10 Days Left

It's finally come to a staggering head. Every little bit fully realized and in its rightful place on the lawn. Oh how the little ones will cower in fear. Four months of my life so flawlessly spent!

Yeah. Right.

We have three houses with newbies to the neighborhood this year, so I told my Mom to set up all her favorites (which more often than not are a living nightmare to me) to throw off the new neigbors. Seems the kids from next door have fallen for it too. Momsy reported that they've been over twice oohing and gushing over the ghoulishly cute and horribly inviting mockery this makes of my cherised holiday.

Just wait till the 31st, kids.

It's coming.
And it's coming for you.

Only 53 days?!

I've been remiss as of late. This is what I do when I fall into the hole. I disappear for awhile and just make stuff. Writing, macheting, building... what have you. Work helps alot taking up any and all time in between. I have a house full of things half-way realized and things still in bags, filed and piled by project, which I've been digging into the last two weeks. Besides being sick with probably the worst sinus infection known to man, I've spent my vacation trying to get all the big stuff done. Three kinds of fences, about 100 witch jars and PVC candles, a pile of new tombstones and my minions are still mid-project, but yesterday I finally finished two of my characters...


Jeepers
(minus body of course)


ROT
He'll be up in a tree, layed out in the brances (hence the arm)- my dead Trick-r-treater, based on some art from the Trick R Treat book.

Finishing anything feels good and keeps you pumped. I've got another week of freedom coming up, who knows what'll come of it.

87 Days...

Busy little bee tonight. Worked for three straight hours after work. My hands are covered in glue and I can't feel my legs, but two heads down, four bodies, three more heads to go...

No pics as of yet, but this should tide you over for now.

88 Days...

This summer has been pretty brutal on my haunt production. Between the obnoxiously fluxuating, weekend-eating schedule of a pet sitter, The Brother moving to New York and working my 7th year with the Vienna Youth players as props mistress has NOT helped. Who wants to paint and glitter 30 massive fabric leaves when you've got corpsed minions awaiting second skins? And before I knew it, the countdown hit WAY past the panicking hour. Luckily, this weekend making toilet paper tube candle votives for Children of Eden, I got a small collection of light sources done, Jeepers got his face mached with layer #1, and minions 2&3 got heads. Not too bad, considering...


Still. 88 days? EEP!

105 Days...

About this time last year I was finding the kiddie horse in the trash while walking a Pomeranian names Princess who has since moved back to Michigan with her mom. I should visit the dumpster by her house more often-- thy always had useful things, but none more useful than inspiration. With that one stupid toy horse an entire Halloween theme was born. I then spent the next four months decapitating baby dolls, making tiny ghoul hands, going out every trash night to scout for oversized cardboard boxes to build a gothic playhouse and revamping a mobile with tiny, bite-sized demons for the Naptime Nook Cemetary. Ah, the memories...

This year it's all about gas masks and pigs heads.
Seems a natural enough transition to me...

108 Days

What I wouldn't give for a nice gloomy cold overcast day right now. We've had two straight weeks of sun and I've had it. The trees and grass have had it too, turning brown before the proper time. Not even given the chance to go in style, but wither and fall unceremoniously in the rotten, unforgiving sun.

I'm actually starting to tan too. *shudders*
It's just not right.

AUTUMN, where are you?!

109 Days

Making some progress-- have some fabulous skeletons taped together waiting for flesh, but for now it's off to work and the real world. How droll...

110 Days

113 Days

October's going to be a busy movie month. How will I get everything done?!

114 Days

Part II
III
IV
V

This was THE halloween movie of my childhood. For my brother it was the great pumpkin, for me it was Mr. Boogedy-- there are so many things I love about this movie. The individually wrapped cheese slices and John Astin's facial hair being just a couple... It's one of those movies none of my few elementary school friends ever heard of. They had older brothers that watched Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street, or they were obsessed with The Witches come Halloween night.
I wish they'd come out with it on DVD. A double feature pack with Bride of Boogedy (which in my opinion was sub-par without John Astin as Mr. Witherspoon, but whatchya gonna do?) Until then, I shall do with my Disney pirated copy included the last half of Which Witch is Witch? and vintage Disney Channel commercials for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with Jeff Goldblum and other classics like Blackbeards Ghost. Remember when Disney played their movies instead of locking them up in vaults?

