Haunting Your Yard!

I don’t know if last night was truly a full moon – but it was close enough.  And it was clear enough for Dylan to get some pictures.  He had to be out there at just the right time for the moon to be in a position to be photographed with the graveyard.

In this first picture of the graveyard and the mausoleum you can see the moon peaking out of the tree.

This next picture was kind of odd – which is why I’m posting it.  He used the flash and it almost looks like it was taken during the day and that the moon is the sun.

The lighting was just so….strange.  You can see the flood lights so you know it’s night, but it doesn’t look like night.

Next was this close up of the witch on the roof.

This one came out pretty well considering he had to zoom in.

The last pictures I wanted to post were of the flying crank ghost.  We hadn’t had a chance to take any pictures after setting her up because the weather had gotten so bad.  This is the first year we’ve actually put her outside.

First off, all credit on these pictures goes to our son Dylan.

So far the witch is surviving any wind.  Yesterday we had some nice breezes.  Here she is during the day.  She is quite the sight on the peak of the roof.  The night picture didn’t turn out too bad, all things considered.  We did adjust the lighting and it is now reaching her face.

Now the ultimate picture would be a full moon behind her.  We’ll have to keep watch for when that might happen.

Her presence on the roof is bothering the dog next door!  Hopefully Ginger will get used to her.

Next we have the ghost in the mausoleum during the day and the night, after they used the Webcaster Gun to add the webbing.  Now this is a device we have tried to make ourselves, but were never able to get it to really work.  This year, I decided to just buy one and I bought the least expensive one – so I wasn’t too sure how the results would be.   Well, as you can see, the results turned out great.  It took a little experimenting – and if they had read the “tips” sheet that came with it they would have figured some things out sooner.  But they were so excited to try it out…. they had a lot of fun with it.

Basically it’s a modified glue gun hooked up to an air compressor.  It shoots the warmed glue sticks and creates the web effect.  Very cool and worth the price.  You can get them at BuyCostumes.com

Finally, we have some general pictures of the graveyard at night with the lighting.  We still haven’t gotten the flying crank ghost set up on the front porch.  But everything else is pretty much done.

So we started the outside setup this past weekend.  Most, but not quite all is done.  From here on out, much of the work will be focused on getting the walk through ready.

So I am posting pictures of the graveyard, mausoleum, etc. during the day.  Once we get the fcg up I’ll post some more.  We have some lighting touches to do regarding the witch – so night photos will be posted later.  These photos were taken during the setup process.  So not all elements are in the photos.

One thing that Shane and Dylan really had fun playing with was the web shooter that we bought.  They webbed up the mausoleum and it looks really cool at night.  I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

Halloween 2005….the big addition that year was our mausoleum. It was quite the spectacle and a little, well, sick, considering we made it tall enough for Dylan or me to stand in. We also put our family name, Cooper, across the top.

Little big of lighting and a ghost hanging inside and it looked pretty cool.

We slowly made more handmade tombstones, and replaced the wooden ones.

The previous year was the first time we had done a “scene” in the garage, that is only on display Halloween night. It was very thrown together – last minute – but ended up being a big hit because we were able to have more interaction with our trick-o-treaters and the parents.

What we did was sit outside in our scene – that year it had been a mad scientist lab of sorts – and served hot apple cider and handed out candy.

In 2005 we stepped it up – a lot. We built walls to block off the rest of the garage and created a haunted saloon. It really turned out

great. We sat behind the “bar” and served the apple cider that year.

We had things down to the detail – the skeleton poker players dressed as cowboys with chaps, wanted posters that were aged, and the old timey jugs.

Huge hit, but we were beginning to have a storage nightmare. We had to go out after Halloween that year and rent a storage unit for our Halloween props. We weren’t just decorating the outside – we also decorate the inside as well. We were quickly running out of room!