Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I said I would

post pictures on Monday....hummmm, it is Tuesday morning...I am only off by 7 hours or so :)

Anyway, here are the finished pictures of Sleeping Beauty.  She got sponge coat of white to bring out the details (thank Elyssa) and then I hand painted all the dark drip marks on the edges.  She is on her way upstairs for a few weeks until she comes back down for set up.

Really looking forward to seeing this one out in the yard with all the other props.

Now he looks like a knight

I just need to get him a sword and we are good to go. :D

So we "peeled" Joe out of his original mudded fabric* (which was fun) so we could try him in cheese cloth. We had to remove some hardware that would show through the thinner material and I decided to lift his hands up to put a bowl or something there.

Cheese cloth is really fun to mud, I like they way it looks and it is easier to work with than I thought.  It looks great on the body and the shoulders, but I can see now that the head will need few more layers to make it look like it is a shroud and not chain mail :D

* Now, I have not given up on the brilliant idea of the skeleton nativity scene.  We have been talking about doing a full size one in the yard, the back yard, one day.....maybe soon.  A small one might be easier to manage and less chance of the neighbors seeing it and picketing the house :D

Monday, August 30, 2010

Hum....I knew something was missing

When I did the last post about refurbishing Beloved.  She was leaning on a paint can and not on her base.

Here she is finished and ready to go back up stairs (out of the way) for a few weeks.

So the oldest prop in the yard still lives.  What is the 10th anniversary gift? :D

Wait a minute......

You know what? I just noticed in this picture.....her left arm is too long, the one outstretched....it is, isn't it? 

It also looks like she has been working her left arm bicep when we are not looking.

Crap! (*&$@!!!

I am going to have to cut the arm at the shoulder and move it in towards her body.....oh that is going to be loads of fun.

It takes me 10 years to notice that.  I need to be fired from prop making :)

I bet he is asking

who turned out the lights, and how come I cannot see my hand?

First coat of paint on my latest folly.

I am keeping this one, because I have learned so many things NOT to do on this one, and I am not even finished yet.

Seemed like a simple idea.....that should have been my first clue.


I know that you all know this

but if not....you should have downloaded and listen to the latest Hauntcast.  We loves our Hauntcast.

Interview with Ed is very awesome....and now I am waxing all nostalgic for my old plastic Halloween costume....thanks ShellHawk. :)

I used to go to

Spirit store and our local party shop and pick up door prizes for the party.  Everyone seemed happy with their cheesy cheap plastic Halloween toy/prop.  But I would notice that every year, a prize or two would be left behind, the person was having too much fun and forgot to grab their winnings on the way out.  No worries, I recycled them back into the box for next year.

Then I stared blogging and found that many of you cool bloggers have Etsy shops.  I thought, why give my money to some retail store when I have spend it on cooler stuff and support artists.  At first I thought that this might be too much for our crowd.  After many years of feeding them cheap plastic stuff as prizes, how where they going to handle this new found sophistication.

I was worried they were going to look at the table and go.....WTF?  So I added a few cheap plastic things just to be sure :)

But you know what happened?  To my surprise not a single prize was left behind last year, and I heard that there was even some "fighting" going on at the prize table!!

So this year it is going to be primarily Etsy or handmade items as prizes.  So I have been hording items all summer.....one of my latest purchases was from Ghoul Friday.  I only ordered two books last year, they went first, so I ordered four....to keep the brawling to a minimum. :)

So, in honor of this post...I am keeping her Etsy link on the blog....go get yourself some stuff.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Hurry, I don't know

how much longer I can hold him!!!

:)


I really am giving

it away as a birthday present.

I got a friend of mine one of the cool cloaked pumpkin figures over at Pumpkin Hollow Etsy shoppe.

No, I am not keeping for myself, really?  Why does no one trust me? :)

As usual, the cats enjoyed the box.  Dorie especially liked the three plastic spiders in the box.  (sorry the pictures are so blurry, tripod was not set up and I had the camera set for other pictures and did not have time to set it back.)

Sometimes I have this funny feeling that you are putting spiders in my shipments on purpose. :)

Friday, August 27, 2010

Ssssshhhh, she is sleeping

Here is the almost finished "Sleeping Beauty" prop.  She looks very lonely without all the other props in the yard.

