The list

Here are the projects that I want to do for the Haunt, with the steps that are needed. Some things aren't as fully defined as others, some are more detailed. It all depends on what has hooked my interest at an available moment.

 

1. Driveway gate
   

• Two posts for either side, with notches that caution tape can be caught on
  

1. Sign
   

• "DO NOT ENTER" sign for driveway gate
  

1. DRAGON Lights
   

• Redo the smoke around the dragon head, insert lights- see the glowing coals prop
  

1. Gargoyle
   

• Purchase paper clay
  
• Build wooden boxes that will allow the gargoyle base to slip onto it (the new pedestal) –add moldings and finish with paint/sealant
  
• Work clay over surface of gargoyle, adding details as desired and smoothing out paper lines.
  
• Let dry
  
• Add paint/sealant
  

1. Gravestones
   

• Existing gravestones – add dowels or stakes
  
• Create new stones& garden angel – purchase material
  
• Design
  
• Cut out
  
• Construct
  
• Age/finish
  

1. 'store' items ~amulets and other mystic jewelry
   

• Cast in pewter, make from fimo
  

1. 'store' items ~voo-doo dolls
   

• Dress the dolls I have
  
• Make more dolls
  
• Make a string that they can hang from
  
• Special pin cushions
  

1. 'store' items ~Wands
   

• Make more wands
  

1. 'store' items ~Potions
   

• Purchase various colored bottles, fill and seal - wax, cloth tied with string and cork
  
• label
  

1. 'store' items ~Ingredients - jars filled with the following from macbeth:
   

• Eye of newt
  
• Poisoned entails
  
• toad venom
  
• fillet of a fenny snake
  
• toe of frog
  
• wool of bat
  
• tongue of dog
  
• adder's fork
  
• blind worm's sting
  
• lizards leg
  
• owlet's wing
  
• scale of dragon
  
• tooth of wolf
  
• witches' mummy
  
• maw & gulf of shark
  
• root of hemlock
  
• liver of blaspheming Jew
  
• gall of goat
  
• slips of yew (cut under the light of the moon)
  
• nose of Turk
  
• Tartar's lips
  
• finger of infant (illegitimate, strangled at birth)
  
• Tiger's chaudron
  
• baboon's blood.
  

1. 'store' items ~Tags
   

• Price tags, "first born"," soul" etc.
  

1. 'store' items ~spellbooks
   

• Glue string to spine of old text books to mimic the binding of all books
  
• Spray paint the edge of the pages gold
  
• Cut vinyl to size for each book
  
• Mark /trace title placement on the vinyl
  
• Fill in with gesso
  
• Go over with gold paint
  
• Use spray adhesive to glue vinyl to text book
  
• Use small pieces of craft metal to bend around the corners to hold the vinyl in place
  
• Creature manual ~ this one will be hand done with papers hand illuminated and calligraphy. Will also need special binding to match the others.
  

1. Halloween costume
   

• Finish pants
  
• Make shoes, decorate
  
• Work on face make-up
  
• Consider gloves that have a design painted on (including the nails?)
  
• Make the large jewel for the turban wrapped balzo
  

1. Halloween decorations on the walls inside and out
   

• Wall hangings – celtic knotwork/maze
  
• Weyward sisters painting- paint.
  

1. Lanterns at the walkway
   

• Need set of larger lanterns to hang from Sheppard's hooks
  

1. ZOMBIE
   

• Collect tubes for limbs
  
• Purchase dowels for hip and shoulder joints
  
• Drill through tubes for shoulders & insert dowel.
  
• Drill through tubes for hips and insert dowel
  
• Trim leg tubes to get raised leg/bent knee position
  
• Trim leg tubes of other leg to match the first leg (work for overall height of no more than 6 feet.)Purchase Styrofoam headCarve Styrofoam neck to fit into tube/glue as required to secure
  
• Carve eyes out of head and open up mouth
  
• Add layers of latex for skin
  
• Make eyeballs and teeth (put an eye ball on a string so it can pop out?
  
