Friday, August 31, 2012

Look what came in the mail!

husband and I are such geeks....one of our favorite Halloween issues is the Nuts and Volts Halloween issue....it came in the mail the other day!

Wooooohooo!!!


There is a cool article on making a talking t-shirt....just the thing you need for that last minute costume :)



My favorite is how to make your own Van De Graaff generator......I so want one of these!  My favorite part of this article was all the safety caveats.....like "NEVER" in all upper case....yes, NEVER hook up capacitors to the generator if anyone plans to touch it....yeah.  NEVER about sums that up.


And this month featured our friend John Williams from EFX-TEK - we are working with him and Kasey at Vixen to use the new HC-8 to control the driver this year.....more details on that to follow.  We are still waiting for ours to show up in the mail.....darn, Jon Barrowman moving to Tennessee and slowing down the shipments of EFX-TEK (he used to live in Nor Cal) has been an endless source of amusement for us.....we are not the most patient people in the world!


Yeah, I am a nerd...and I am okay with that!

Happy Haunting everyone!

She is done groveling

on the ground.

After three years we have finally completed Sleeping Beauty.

She was never intended to be on the ground.....we just ran out of time.

So this year - here she is.





Mostly done....just needs a bit more painting.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

I am sure there is a picture

of our family that looks similar to this.....

BTW - my brother was unsuccessful at removing said demon from the (soon to be) Frog Queen.....as you know.


I also sold Beloved

......I am so over her.



Really.

Husband and I were talking the other day watching some collecting show and I said to him...

"I am so NOT nostaligic"

"No, you are NOT" - he said without missing a beat.

....made me think....as I do often in my life.....does that make me a bad person?

Wait...I am a bad person. Ha! Silly Frog Queen....

Wow, good to know I do not need to keep up appearances.

The day that this display makes me some money...enough to rent a storage unit to store my nostalgia.....then the frog queen will changer her tune.

I have already sold the church facade and ALL the mud men......what more do I have to do to prove that I do not attach myself.......

....well, I do, but I cannot really.

I only have so much space to store this stuff.

It is a LOT more than most of you, so complaining about space to most of you.....yeah, I hear ya!

Anyway.....I sold "Beloved" - one of our first props inspired by the great and awesome Webby out of SLC - you Utah haunters are amazing.

Where was I going with this?

Yeah, well....if she is gone what is replacing her?

This is:


Well, not exactly this one....unless I am going cemetery robbing.........

Again....she is the inspiration.

This is our progress so far......










We have a long way to go.....I mean....wings are not an easy thing to carve....trust me....I have tried.

The funniest part about this whole process is this email we got from a friend:

"Your new "Beloved" monument looks great.  I hesitate to say it looks simple because nothing you guys create looks simple, but in terms of materials it doesn't look like a lot of parts.

Could this be something you could do at (name left blank)?  I haven't seen the finished product and I have no idea how much work it actually is so I'm just spitballing.

I would like to see a class at the Graveyard for your tomb/sarcophagi."

I about fainted.....

Okay....this by far is the most technically challenging prop we have done right the first time.

...from the base to the soon to be carved into existence wings..

We have taught a lot of classes at the graveyard. But this one.....at another location????

You know....the place where we have our own tools and can easily make stuff up as we go along.....trying to do this at another venue?

After two years at HAuNTcon........not going to happen.

Cutting the curves on the base was only possible because I have a crew member, who is incredibly anal about things....and with our crew, that is saying a lot, it took him half the day to cut four pieces of foam to fit that base .......no kidding....not complaining, they line up perfectly.  I have yet to have a student in one of our classes with that much attention to detail.

And a new really cool band saw!  (husband can never say I did not let him buy anything!)

Maybe after we make it a few more times....we will get a pattern we can teach.

Also, we are not cost cutters.  Not that we throw money away...but after a lot of time looking at carving arms (trust me the human body is not easy) and the cost of casting real arms.....we paid the fantastic and wonderful Michael at Ghost Ride (he make the award for the Home Haunter Video Awards - we LOVES him!!!) to make us expanding foam arms (they are usualy out of swishy foam) that we cut up and put back together in the shape we wanted. (they were both straight unbent arms when we got them.)

