Frog on the Pumpkin

Freakin' scary! Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.4

so I thought I would just post a few more of Marci's lovely pictures of the yard. Happy Halloween everyone!!

that it was a very polite and nice lady, with about six really cutely dressed kids in full Halloween costumes,  that said to me as I getting in my car in front of the house: "I just want to request that you not run you display tomorrow, in order to observe the lord's day" Now...husband and I had just come from a late breakfast and noticed that one of the lovely establishments by our house was having a "truck or treat" for the little kids.  It was cute...we barely noticed...except for everyone was in costume. On Saturday....which is no big deal....except for Halloween is on Sunday. I say any opportunity you have to wear your costume go for it.... I am not sure these people share my enthusiasm. Anyway...I sighed and said: "No, thanks for asking" She said: " Thanks, I,  had to ask, have a nice day." _______________________ You know what?  I thought of a lot of things that I should have said.....and when I talked to some of th...

a waffle? LOL!  Now that is a Halloween morning breakfest if I ever saw one!

We love the ladies down at Wine :30 and they even featured us on their home page with all our fancy decorating! :D They are still selling prints of the yard along with some concrete skulls with candles on them.  Head down there before they are all gone!

about the "local" paper ignoring us....I should show that the "more" local paper, The Clackamas Review,  put us on the front page.  (At least that is what I hear - I have only seen this online version.) It is a nice article about our participation in the Extreme Home Makeover project....and the yard in general.  Check it out when you get a chance....after Halloween of course, I know you are all busy! :D Cheers!

busy with Halloween, but just a quick reminder to set your DVR to record the Halloween version of Extreme Home Makeover!  You will finally get to see what all the fuss is about.  It is really awesome, trust us, we finally got to go down and see it this last week in action and it was great. They are super busy and after all this Ed and the kids are gonna need a very long nap!  Great work guys, there were long lines at the haunt on Tuesday, so I hope that is a sign that the rest of the season is going to be gang busters!  Oh, and you also need to record that " The Walking Dead " show....but you already knew that too right? :) Back to prop building!!

in my office is a stack of CDs and DVDs that is photos and footage of the display from this year.  Would you like to see it? Me too. Have not had time to look at them yet, be distracted with this Halloween and vacation stuff.  Maybe this weekend. But we have to clean up the place because there is a wedding in the Graveyard on Halloween (Saturday night/Sunday morning) woohoo! Oh, and I really need to get the spiders up.....if it will quit raining....like just for a few minutes...that would be nice. So, when all else fails the frog queen goes to her LOLcats.  Sadly Dorie did not make it even to the voting stage.....so no LOLcat listing for her this year.  Not sure who the frog queen has to kill   I mean what the frog queen has to do to get a picture on that site. :(  Thanks to everyone who voted, I appreciate it. People who did make it on the site.....I still like Dorie better :D And this one is not Halloween related, but I lov...

(the Oregonian) does not do anything this cool.  We were a little miffed that our local paper did an article on the Extreme Home Makeover thing and did not mention that a local group helped.  Not that we wanted the attention, just shows how or local paper has really gotten less "local" and more national.  Not bitter at all that they fired our friend writer Margie either :)  NO, not at all :D Look what I found on the cover of The Columbian - a paper for the Vancouver area (US, not BC) where I work across the river and in another state. They did a complete listing of home haunts! Front page of the online version. That is just super cool of them. I noticed that my friends in Camas are not on here.....going to have to give Dave a call and see if he can be on this list.   If I get a chance I might drive by on my lunch to see if any of them are up on Friday :) Do any of your local papers have a home haunt listing?  I would love to see them!

an apology to is Jeremy over at iZombie.  Not only did he make me the banner treatment you see above, but he also created me this very cool background for my computer screen.....and it is even work safe. (It does not look too much like Halloween, well, at least no one has complained yet :D )  So I have replaced my LOLcat picture with this awesome background...which everyone loves. Thank Jeremy for sharing your creativity with me. For those of you that don't know, Jeremy has a blog called iZombie and is one of the administrators with Carl at (one of my favorite blogs in the whole wide world) I Like Horror Movies of the Horror Bloggers Alliance . Busy guy and a great asset to the blogging community.