I am going to finish her up this weekend.  She needs to be hand painted to make it look aged and bring out the details.  Finished pictures will be posted on Monday.

I like her so much that I am thinking of making small desktop sized versions.  Yes, the Frog Queen follies are running rampant! :D

Definately feeling the love

lately....so on my list of cool gifts I have been getting I need to mention this wonderful box of goodies from Mr. Macabre.  If you have not checked out his blog, you need to go right now....don't worry I will wait. :D  He makes some amazing props and has a great sense of humor....my type of person.

So let's see what he sent me....chips and popcorn and mints and cool candle jar and tea....oh my!

He sent it just because!

My favorite part of this whole bag of loot (and that was hard to do cause there is a lot to love) is the frog soap!!  Awesome.  Almost don't want to use it it is so cool, but it smells fantastic and really looking forward to trying it out.

Thanks Mr. Macabre, you are the best!!

Speaking of gifts

and little frogs.  Got this from my lovely minion Dawn - it is a lucky little frog thing.  Awfully cute. 

Cute?

Hummm....

Maybe this is why I don't post many frogs, cute is not really my thing.  

But I love him anyway....and so do the cats!  That pumpkin was not the only thing that I found under the couch :D

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Not even remotely

related to Halloween....unless you count that we do a Dr. Horrible sing along at our party.  Yes, I am going to go with that.

Anyway, my very nice friends got this for me as a gift "just because"

The Frog Queen does have the best friends!

Believe it or not

my office might be the only safe place for him.

Isn't he cute?

He is one of those lovely pumpkins that Ghoul Friday makes. He arrived at the house a while ago and immediately went MIA.

Now, the FQ is completely unorganized and really wanted to believe that I had just put it away for safe keeping somewhere and I would find when I moved the offices.

Offices moved.

Still no pumpkin.

hummmmmmm......

I had to admit to myself what really happened.

The cats got him.....

since I had not seen him in a while so that meant only one thing.....the poor guy was under a piece of furniture......just out of paw reach from Mason. (Mason is the largest cat, if he could not reach it, none of the others could.)

So, Mason's favorite place is the sofa in the music room.

We start the quest there.

Success, the poor guy was found.

He was under the couch, by the window, looks like he had been crying himself to sleep at night.

Ah, that is too sad.

I gotta make this up to him.

So I thought he could come to my office and help me piss off my Halloween hating co-worker. I enjoy irritating her and he seems like the kinda pumpkin that would get into that sort of thing. He looks a he is ready to attack anyone that says anything bad about his holiday.  My kinda pumpkin.

That and he is heavy and I am sure would make some good distance when thrown, at said Halloween hating co-worker.

(using my best Eddie Izzard voice) "In my mind!"

Cause I would never really throw it.....I like him too much. Plus I think a stapler would hurt more :)  (just kidding FQ is a big kidder.)

In honor of his rediscovery, I am changing the store link on the right to Ghoul Friday's store. Go get yourself a throwing pumpkin....they are better than ninja throwing stars. At least for us Halloween folk.

There are really not

enough frog posts on this blog....for saying I am the Frog Queen you would think that I would post a frog or two now and again.

I have been slacking.  So how about we start small.....very, very small.

Microhyla



A freshly metamorphosed new species of a mini frog, named Microhyla nepenthicola, sits on a penny in this undated handout photo released to Reuters by Dr Indraneil Das of Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation August 25, 2010. Scientists have discovered a frog the size of a pea, the smallest found in Asia, Africa or Europe, on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.

Very cute.  My cats would love him....as a snack :) 

This is why there are nor will be real frogs in my home realm. (Thanks to BB for the heads up!)

Back to prop building!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I have a nightmare

And it looks something like the picture on the side of this box.  How did he know!?!


The picture on the other side is much better :)

So where is the spider?  Check it out over at the SpiderFEST 2010 blog.  Go right now.....It is amazing!!




Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I have never been

a girly girl.  We all know that I really dislike pink and fluffy, ruffly stuff.  But I do like kitties.  That is about as soft and fuzzy as I get.

