyhow, the teacher who contacted me was really floored by the idea that I'd arrange this, and kept telling me how generous I was, etc. Now, honestly, I didn't make the call to be a hero, but it really made me feel good that I got a call back, and that I really can help, even a little bit. I'm under no illusions that I can solve their budget problems, but if I can help to raise awareness and take a little of the edge off, I'm really happy.

And the first thing she did was ask if I needed help. Wow! How great, huh? Of course, I'll accept help, and if it works out o.k., timewise, I might be able to add a couple more effects to the haunt and flesh out my story more.

The story of... Dah dah DAAAAAAHHH! The Witch of Rose Hill! Ta-da! (Insert big fanfare here.)

Lots of roses in the front yard, now, and they'll be far more established next year. I'm creating a back story for the Witch, and it's starting to shape everything beautifully. I think it actually works! What's really a kick is that my honey and I were talking about the giant dead patch of grass in the front yard, how it makes us both nuts, and what to do about it. He suggested ripping out the dead sod and putting in some plants, and I mentioned, gently, that as long as it doesn't disturb the graveyard... Well. I suppose it would be alright. He looked stricken and immediately suggested just replacing all the sod out front next Spring. Sounded good to me. (Do I have the world's greatest husband, or what?)

Back to our art teacher. She says she's a Halloween enthusiast, too, and wants to learn. So I may actually have help on my "Beloved" tombstone, which is starting to tie in with my story in a big way. Thank goodness! That task was beginning to look daunting this late in the Season. An extra pair or two of competent hands will be most welcome. Hopefully, we won't have the Frog Queen's "Banana" Syndrome! :o) Honestly, I'm sure I won't. This lady sounds super-competent and in the right frame of mind. I'm downright honored to have her along on this crazy ride!

Also, note To Self: Start building in November this year! Dang it!