Haunting Your Yard!

This summer is flying by and we have so much to do to get ready for Halloween!  One of the things on the list obviously, is adding to the graveyard.  What better way to get inspiration than to visit an old cemetery.

Shane and I recently did this on our way up to the mountains while out for a weekend ride in the Lotus.  There is a wonderful old cemetery not too far from the house and we stopped by to take a look at some of the headstones.  

We are always looking for new ideas in regards to not only shapes and wording but also the little things - cracks and how they form, what they look like when they are weathered.  If you want headstones in your Halloween graveyard to be realistic looking, then I would suggest not buying them at your local retail store.  You really need to either do it yourself, or pay to have custom ones made.  It’s all in the detail.

I loved some of the shapes we saw at this cemetery.  Some of the carvings and intricate work.  These types of things can easily be duplicated when you have the right tools.

Now a recent trip of mine to visit my brother in Wisconsin, took me to a very old cemetery.  There is a noticeable difference in what the climate does to the markers.  Here in Colorado, due to the dry climate, we don’t get all the heavy, wonderful moss.  This is such a great element to add to custom tombstones.  A must really.  And the picture to the left - I love how they are leaning.  This is a very easy thing to duplicate as well.  We have done it to one of ours and I plan to add another like this this year.

Some of the markers were so old and falling apart, that there were rock sitting behind them in order to keep them propped up.  What a great idea.

To have a realistic looking graveyard, you need all these elements.  You don’t want perfect looking headstones all lined up.  You need small, large, cracked, mossed, broken, etc.  Will people notice every small detail on each headstone?  No - especially if your graveyard is large like ours.  People can’t get up close.  But all of them put together is what makes it look the way it does - old, creepy, realistic.

Halloween 2007 almost didn’t happen. We were so busy dealing with our little side business that it seemed like the last thing we needed to be doing. What ended up happening was that it turned into a nice distraction from everything else going on.

We had big hopes that another new, large “something” would be added. That didn’t happen. What did happen was new tombstones were made and other things, such as the pillars, were redone. Dylan made his first crypt - the above ground sort of burial plot. It was really the first time he’s done a project completely on his own. He’s old enough now to be trusted with the various tools it takes to cut and carve the foam.

He did a pretty good job and his final product turned out nicely.

The garage scene almost didn’t happen.  But we decided to go ahead and do something - but just use props we already had.  So we went with the mad scientist theme again, but went a bit more gory than we have before.  We had bodies in body bags hanging from the ceiling (interesting story regarding where we got the bodies, but I’ll save that for another post), beakers and body parts, etc.

Once again we had a party.  This year I went all out in the voodoo bathroom down in the basement.  Surprisingly, no one wanted to actually use the bathroom.   They all seemed a bit freaked out.  This was really one of the best areas and I have to figure out this year how to incorporate it into the outdoor thing - maybe the garage will become a voodoo room.  I think the thought of the unknown is really creepier than blood and gore.

This is an example where attention to detail makes all the difference.  I will write more detail about this in another post to give ideas on how to go about doing your own voodoo bathroom.

Halloween night last year was one of the few times where the weather was perfect and everything came together.  For our fog chillers to work (a contraption we make to cool down the fog after it is released from the machine) we need to get the fog colder than the outside air.  When this happens, the fog does not just disperse, but it rolls along the ground.  If there is no wind, it is one of the coolest effects you can have in your graveyard.

Last year all those pieces came together - no wind, perfect temp - I wish we could have captured it better on camera.  This year our goal is to do a better job of that.  I have a friend who is a professional photographer and I hope she can give us some good advice and tips this year on how to accomplish that.

So that brings us up to date!  From here on out we’ll write about how we are preparing for 2008, and also some information on how we built and put together some of our props and scenes.

I thought it would be fun to go back and show the progress our Halloween yard and set up in general has made throughout the years.

We started decorating for Halloween before 2004, but this is the first year we really started taking pictures - and admittedly, none are really great. Before that it was just a couple of handmade tombstones, made out of wood, that we stuck in the yard. 2004 was the year the graveyard fence was made.

This is the first year things got big - and it made a big deal in the neighborhood with the kids and adults. It was then we realized we might have gotten ourselves into a bit of trouble - we would have to get bigger and better every year…..

This was also the first year we started hand making our tombstones out of sheets of foam. Shane and a couple of friends were turning 40, so we made some tombstones specifically for those people.

One thing we did have fun with that year, but haven’t done it since because it was so difficult to keep up due to the horrible winds here in Colorado, is have a gravedigger in the yard. Shane had gotten a new toy that year - a welder - so he had welded a frame together that we then “dressed”.

He was a challenge though because we were constantly having to set him back up. Later we had even put a pile of dirt with him and a shovel and he held a lantern. The grass beneath where that pile of dirt sat for a month (we set up at the beginning of October) didn’t like that too much and we are even now dealing with dead spots in the lawn due to Halloween props sitting for a month.

One thing that adds a lot to the over atmosphere on Halloween night besides the lighting, music/sounds and fog, it some torches. We learned the hard way one year that the bamboo torches are not a good idea - one caught on fire and then caught one of our juniper bushes on fire. We were able to get it out quickly, thankfully, but after that we started using metal torches! It is something that is always brought up every year and joked about.

People might consider us a little twisted, but with our son’s birthday 2 days before Halloween, and Shane’s birthday on Halloween, well, it has become a big deal. We love Halloween.

The first year all we did was carve pumpkins. From there, it’s gone a little crazy. Our hope with this website is to chronicle our Halloween activities.

When we can we will give some tutorials on how we made some of our props and the technique we happened to use. If we can help give people some great ideas and help spark a little Halloween excitement that’s all the better.

Halloween gives us a chance to go completely overboard and be creative. Leave us a comment - we’d love to hear from you!