So husband jumped at the chance to get a photo of me, as he puts it "playing with dolls".

Fair enough, these dolls happen to be small skeletons.  And I was not tarting them up (working on my UK references) up in skimpy clothes and driving her around in a pink car like Barbie.  Although, them, like Barbie look like they could use a sandwich.

So, for a couple years now I have been plotting small statues like the ones I create in full scale for the yard.  But I never did anything.

And now, not to in anyway insult the artist I am about to mention, cause his work is amazing and mine is not...but William Bezeks dolls just gave me the umph I needed to get off my ass, get out in the shop and make one of these things, finally. (Thanks sir!  See people, this is why I blog...you never know where you will find yourself.)

So this weekend while I was making the ghost costume, I thought I would use the scrap fabric to finally make two versions of my idea.

Let us start with the first one....and my least favorite.

This is a Tiny Tim skeleton (about 12 inches tall) cloaked in fabric.  Kinda looks like Joesph, and to and ex-catholic that is scary in its own way....but anyway.  The fabric is too much for that small frame.


I am still debating whether to paint it and see if I can make it better, or rip off the fabric and use cheese cloth instead.  I am leaning towards the latter.

The second is a Mr. Thrifty, so he is about 30 inches tall with more definition, so the fabric works much better for his size.  On this skeleton the head naturally leaned to the right so I just had his hand wired up close to his face - seemed the natural thing to do.

Actually I like him, so far.

I don't think any of you realize what a big step that is for me to say.  I usually have one or many issues with any prop I make.

I can see that I have to do some work on the skull, but I like the pose.  I am thinking that I will put a frog in his hand.

Off to paint him!

So apparently, Gabe says

"we need to get this for miss Chris cause she loves spiders"

I think he has that backwards, but what is a girl to do when very cute minion gives her a present like this.

In my head I was screaming and thinking....what kind of sick person would create something like this :D

If you read the box, they even designed it with at "spider hideaway" at the top to keep the spider safe!  Damn thoughtful creators....thoughtful for the spiders, not for the FQ.

Luckily he gave it to me in a cute Toys R' Us trick or treat bag, so I did not have to touch it.

And Daniel was nice enough to take it out of the box and put it in the yard for me.....thanks Dan, I think it is thanks I am feeling.

I did not look when I was headed out this morning....but I bet there is a spider in it already.

Monday, August 23, 2010

The follies are starting to take over

the yard. 

When we taught our latest Davis Graveyard Overview class I wanted to make a sample of monster mud with fabric.  I have a small monk that is finished on one side chicken wire on the other to show how we make the larger ones.

But I get a lot of questions about Beloved and the angel props.  Well, making a small angel just did not sound like something I could do easily, I thought, what about just a ghost.

You know the kids costume of a kid with a sheet and eye holes.

So I made a cute little ghost, which for some reason I have never managed to post on the blog, sorry about that.  But I do plan on making them for our upcoming Etsy store.


He was very popular at the convention (I think Leonard even said they would make good centerpices for Hauntcon) and got me thinking about  something similar in full size.

Husband loved the idea so we worked on it together.  We talked to Mike a Ghost Ride (who came to the convention.) to see if he had a child's body form....and he did.  Now I know that a lot of you are thinking that that is a waste of a body form cause you can just make something out stuffed garbage bags or chicken wire. Yes, but in our experience, it looks like that and I really wanted to make this prop look like a kid. 

So Husband made a base for the body and we found by testing the theory with wet sheets that the body was not sturdy enough to stand on its own and the head was a bit wobbly, so he but a piece of rebar up the back and then we taped it at the waist and the neck to the rebar.

Since I wanted one of his feet to stick out from the costume I got some trainers (getting ready for my UK trip) from the thrift shop and then covered them in plastic to avoid covering them with mud.

I had to use two sheets to get the coverage and sturdiness that I wanted.  I draped them over the body, one long way to cover the arms, and then cross way from the front to the back.  I adjusted the fabric at the base to make sure it bunched up in the right places.

The hands were just pieces of chicken wire attached to the wrists.  Since he will be holding a bear in one hand and a plastic pumpkin trick or treat bag in the other, I took a piece of fabric and wrapped it in plastic and a small piece of metal wrapped also and fit them in the hands.  I will remove them when he is dry.  When he is painted I will put the props in their place.