• )Carve hands stryrofoam, with "arm bones" to insert into tubes.
  
• Add layer of latex to hands to create skin look
  
• Add a short dowel to pair of old boots/shoes, insert lower legs to this (dowels go inside the tube) and fill with plaster {Cut a board 18 inch square for base{Drill holes at approx leg placement for dowel rods.{Glue dowel rods into holes
  
• Attach hands, glue as required.
  
• Create internal organs (old panty hose/ sausage casings? For intestines) Create skin lesions/cuts/wounds on face, hands and body
  
• Color skin as required
  
• Dress the zombie in old clothing
  
• Install voice box, movement, etc and sensor (see Eric for assist)Dirty the clothes, with red/dried stains
  
• Slash the clothing and into the body so organs spill out as desired.{Paint/seal base{Finish with leaves, etc to hide wood base
  

1. Potion shelf
   

• Purchase tall bookshelf
  
• Exchange bottom two shelves for 18 – 20 inch wide shelves.
  
• Add dowels as front legs
  
• Add ball feet/Add material that can be carved to the front ball feet (like claws) ** add material to the front dowels to make them look like gargoyle legs/arms,
  
• paint the rest of the book shelf like it's a gargoyle (or other creature) with its mouth wide open to hold the potions and ingredients.
  
• Shelves could be tongue, rows of teeth, etc.
  
• Eyes and ears can be added to the top and sides
  

1. SIGN
   

• Weyward Sisters' Emporium, bringing conflict, chaos and darkness to the world for centuries, as featured in W. Shakespeare's "Macbeth"
  
• Include the wavy star as the symbol in the center of the sign.
  
• Same stryrofoam as the new gravestones?
  

1. Spider
   

• Cover partial inflated beach ball & balloons with papier-mâché for body.
  
• Build legs from pvc pipes.
  

1. Spider egg sack
   

• Cover balloon with cheese cloth/paste
  
• remove balloon
  
• insert lights
  
• cover with small black spiders
  
• Include cords to hang or otherwise attach
  

1. Spider victim
   

• Cut foam core board into torso shape
  
• Cut a pvc pipe from neck to foot height for 5ft person.
  
• Attach pvc to center of torso shape with tape and glue
  
• Add stryrofoam head to top of pvc pipe and glue Stuff a couple pairs of panty hose for the legs and arms with polyfil (can make stryrofoam hands and feet)Pad body with polyfil and old pillow fillings
  
• Wrap a layer or two of batting over al
  

1. Walkway lanterns With Sheppard hooks
   

• Decide on designs
  
• Decide on air dry clay or pottery clay
  
• Roll clay into slabs and form structures
  
• Add a top
  
• Cut out designs for light to get out
  
• Dry
  
• (fire)
  
• Glaze-fire/ paint / seal
  

1. Weeping willow tree one for graveyard, second for end of walkway
   

• Purchase wire, insulation tubes, duct tape, fabric, etc.
  
• Make a square (or odd shape base) out of wood. Include center post for tree to be built on and holes in the "corners" so that the base can be staked down.
  
• Build up trunk from the branches that peel off to get the drapey, weepy willow effect.
  
• Tape the truck to hold it together, and branches as required.
  
• Cover the truck with a cloth tube (either cami fabric or something that is painted to look like bark)
  
• Cover the base with paint to look like ground materials/add leaves, etc
  

Zombie plans

One of my new things for the Haunt this year is a zombie. I had originally had planned a mummie, but it seems that mummies are old fashion and zombies are in. First step was to collect paper roll tubes to create the skeleton. The tubes are about four inch in diameter and most of the tubes are 24" long and a couple are 36" long. I will drill holes through the tubes and insert a dowel to make the joints at shoulders, hips and knees. I will use a Styrofoam head and probably Styrofoam sculpted for the hands. Since it's now a zombie, regular clothing will be needed, and my son will be donating some old clothing and shoes.