Nothing you get from Ghost Ride is cheap, especially a custom order.

And cutting up the arms you spent.....that much money for....to make the bends and the arms lay correctly is not something a lot of people can stomach.

After that you have to make damns around the bends and pour expanding foam to make the the missing parts....then you have to sand them to match.......

The crew wanted to me to let you know that none of them was aware that "teaching prop building" was part of their crew agreement.


Fair enough.

The truth is we do not want to show you how many mistakes we make to get from here to there.......

That said...there is a good chance....due to time, that this might be a wingless prop this year.

Cross fingers that we can make this happen.  We promise to share if we can pull this off!!!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Where do I go from here

I was happy to find my Mourner prop a new home.

Not only is she not pretty......look at those dreadful tombstones......
She was our first upright statue....we made some big mistakes.....and as much as she was "okay" looking in the display, I really never "bonded" with her.

That and her and Joan of Arc were always fighting.......I had to put them in seperate parts of the display to keep them from destroying each other.  

Well, I cannot prove it, but when Joan - at that time "Angel" was close to Mourner - Mourner seem to always fall over. Likely because the angel whacked her over with her sword.

I cannot tell you how many times we had to stand her back up.  

Big lesson learned....do not put an unarmed prop next to one with a sword.

That is why I can put Joan and Angel of Death close....they are both armed.

I do not need all this drama.  Someone had to go.

So, this year at West Coast Haunters Convention we took a bunch of our props to decorate for the ball...one of them being the mourner.  We did tell a few haunt owners that we were selling props to make money to help with the current build.  At first they offered me money for Joan.....but husband stopped me from selling her....so I offered them the Mourner instead.  They took it.

Husband was not happy.  I choose to believe that she is now at her true home. 

Hopefully Jody does not have any other female statue props......just saying.

Having her gone made it necessary to make her replacement.  We have been looking at this statue for a few years and this gave me the perfect opportunity to run with the inspiration.



So here is the progress so far.......



Making an hour glass

That skull you see in the background is the original Barney head.....a horrible thing.   Just of the record....the frog queen hates them.

I was originally going to use a Bucky - but since this  is a one piece props....we went with a Barney - but I replaced the head (I HATE the skulls on the Barney) with something that is more the correct size.


We make a round base because all our current bases are square.  This we are dedicated to adding props that are different.

We attached his had to his chest and but the  hourglass in his hand.

The red and yellow bands are there because we had to score 1 inch foam and glue it to the base to make it fit in the round shaped.  We had to leave it overnight to cure.  Round bases....not going to have many of them I can tell you!


He looks a bit shocked......I think he might be late for something.



There is a metal rod though the base to hold him in place, since he will be shrouded, that works for this project.

That beige ring on the top and bottom is some very expensive resin flexible molding.  

(That for *&^% For Sale sign is in my shop because some rude real estate agent put it in my yard without asking...I have been meaning to call her to pick it up........damn, one more thing for my to do list!)

We added a plaque that says "time immemorial" in latin. I know it just looks like a pink rectangle....but trust me on this one my blogger friends.

That said....his name is "Time" (Que Tom Waits song here) - and he is the first male statue in the yard.  

If I thought all the girl props were difficult last year.....I am sure I am in for a fun season.  What have we done!!

He has been saying something about freezing his "non-existent" arse off.

Fine - just what I need another nagging prop.

He is going to get his shroud this weekend.  More pictures to follow.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Yeah...I have a problem

with the LOLcats site....get used to it :D


Actually - that robe is pretty scary looking....I believe I see pink flowers on it!!  NOOOOOOOO!!! 

This is not usually where I shop

but one of my old workmates has an Avon store and I am still on her list.  She sent me these cool pictures of their Halloween items.
Two finer ring....even with spiders...cool!

Spider Hoop Earrings

Slippers!!!!