It tried to rain all weekend so he is still drying.

I hope to get a few coats of paint on him this weekend and finish him up.   

We are going to move him around the yard, especially in front of the house looking at the display....want to see how many people think it is a real kid.

As husband said on our Davis House blog.  This is the first in a series of kid props we want to make...kinda like the peanuts kids.  We are thinking something like Lucy in the witch mask next year.

The attic

is a scary place indeed.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

The waiting is over

Welcome my fellow bloggers to a frog queen folly I like to call "meet the Halloween/horror obsessed blogger" - and I mean that in the nicest way :)


This is opportunity for you to learn more about your favorite Halloween"ish" bloggers and me to get more information from them without making it look like the stalker that I am.


So, my first victim, I mean volunteer is The Captain ...aka Jason. I know we have all been dying to chat with you and find out what makes a normal human being become obsessed with Halloween?

There are a whole lot of other holidays, why the obsession with Halloween decorating?

I’ve loved Halloween since I was a kid. I blame err no I mean contribute most of my love of the holiday to my childhood neighbors the Kutchs. They would always have really cool parties on Halloween. All of us kids would decorate the yard with webs in this big walnut tree and make dummies out of old clothes and last year’s masks.

(I’m not in this picture but the walnut tree is. Loria Kutch is the leprechaun, my sister Danielle is rocking the awesome home-sewn Rainbow Bright costume, I don’t remember what my little brother Nick is in the foreground, something with a cape I’m sure.)

(That is actually the first pumpkin I designed from scratch and carved all by myself. It’s an owl, that’d be why it’s in a tree.)

But it was their dad Ron, and his friend Mike that really made the whole thing magical. Ron and Mike would carve tons of pumpkins, 20-30 pumpkins. No simple jack-o-lanterns either, these were highly detailed faces of devils, creatures, and whatever the popular cartoon characters of that year happened to be.

This was the late 70’s and there wasn’t any pattern books to buy, no Internet to download patterns from, and no fancy carving tool kits like they make now. They were using anything that would work as a good carving tool, clay shaping tool, razors, I don’t even really know. Their pumpkins were the first time I ever saw the technique of shaving different depths on the pumpkin to get different colors.

They had a long driveway that went back between two houses, so it was like walking down a gauntlet of Halloween to get to the house. I remember one year when I was older (young teen) I stayed in the yard to scare people. I wore big clothes like one of the dummies and this awesome monster mask I had for years. The jeans I was wearing had rips in them so I stuff the holes with wadded up newspaper so people would think I was a dummy. I laid up against the big walnut tree and would move my head or foot just a little when people weren’t quite looking at me. “Did that thing just more?” or “I thought I saw him move!” and “whose in there?!” But I would just sit still and try not to laugh; I was back behind a rope so people couldn’t touch me.

I have always carved a pumpkin or gone out dressed up on Halloween as an adult. Since we bought our first house about six years ago Halloween has gotten bigger and bigger for us. I am fully obsessed with Halloween, not a day goes by were I’m not thinking about Halloween in some form or fashion.

How long have you been haunting?

I helped as a kid at the Kutch’s house, and we lived next door to them for about ten years until we moved to Oregon. Halloween 2010 will be the fifth year at my own home that I would call it a haunt.

What was the first prop you ever made?

Wow, that’s a hard question the 70’s is a long time and a lot of abusive living ago. I would have to say a dummy for the yard at the Kutch’s house. Overalls, flannel shirt, work gloves, and a mask stuffed with news paper sitting on an old sharpening wheel with a real scythe.

(That’s me sitting down, on the right.)


In my current yard it would be a dummy we named “Chet” after a hated neighbor. He was made of a rubber head, one rubber hand, one rubber foot all connected to a piece of wood and a frame of chicken wire, then wrapped with the cotton batting from an old quilt. We slapped some cheap webs and spiders on him and tossed him up in a super cheesy 15 foot spider web. It was a bad as it sounds.



Tell us your favorite thing about haunting?