115 Days...

Halloween '08

There's still wax encrusted on our well.

119 Days

Went to Michael's this morning for something simple as foamcore to make some machetes and other sharp implements of post-apocalyptic swine-flu doom and was pleasantly surprised to find a whole aisle of wailing, screaming Lemax and the usual smattering of uber cutesy fallish creations. I didn't exactly expect to be there so early, especially on my day off (hence the magically blurry cell phone crappiness of the pics), but the early zombie catches the maggots! And these maggots be super shiny this year:

Haunt Forum buzz says this little corner of sparkly junk is "Halloween Bling", which caused a bit of doubt and debate among the members. Frankly I like sparkly things, like any good consumer monkey, and it wasn't as "naughty nurse" as it sounded. It may not be exactly haunt friendly, much more year round decor for me so I grabbed a little black sparkly skelly and have named it Carmine. Carmine and a Lemax set came home with me today, along with the foamcore, which I'm very proud to have remembered after all the excitement and my eyes still swimming in their post awakening vision.

Came home to print out more coupons and will go out snatching up lemax sets from all 3 of our Michaels that I really want, because around here, the housewives gather and snatch in record time and those shelves are pretty bare come mid-August.

Some more pics...

Halloween '09 Inspirations

A tangible beginning of inspiration to this years theme for my yard haunt. Start with a dash of the three little pigs, a pinch of swine flu, a tbsp of Silent Hill and Tooth and Nail, 1/3 cup the last half of House of 1000 Corpses and, of course, a heaping cup of Halloween for a completely inappropriate and tasteless theme...

It sounds worse than it is. I have a loose little story line playing in my head, a surprisingly it's just a little political... but we won't let that get in the way of our fun.

120 Days... PANIC!!

Halloween 09 prep has been mostly in my head so far, but the other day I finally got my butt out of the house post-work to do some supply shopping.
Behold! My first real prop-bound purchase of the '09 season:

Not very impressive at the moment but I hope SOON to change that. Now all I have to do is get the energy to actually get everything in the same place and get with the corpsing.

I'm actually starting a bit early this year, but I feel like I'm already years behind.

121 Days...

122 Days

part two

part three

123 Days

It never gets old, it always seems new...

124 Days

I think I could watch this forever.

125 Days

I've been waiting forever to see this... but not unlike Halloween it's been slated for release in October-- straight to DVD! I don't even have to kidnap a movie partner which makes it all the sweeter a victory. I shall satiate the need till then with the book and the trailer for a little inspiration.

The ideas are flowing. . .

126 Days

For the longest time my best friend Laurie B and I would rent "Ernest Scared Stupid" whenever we had a sleepover at each others house. For awhile there it was "Toys" with Robin Williams and "A Pyromaniacs Love Story", but that's only because we kept falling asleep in the middle of it.

I remember we would torcher my little brother telling him about the troll and how it was coming for him. I didn't mind sharing my little brother with her to help induce his nightmares-- she was the youngest in her family with two older brothers so she needed the catharsis I'd imagine.

Then, every spring my family would rent this house in the Shenandoah mountains. We'd end up leaving late and driving along the highway in twilight all those tiny pines that lined the manmade hills I'd tell my brother were the trolls following us to the cabin. He bought it every time. He never did make the connection about milk being a viable weapon against the troll and his minions.

I watched this a few weeks ago and fell in love all over again with Eartha Kitt and the lactose intolerant, child-eating trolls. Even though, technically I guess they didn't really eat 'em, just turned 'em into tree root sculptures. Another fact lost on The Brother all those years ago.

We Interrupt This Program...

... because you know why...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-TZnNXXQrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNl2Pm9-7Vk

*fin*

129 Days

Word on the street is that fall has begun to pop up in the local craft stores, which means Halloween is on it's way. My craniums all abuzz with nifty little notions for Halloween. I wake up at 3am and jot things down or make mini movies, fall asleep to horror-thons and have 6am photo shoots with masked maniac plushies.... This is the good life.

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