(Eric) was the only guy I was ignoring.  He is not. Remember Dan, the guy with the flaming pumpkin pictures ? He had a show at Moonstruck (awesome local candy maker) in early October. I could not make it so he sent me this picture....you can see his amazing photos hanging on the walls.  I so wish I could have been there.  Congrats Dan!!

a blog post for forever. The frog queen is quite the loser lately, but I am working on digging myself out of this pit I seem to have fallen....I was going to stay down here, but it has been raining for a while, so it is starting to turn into more of a pond than pit....so I guess I need to start climbing out...... So the very nice and ultra talented Eric Pigors (who has been featured on all the really good blogs done by responsible Halloween people already) has had all kinds of stuff going on this month with his fantastic creations.  I meant to share them sooner, but we all see how that went :D Anyway, for those of you that for some reason completely missed all the other posts, here is my take on Eric Pigors and his Toxic Toons artwork. First of all, and the most cool in my opinion, is his new mask with Trick or Treak Studios.  They make great masks and this creation from Eric is a perfect addition to their collection.  Be sure to check out Grusome , it is a Franki...

and I do love my computer programming prop building husband....and his (actually our) obsession with Make magazine.  If you have not seen Make magazine you must check it out.  All kinds of cool and useless time wasting goodness.  I mean who does not need a cat toy that sends a tweet every time your cat plays with it (KittyTwitty ).  I mean, that has got to be the most amazingly fun time waster ever dreamed into existence.  OMG - I so don't want one.  My cats already think they own the world :) Anyway, a great magazine that is not to be missed. Especially this time of year. Well, every year they do a prop building contest.  We have never entered because we are lazy (the EFX-Tek crew would love us to...), but lots of others have submitted some awesome work.  Check this like to see what cool props have been entered in the 2010 Make Magazine DIY Haunts Project contest. Better yet, submit your masterpiece.  They offer some mighty...

and a love for Halloween (or has seen at least one horror film).  It has been a while since I have been in the UK (Scotland specifically) around Halloween, at that time I really saw no signs of celebration..... looks like that might be changing. :)

to the non cat people that visit my blog :) I turned a picture of my Dorie cat from a few years ago into an LOLcat....oh, come on, you all saw that one coming didn't you :D Check out this link If any of you ever visit the website and vote.....if you see her picture....vote 5 cheeseburgers.  I would love to see the picture on the main site... :D Back to prop building!!

to go shopping before these are gone. I am a HUGE fan of Lush bath products .  I discovered them about 15 years or so ago when I was traveling in the UK.  I practically filled a suit case with bath bars.  For years I had to mail order them from Canada.  I once dreamed of being the first US Lush store.....I got distracted and next thing I knew, they were stores in the US!! Sad I missed the opportunity, but happy that their products are much closer now. For the past few years they have done some Halloween themed products.  Last year I completely missed them - and almost did this year. Looks like they are doing a Day of the Dead themed product line this year .... oh, I so need some of these soaps!! Lady Catrina Soap Brimming with citrus Now we know the shape is a bit unconventional, but we dare you to resist this brightly coloured, fruit laden hat of spectacular citrus suds! Lady Catrina's sweet scent comes from Agave nectar, which we're thrilled to use ...

how Ed at Nightmare Factory just loves us and on and on (Dan went back down on Friday to reweb some of the haunt).....That is great we love him too. I think that is apparent in the fact that we and the crew spent a LOT of time in Salem. We are all a generous group, so it is just our way. And speaking of our crew this is what this blog post is about. When I talk about the "crew" I am usually referring to the core crew Dan and Elyssa and Toph and Dawn These four people (and their brilliant and equally creative children) practically live at our house most of the summer and fall (an even work on projects at home), they are more like family than friends. So although Jeff and I are out there all the time promoting it, there really is more to the Davis Graveyard than the Davis'. I would say that the biggest part of this display has very little to do with us. Every time that I go to a convention and talk about what we do it makes me sad that I cannot afford to take them...

Here are a few pictures of the display that husband took during the full moon - it was so bright, it almost looks like sunlight. 

I was not sure what to think of all the tents and the traps that we had to put up for our party this weekend (Thanks Matt for helping us set them up). It was a lot of things....attractive is not one of them. It definitely had me lowering my standards.....I just could not put my finger on exactly what was wrong with the set up, and then, that is when Toph (who very graciously helped us all day Saturday - and I apologize for trying to kill him at least twice :D) ...anyway, back to, he said "Looks like an upscale Haitian neighborhood with all the tarps and tents and plastic chairs" (not meaning that offensively, if you know Toph, he is totally saying it like it is.) It did look a little slummy in the yard...... :D One thing we did not think about is that it was really dark under the tents.....Made me wish I had not given away all my christmas lights :D Who knew they had a purpose for Halloween. It is the first time in about 8 years that it has rained on the party, so I ...

this time of year. Seriously I had/have so much going on right now that when someone sent me this link. I totally bought it . Which not usual for me. I am usually the first person to check something out. Normally I am going to be one of the biggest skeptics you will meet. So how did this happen? I am going use the I have been busy beyond busy this month. Husband and I have talked about it several times and we (more, I) keep coming back to the fact that we completely lost two weeks of our lives to the Extreme Home Makeover project.....but whatever the excuse we both feel like we are least 10 steps behind this year. Things are working out....but we are making a lot of compromises - more than we are comfortable with :) Not that I want complete control of everything, but I really feel that this month of October is getting too big for us to handle effectively. So I apologize for anyone that saw my post on facebook about the fake Baptist website :) I will have to say I got a lot of ot...