We don’t get a lot of trick r’ treaters at our house, 25 is the most we’ve ever had. But, I love it when the little kids walk down the driveway and they fixate on that one prop that they are scared of or worried about. They walk towards us for the candy but never take their eyes off that one prop that for some reason stands out to them as “the one that’s gonna get me”.


I’d be a liar if I didn’t mention all the compliments I get from strangers and friends at work. I also like being know as “that house”, I try very hard to be “that house”. If you haunt, you know what I mean.

What prop are you the most proud of?

That’s another hard question because it’s always changing. Each year my zombies get more detailed and I get better at creating them, so every year I have new favorites. I guess from last year’s batch I would say the Captain is my favorite.


At our Halloween party everyone was talking pictures with him out in the yard. I also like the first female zombie we ever made, her name is Candy and she has real human hair. She just has a really natural looking pose and she gets a lot of compliments from people.


How much of the display do you change every year and when do you start planning?

I’m still building up my numbers (of props), so I haven’t scraped any of my zombies yet. Chet got used the first two years and then spent a Halloween in the attic only to come back for our party last year as body parts in the bath tub. I won’t be using any of the witch’s minions from last year in this year’s display, but they are all still intact (so we may see them in some form in the future. Actually Sac the minion with the burlap mask is a permanent display piece in my computer room.


I am always planning and adjusting plans. I have ideas for next year before the current year is complete. I have ideas that I sit on till I can figure out how to create them or until I can afford them. I’m going to go a little different route this year and actually have some non-undead characters this year.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Everywhere! The Internet, movies, nature, TV, peoples trash on the side of the road. You see a pile of junk on the curb, I see potential prop parts. Most of my props are made from trash. Household stuff mostly, newspaper, paper towel rolls, old coat hangers, old clothes, cardboard, and plastic grocery bags. Every finger on every zombie except the first three zombies are made from cut up Mt. Dew 12 pack boxes.


My initial inspiration to make zombies came from finding the most wonderful website entirely by accident. I was looking for a skull pattern for a pumpkin and I came across pumpkinrot.com and I feel in love with Halloween all over again. I looked at every picture on his website at least twice that first night. I had questions! How did he do what he does? Was it paper mache’? How did he make those awesome teeth? So I wrote him an email and asked every so bluntly I’m sure, how did he do it? I never heard back anything from that email; I’m sure he gets that same sort of email all the time. So the hunt was on to figure out how I could make my own wonderful dark art. Then again mostly by accident I found spookyblue.com and his wonderful tutorials. I quickly realized that there are no rules to creating props and that I could take the methods I liked and add my own twist to them. I thanked both spooky blue and rot by email after I made my first three zombies, sent them a link to my video which also had a special thanks to both of them as well as to Ryan Wickstrand of ZombiePumpkins.com, and my wife Jen. Rot has featured my haunt twice on his blog PUMPKINROT.COM: What's Brewing (http://pumpkinrot.blogspot.com/) which to me is like getting nominated for an Oscar or a Grammy.

New ideas for 2010? Are you trying something you have never done before?

Oh yeah! I can’t say too much, but like I mentioned before I am including some non-undead characters this year. I want to work on my lighting a bit more this year. If funds allow I would like to build some sort of fencing so that I’ll feel a little better about setting up my props earlier then the day of.

Most valuable piece of advice you would give to a fellow haunter?

Don’t be afraid to do something. If you have an idea, just do it. If it doesn’t come out like you had it pictured in your mind, do it again differently next year. Be original. Haunting is its own art form so there is no wrong way to do something, if it works for you then do it.

Tell us your favorite yard haunt story.