The first thing I will do with the head is to carve out the eye sockets and around the mouth. I have shooter marbles for the eyes. I may be attaching a cord of some type to one eye and let it dangle, I haven't decided. I'll probably pick up some fake teeth for the mouth as well. Then I will be layering the head with liquid latex so the skin will look more real, and not like stryofoam. I can also create pockets of goo of some type and another layer of the latex to create boils. Further paint onto of the latex should provide the desired skin tone.

When I asked my son for donations of old clothes and shoes, he made two suggestions. The first was that there should be a sensor so when people walk by the zombie calls out for brains. The second thing was there needed to be coils of intestines spilling out of a gash. Personally, I know nothing of intestines, so off to research…

The human small intestines are grayish purple in color and are 1 1/2" diameter x 20 ft long on average. The large intestines are dark reddish, 3" diameter and 5 ft long. My first thought was sausage casings, but those that are artificial and don't require refrigeration, are expensive and cut to short lengths, maybe 20 inches at most. Right now I'm leaning toward the plastic sheeting that you put over a table cloth to keep it clean. There are various thicknesses available at most fabric stores. It comes clear, but I think spray painting on the inside of the plastic should take care of that.

My plan is something along the lines of cutting the plastic to width, and length (or piece to get length) , spray paint color, let dry. Roll and hot glue the long seam of the plastic around a dowel or other object, scrunch as I go. Seal one end before adding sand to tubes, though how much sand to add? I'm thinking less than a third full, so it's not weighted down, but enough that there is weight to it. I'll have to make a stomach I guess, and I'll probably be able to use a standard skeleton for the ribs, just have to watch for when the Halloween stuff shows up so I can get to it. I can attach the stomach to the ribs or the central tube, with one end of the small intestines attached to that. Then I can fasten the other end to a lower spot on the central tube (coil the small intestines into place to figure out where) and at this point glue in the large intestines, coil and fasten the other end to the tail of the center tube. I wonder if I can use a layer of the plastic as skin to create the outside of the body, something that is easily punctured, but sturdy enough to survive a year or two in storage.

Well, that's the plan so far. I'll post the sketch of the skeleton of tubes tomorrow, that's at work and not with me now.

Hello world

Last Halloween I decided I didn't want to deal with all the trick or treaters ringing the doorbell, having to adjust the sensor light and the dogs going crazy every time the bell rings. My solution was to set up a pavilion in the front yard, decorate it and enjoy the evening outside. I starting looking for additional ideas on the decorations and found a whole new world of Haunts. I had so much fun planning and putting on my first haunt I decided I have to do it again, because there are so many other things I want to make.

This is Hate and...

Discontent, my first attempts at papermache, making these gargoyles.

I'm not particularly happy with the finish and there are loads of details they need. I have researched and determined there is a paperclay product that I can put over the surface that will enhance these guys.

This is my ghost, just a couple of projects that I put together in the about two weeks between when I decided to do it and Halloween.

For this year, I'm developing the theme I had started of a mystic's shop, selling wands, charms and potions, that you have to walk through a graveyard to get to. I have a few of these things and will be making more. I will be getting a full book shelf decorated and full of colorful bottles with potions and other ingredients, like "eye of newt" and other such items from Macbeth witches. That's also where the title here comes from, as the original play calls them "weyward sisters", not witches. I also have plans for a stack of books that will be labeled for various things. I have a bookshelf full of old texts from college that haven't been openned in nearly that long, so I've purchased vinyl to cover the texts, I have gold paint to put the labels on the books.

I also have the makings of a zombie, full size, and plans for a giant spider, with victim and web and also new tomb stones. Oh yes, I also need some better lights for the path from the street down to the shop. I have some clay that I can make latterns.

Yeah, I have lots of plans swirling around my head, so here is my attempt to sort it all out and keep track of the things I'm doing, what I need to get done and how I actually do it.