Want the Haunted House pin!



What the hell are these?!?!?  I am actually a bit scared.....I think I will have nightmares!!

Monday, August 27, 2012

I am so inspired

This piece by artist Thom Heap is amazing.  He made it for and upcoming Harry Potter convention.




Wait....there is going to be a Harry Potter convention?  No one told me!!?!?!?




Those who cannot do....teach

so, since I do not have a morner props in my yard anymore....cause I hated my old one so I sold it.....I mean  it was fine and all.....but we just never clicked....this was not the prop I was meant to make....

...we are much happier now that we are seperated. :)

So, since I cannot make a morner that I like, we thought we would teach a class on how to make them, to see if maybe that is the path I was supposed to be on......

....you tell me.  Here are pictures of the 2012 Davis Graveyard Universtity Mourner Class...
















Yeah, I am not replacing this prop in the yard....I think teaching people how to do this one is the right path.....to replace her, I think we will make this:





Friday, August 24, 2012

Never trust a cat

trust me on this one....


Just in case you were wondering where I was.....I was only mostly dead. :D

My "friends" on Facebook

are not as nerdy/geeky as I thought they were....really people - there is barely a room in our house (and shop) that does not have a computer or on internet connection.

Jeff and I love gadgets....especially robots.

...yeah I am waiting for my maid robot from the Jetsons.....any day now.

So when I made this post on Facebook.

My Roomba did not come home last night.......I think it wanted to get out and see the world. I wish him well.

I was hoping for some witting remarks....but that was not the case.

Most comments where how sad everyone was.....sad?

What the.......

They thought it was a pet.

Okay, first of all, I may have two cats named Dorie and Mason, but I have made that very clear in earlier blog posts that I am not responsible for their names.  Love them as I do.....not anywhere near a name choice I would make.

To no one's surprise, the cat we did name is Halloween Cat - "Hal" for short.

No guesing who's cat that is.

So who would think that I named a cat "Roomba?"

People, please!!!

(I know you are all wondering how this is in anyway Halloween related....give me a moment, I am going somewhere with this.)

It is a vacuum cleaner people,.....you know iRobot makes them and really, if you are a Halloween person you should know what they are because I am sure you have seen these.



Which, I completely plan on doing with mine this October.  Albeit I will have to take the furniture out of the living room.....hum, I think husband will not like that, going to have to do that while he is asleep.

Anyway - my "vacuum" cleaner aka "Roomba" - left the other night to clean the floor and did not return to his base.  That is all I was saying.....and the fact that husband and I could not easily find it.....I found hugely amusing.  Yeah, a joke is a lot less funny when you have to explain it.

But I guess like all things I find hugely amusing....I am the only one laughing.

BTW - I found the Roomba because I heard it crying, it was mumbling something about "the evil demon cats" - Silly me to assume that my cats were "terrified" of vacuums.  Someone in the group must of have done the math (the only thing I am sure if is that it was not Mason) and thought, there are three of us......and one of it. Either they bullied it to hide under the couch.....or it got tired of giving them rides around the living room.


You can't handle the truth

while I was away I have been working on refining my office.  I had this made for the wall to the left of my desk......since husband uses my computer a lot.....he has no excuse for not understanding me....he has been officially warned.


Hey, wait, I thought I got rid of you guys

....oh, you are just visiting :)

We sold all of our mud men creatures to a local haunt this summer (to help finance the 2012 build - and I had had some of them for almost 10 years.....we were starting to get on each others nerves a bit.)




But a few weekends ago we hosted a mud man class - we had seven students and they all did a great job over the weekend making their own monsters.

We are making the Oregon yard haunting world Wal-Mart, Spirit store, and (insert other cheap wanna store here) free - one haunter at a time.








As usual we had a great group of students who all brought their own special touch to the props.



I was especially impress by the student who got creative when we told them that they will need clothes they are willing to destroy....tyvek suit....awesome!



Go out into the world my minions and scare the people!! I am so proud of each one of you!!!






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