Last year (2009) it was probably around 8:30PM on Halloween night and we decided that we would just order some pizza for dinner. We live in a rural area; we have neighbors, but its country. The few trick r’ treaters that we did get had already come and gone, and the night was winding down. I had taken my costume off already because I was hot, but I left my white contacts in. I was out in the yard with my camera and tripod taking pictures of our props when the pizza guy showed up. He pulled up but didn’t pull in the driveway. I went to the front door and yelled for Jen my wife to come out and pay the guy. He was walking down the driveway toward the house. He waited by the house looking at the graveyard, the soundtrack was blaring, fog machine blowing, and me tinkering and adjusting things for photos. I don’t even know if he noticed me out there. Jen came out of the house fully dresses in her costume and make-up to pay him. He was probably about a 19 or 20 year old, Five foot six black guy. Up until this point I hadn’t really be close to him yet. As Jen handed him the money I heard him say “I like your yard”, I walked up from behind him and stood right next to Jen to grab the pizzas for her. I’m six foot three with white contacts in and pale make-up on dressed all in black staring right at him and I’m not saying anything just staring at him. He just looked at me and said “I guess I better go before ya’all don’t let me leave.” We laughed for like an hour about it after he left, all we have to say to each other now is “remember that pizza guy” and we laugh. We got a story and so did he, isn’t that part of what Halloween is all about, funny spooky stories.

How did you get started blogging and how long have you been blogging?

I started blogging on September 14th 2008. I honestly don’t remember what possessed me to start blogging? I do recall that Carrie Mae of Creepy Cupcakes (http://creepycupcakes.blogspot.com/) and Joseph of Mr. Macabre's Hallowe'en Cerebrations (http://mistermacabre.blogspot.com/) were the very first blogging friends I made. As Halloween people of the South need to stick together.

Favorite thing about blogging?

I don’t know why I started blogging, but I continue to blog because I have made the acquaintance of some of the nicest people I’ve never met. Halloween bloggers and horror bloggers overall are the nicest most generous people I have never met. It is so cool and weird at the same time to have friendships and acquaintances with like minded people who you have never actually met. I guess that would be my favorite thing about blogging. Also the sharing of Halloween and horror info that I might not have heard about if it weren’t for the blogs that I follow.

Blogs you would like recommend/favorite blogs?

WOW, nothing like putting me on the spot Chris! I already mentioned a couple; Creepy Cupcakes (http://creepycupcakes.blogspot.com/), Mr. Macabre's Hallowe'en Cerebrations (http://mistermacabre.blogspot.com/), PUMPKINROT.COM: What's Brewing (http://pumpkinrot.blogspot.com/). I have to mention my favorite source for spooky tunes that are mostly new to my ears, George Van Orsdel's MONSTER SPOOKSHOW RADIO! (http://monsterspookshowradio.blogspot.com/), a couple more of my frequent haunts are Orange and Black, and (http://spiritofhalloween.blogspot.com/), ShellHawk's Nest, (http://shellhawksnest.blogspot.com/). I have the strangest feeling that I’m forgetting somebody’s blog that I check every day, even sometimes from my phone. I don’t know, I must be tired or something, Fish on The Turnip sounds kind of right? (http://strangelittlegirlblog.blogspot.com/)

Tell us about your day job, I hear you are called "The Captain" for a reason.

Yep, I actually do drive a boat for a living. Well it’s not so much a living, but it’s a paycheck. I am currently a yacht captain for resort services at Universal Orlando. I have been with the company for just over six years and my current position is head trainer. I teach all of our new captains how to drive our boats. It’s a very satisfying job; I give people the skills they need to handle a 44-foot yacht full of 45 people. The pay is bad but the hours are great, so I will stick around until I am finished with school. I finished getting my Associates in Business about a year ago, and I’m about a year away from finishing my Bachelor of Science in Business/Human Resource Management.

So you haunt and bake all kinds of goodies? You may just be the perfect man. How did you get such a perfectly split personality?

(Checking my pretzels)
I do almost all of the cooking at our house. I have loved to cook as long as I can remember. Growing up I was the oldest of three kids in a single parent household, so I learned to cook basic stuff to help my mom out when she got home from work.

In the seventh grade I took a cooking class with Mrs. Adams and loved it, the next year my best friend and I were both teachers’ aids for Mrs. Adams’s seventh grade cooking class as well as taking her advanced class.

If I have a recipe I can probably make it. I do bake a few goodies, but it’s the candy making you want to be around my house for.

At Christmas time I make Peanut Brittle, Fudge, Peanut Butter Fudge, Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Cashew Roca, Popcorn Balls, and sometimes if the humidity is low enough I’ll make Divinity for my Mom. I lost my Grandfather when I was in my early twenties, he always made tons of candy for everyone around the holidays, so I have taken up the tradition. The one day of the year I do absolutely no cooking (unless we fry a turkey) is Thanksgiving, that’s Jen’s big day and we have her Family over for dinner.

