Haunting Your Yard!

We’ve had been busy getting the house ready for the Halloween party, which was this last Saturday and was a big success.

One thing we did for the party that will also be part of the walk through on Halloween night is get the voodoo room done.  These are some quick pictures Dylan took - one with flash and one without.  We’ll be adding to this a bit on Halloween night, so we’ll take some more detailed pictures then.

We are really happy with how this turned out.  The added extra element is the voodoo drums quietly playing in the background.  The room is lit only by candles.  The walls are pallets stacked on each other and screwed together.  I then hung the torn creepy cloth I made from the cheese cloth, and hung branches from my juniper bushes around.

We got more done today than I thought we would.  Thank goodness for the beautiful weather!

Way back when I blogged about our “find” at a local recycle place.  It was metal work to make an arch for our existing pillars and a secondary entrance to the graveyard.

Shane finally was able to give it some time today and the second entrance is complete.  I am really happy with how this turned out.  It’s hard to see in the sun, but he also added spider webs to it by using that great Webcaster Gun.  This time though we did use fishing line to get the webbing started.

Dylan spent the day working on the voodoo guy that will go in the voodoo section of our walk through.

Voodoo guy was made using pvp pipe for the limbs, batting to give him bulk, a wig holder head to put in the mask, and some hands from another prop that broke years ago and I just happened to keep the hands.

Most of my day was spent tearing apart the walls that were used in previous years.  We had put chicken wire and paper mache on them to create cave walls.  We now want to use those walls in the “slabatorium”, so I have been taking all the chicken wire and paper mache off.  If I never see chicken wire again I’ll be happy!  After I finished that I worked on bloodying up a prop we bought and I also put the lettering on the door, and the blood.  The door we got at the recycle place for $10.  I cut out the template to put the lettering on.  Then I bloodied up my hands and put those on the window.

I would like to say right off the bat, that I realize some of the things we incorporate into our voodoo room are not voodoo  and this year we will most likely be adding more.  But the overall feel we are going for is that voodoo feel - like what was in Pirates of the Caribbean.

This year, instead of setting up in the bathroom down in the basement, we will be setting up in our garage so that trick-or-treaters will be able to view it.  The past two years we have done it, it has been one of my favorite things we do, but has only been “enjoyed” by our Halloween party guests.  This year that will change.

I am a firm believer that gore is not needed to create a scare.  Not that well placed body parts and such aren’t effective - we have done it before and will most likely do it again this year in some capacity - but the element of the “unknown” can be just as creepy.  We also get a lot of very small children and so we are careful about what we do.

I think we are planning our first walk-through this year, and the voodoo room will be part of it.  The opportunities that can open up to us by moving it out of the bathroom and into the garage are endless.  For now, I’ll describe how we set up in the bathroom.  As the months progress and we start planning out the garage, I’ll add to this.

One thing we did was put a pentagram on the floor.  This was something that freaked people out a bit.  Dylan took great pains in trying to get it right - his advanced math skills came in handy!  I would really like to add more detail this year.

I also did some research regarding symbols.  I printed them out, tore the edges of the paper up and soaked the paper in coffee.  This gave them an older look.  We also drew symbols on mirrors.  I created a spell book - with some authentic spells and I even included the ingredients on the table, so that if anyone got adventurous enough….

The jars were quite a find - they were given to me.  I had made a request on freecycle and someone responded.

Of course you need bones and skulls lying about.  Lots and lots of candles too.  Don’t forget the shrunken heads.  Year one I made them out of apples - this past year I bought them.

This last year we also dressed up our animated butler and turned him into a bit of a voodoo witch.  This next year I will have a live person doing the honors.  I have a particular friend in mind!  The butler will have other responsibilities in another part of the walk-through.

Last but not least, the one element that creates the whole mood is the music.  I was lucky enough to find some that is actual voodoo drums playing.  The music is a must.  For me it was a good sign when some guests would not step over the threshold of the room.  Hopefully this year we can bring it up to the next level.

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.