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.

The Munsters Pilot

I hadn't seen this one. Apparently this pilot was never aired. Enjoy!

Haunter's Nightstand

Just a few things I'm reading, in addition to schoolwork. I try to clear off my nightstand once in a while, but the books just keep showing up!

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!

Pumpkin Auction

My little guys are on their last day on eBay. I won't list any of the others this week, so if you want these guys soon, please place a bid!

Happy Labor Day

I'm taking the weekend off from blogging to get yet more work done in the Garage of Doom, plus do the homework assigned to me. On a holiday weekend. Which happens to kind of celebrate the end of Summer. Sheesh!

Have I mentioned that sometimes I hate being a responsible adult?

Now, live, and in English:

Happy Labor Day, All!

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!

Hand Job

I've been working on the stirring witch for what seems like forever, now. Since I'm not working, I'm trying not to spend more money than I have to, so I'm trying to make some good looking hands with what I have. Neighbor V was kind enough to sit and have a plaster cast made from her hands. I had the idea to take the casting, pour in hot glue and add wires for poseable hands that were realistic-looking. So much for bright ideas.While theoretically a good idea, this was a pretty big fail. I used vaseline as a release, and some wire lying around in the shop. Before you say it, I know they said to use thicker wire in How to Haunt Your House. I was lazy and didn't want to wrestle my wire hangers, so it's my own damn fault.I have limited experience with casting, so I expected there might be unforseen problems. I expected to have to clean up the seams, because this was plaster and not a professional silicone or rubbery mold I was using. Long story short, I had to break the cast to get the hands out, and I couldn't even pose them because the wire was wrong. Doesn't the picture look promising, though?

Oh, well. I'm sure I can paint them and have them coming up out of the ground in the graveyard. Bummer, though. The were really detailed and pretty.