Should we move Halloween to the last Saturday in October?

No, we’ve be OK with it on the 31st all these years why should we change it now so a certain Halloween store can make a bigger profit because more people will party if it’s on a Saturday. I am not even going to mention the store, but I don’t shop there.

Do you carve pumpkins every year?

I use to, but now I use mostly fake pumpkins. Real pumpkins are so expensive in Florida, plus they seem to go bad quickly down here. I do have a 26 plant pumpkin patch growing in my backyard this year, so hopefully we will be carving both real and fake this year. A lot of fake this year, you’ll see.

Favorite TOT costume you have seen at your haunt?

I had a year where I carved a Freddy, a Jason, and a Michael Myers pumpkin. We had two kids probably about ten years old come to the house and when I opened the door they were doing the Freddy Vs. Jason face to face pose because they knew I was a fan. I stood out in the yard with them for a few minutes and they asked about the pumpkins and how I carved them. I was cool to see young fans dressed up as the classic monsters of “their” day.

Your least favorite thing about decorating for Halloween?

Being paranoid that someone will screw with, steal, or damage my outside stuff. For inside decorations it would have to be packing it all away for another year.

One thing you would do in your haunt if money were no object.

That’s easy! Work on it all year instead of having a job! Oh and maybe hire a security guard so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. AND we are already looking for a hearse to fix up.


AND . . . . . . . .


:) I know how you feel....I could go on forever too.  Thanks (thank you, thank you, thank you!) Captain for helping out the Frog Queen.  I hope everyone enjoyed my folly as much as I did.  You are the best....and still one of my favorite bloggers.

So....who is next?  Wouldn't you like to know :D  ?

Saturday, August 21, 2010

I signed up

because I want to see how she pulls off a online costume contest! :D

No, not really.  They very cool Courtney over at Haunt Jaunts is hosting a party this October....and I just love parties even if it is just an online party....virtual martinis are not the same :D
So won't you all join me in being part of the the HJ Halloween Spooktackular Halloween Blog Party?  Come hang out with the Frog Queen we will have a great time.

I had so much fun


doing interviews for both Carl at I Like Horror Movies and Max at The Drunken Severed Head blogs last year that I got the idea to do this on my blog.

Kinda meet the haunt bloggers kinda thing.....but like all Frog Queen follies they take a while to actually materialize.  I can tell you that me and the blogger we are feature on the first edition have been talking about doing this for about......oh, well,  less than a year.  How is that.  That is actually good for me.

We have been talking about a book for five years....so I am getting better :)

Anyway, here at the Frog Queen realm we are going to feature interviews with some of our favorite Halloween/Haunt/Horror bloggers.  The first post will be this Sunday.

So, guess who we are going to feature first?  Guess?

Friday, August 20, 2010

Playing tonight at the

Davis Graveyard Drive In. We call it that, even though you don't actually sit in your car....but you do have to drive to the house. :)  FG logic is quite silly.

We set up  a projector on the patio and pull down the screen and show movies.  Usually bad movies.  But there is drinking involved and it usually turns into more of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 thing anyway.

Tonight the double feature consist of:

Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (cause FQ loves her Hammer films, yes she does!) Horst's costume is awesome! :D

And the second feature was going to be Lair of the White Worm....but husband says it is too weird :( 
So we are going for something more mainstream like

Thirteen Ghosts (remake) - which I dislike (yeah, I can hear you gasping in disbelief from here) but it does get better after a few martinis :)   I do like the guy getting cut in half with the glass door.  Nice!

I might try to convince everyone to watch Buckaroo Banzai instead...."laugh while you can monkey boy"  Oh yeah, I do love that movie.

I am tracking down a copy of RoboGeisha for the next installment.  Cause I love Machine Girl....something about over the top blood and gore in Asian horror films that I just love.

We have our first


spider in the Davis Graveyard Spiderfest 2010.

Isn't he just the cutest creepiest scariest thing you have ever seen.

So this thing is really going to happen isn't it?

Yikes! :D

Thanks Mr. Chicken, I am very, very honored.

Blog Archive