or Halloween or Haut Conventions.  Of course Hauntcon is my favorite (just in case Leonard reads my blog) but I have had a great time at all the gatherings and conventions we have attended. This past summer we attended the first West Coast Haunters Convention, along with meeting all kinds of lovely haunters from all over (ShellHawk and Bloodshed Brothers) I got to met Terry. Terry is great (originally from the UK - the accent caught my attention immediately.)   He has done some amazing detail work on his columns, stone work to cover the garage and tombstones.  I had no idea he was so close...it was just a real joy to meet him and talk to him all weekend.  You find your world gets a lot larger when you are around other haunters....kinda feel less alone in the universe. So, frog queen followers, let me introduce you all to Mize Cemetery and Haunt .  Click the link for more pictures. Now, back to prop building.

that the open house went really well.  It was sunny and clear, and everyone had a great time.  Thanks to the Milwaukie High School Dance Team for performing all day, the Coffin Cruisers for bring by their rides and to Matt Huntly for again doing the makeup....and thanks to Dawn (again) for these pictures.

before the rain set in husband was out taking pictures of the props shadows.  This one is one of my favs. Click to check out or Davis House blog and hear husband's story of why he took this picture.

quite scary!  Tot agrees.....he is definately avoiding them. :) Thanks to husband for the picture.

Karoke, it is more of a "sing along" - at least that is what we tell ourselves every year. We usually get a few songs together and play a video version with lyrics along the bottom and sign way too loud and off key.....drinking is not only a good idea, it is mandatory. We have done songs from Dr. Horrible, Stephen Lynch and Storm Large (last one got us a visit from the cops last year.) This year we have a host of new songs.....this being one of them.  Your Brains by John Colton* A classic the instant is was recorded.  But this year in honor of our work on the Oregon School of the Deaf's haunt Nightmare Factory haunt we are going to show this cool ASL version. Before any of you think we are being insensitive....we showed it to Ed (who runs the haunt) and he loved it - and so did the kids. Looking forward to this one! * Be sure to listen to his version of the Portal song .  I know I am boring you all with my Portal obsession, but it is my blog.... :)

from Extreme Home Makeover ad said that they were helping out Ed at Nightmare Factory we were thrilled.  He is a great guy and we were honored to help him and the kids.....to show how nice he is, take a look at the bottom of his website .  He lists both Davis Graveyard and Marci Brandts' Photocaptive Photography. Didn't even ask, he did it on his own.  See, told you he was a nice guy. Thanks Ed!

have arrived at our Etsy store ! Thanks so much to Cortney at Haunt Jaunts ....if I had not offered up a skull as a giveaway on her blog  (along with a set of prints).....you might all still be waiting for these! :D Anyway, if you like the " Milo" skull head (middle picture) head over to her blog and enter to win.  She has a great blog on all places haunted that is one of the Frog Queen's favorite places to visit! Oh,and I guess I should fess up....don't get too excited about the skull posting....I only managed to get three of them on there :D  I promise if those clear our right away, I have more, but if I can get them on the Etsy store between now and Halloween....that is another story. BTW - yes I know the shipping is expensive.  Believe me, one of the reasons it has taken me so long to get these on the blog is shipping.  I cannot find a better way than the post offices priority mail boxes.  Because: They are concerete and they are heav...

On my camera phone! Finished inside picture of the Nightmare Factory! See I told you there was a brick wall! :D Back to prop building! Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.3

the street for the open house and Halloween night. This is nothing compared to the amount of people that visit on Halloween.  It is solid people all the way down the street. Thanks to the Milwaukie Police Department for being so helpful closing the street and keeping everyone safe.

I could say that Hal cannot read....but he truth of the matter is, he does not care.....it is his yard, he can go where ever he pleases.  And he does. I believe he enjoyed flaunting the fact that he can walk in the yard and they could not. And in usual cat style, he could not be coaxed to look at the camera.  Really, there were three of us calling him and he snubbed us all :)  He is such a Diva! (thanks again to Dawn for the picture.)

we are behind schedule and super busy.  But even the frog queen has to take time out for an LOLcat every once-in-a-while :) I find this one hysterical, because I lose my car keys....at least once....a....day.  It is not me, I know that the cats are hiding them. :D And I am very easily distracted. And just more silliness to distract you. Good advice....do not tease possessed kitteh!!! (or any kitteh for that matter.)  Words to live by boys and girls, words to live by. Back to prop building!!!