A "Couple" of Ground Breakers

I had such a GREAT weekend. I'll post more later about that, but most importantly... I finished my first project(s) of the year (so behind).

Last week I mentioned the beginning stage of "hacking" a certain store-bought ground breaker. These guys were super cheap, one was picked up from a store - after halloween sale, the other came from a lot-for-sale off of Craigstlist. What to do, what to do... so I searched the internet for inspiration. Came across this lady.

I mentioned before in a previous blog how I mangled the head here. I used the same technique. Took the head off the body, removed the hair, cut the styrofoam and used paper towels and carpet adhesive. (note: I used Bounty, should have used Viva - no bumps/designs in paper towels are best). Waited a good week for that to dry, then painted their faces with craft paint and used polyurethane to seal.

In the meantime while their heads were drying. I gathered up some of the extra red velvet I had from some curios I have been working on. I also grabbed some black cheese cloth, along with little items I had in my craft/sewing box (the black satin rose). No sewing required on my ghoul-friend, just hot glue and used my imagination. Went into my costume bin and grabbed an old witch wig. Asked my son if I could have his old suit tie which worked perfect for the guy-ghoul. I used water and craft paint to make the tie dirty and used a dull razor blade to give it a grungy effect. Added plenty of moss on the bottom of their torsos as well as sporadically on their body, hands, face and head. To give it that fresh ground breaker look.

I can not begin to tell you how happy I was after I finished her.

Below you can see start to finish photos.

Fall-ing into place

This weekend I took a much needed break for myself. Friday, I stepped into the garage and pulled out some halloween props, just to play with and grasp more inspiration. I took out the laptop and checked out every halloween inspired website. Came to this conclusion... I have no "dead" women in my cemetery. WHY??? Realizing that 99% of props are all men, if in fact they are not a witch. Crazy huh?

So, I have two identical ground breakers who will become husband and wife. I took off their heads and have started the process. Will keep you updated on my progression, right now they are dying or drying to be painted. *insert witch cackle*

68 more days till Halloween and 36 more days till set up.

Love,

The Madame

Inspiration Weekend

It's all coming together now. Finally getting into the swing of things and I can't be more excited. Friday started off like a bang. I felt as thought I was in a million places and had a zillion things to do. Two doctor appointments, kids school shopping, oh travel 30 miles for a big lot of halloween goodies a woman was getting rid of. One of the many great things she had was this candelabra. From the picture I thought it was plastic/prop. Nope total score, it's wrought iron! As I gazed at it, I got this great inspiration for redecorating my guestroom. Right now it's got a half retro, half idkwtf? All I can say is there's a human size birdcage in there. That will stay, but the retro shit has to go. I'm thinking dark victorian? New bed, linens, and wallpaper and I've got plenty of spooky nicknack's and creepy paintings. Goal 2012!

Next, is a ground breaker, I have several of these from prior after-halloween sales. Fun to place them in front of the graves. I usually throw a dark colored cheese cloth over them and some moss around their torsos. Blah, right? I was thinking what I can do to re-vamp them? So inspirations here I come!

So Saturday I cleaned my haunted mansion, making sure to leave every cob web in it's place. Sunday ohhhh Sunday, I got to the garage. With the help of my hubby who cleaned his half. We were both very enthusiastic the entire day. Nice breeze in the air, it was strange because I could actually feel "fall". Nice and tidy!

Desert is always last? On Wednesday I get home for work, we all have dinner and out comes a surprise desert from my daughter. She made these cookie/cupcake, I'm not really sure, but it was delicious! Using cookie dough and placing an oreo cookie on the bottom of it. Toping it with halloween colored sprinkles and cute ghosts. Best part was the tombstone shaped cinnamon toast crunch cereal.

This weekend I have some "free" time. No work, no side projects, just me and my 3 day weekend. I think I'll be able to get started on some halloween fun.

Corpsing is fun!!!

So thanks to some online haunters who have shared their talent. I have turned some of my plain ol blucky's into yummy fresh corpses. I started out with a blucky, because I would rather spend under $10 than $100 for a skeleton. I have purchased some of these from Big Lots, but actually got a few from the garage sales I went to. I went to home depot and picked up the carpet adhesive, two cans of wood stain. Already had latex gloves, toilet paper, drop cloth and a brush handy for the wood stain.

I give this guy credit for the wood stain color - http://www.theghostess.com/bluckycorpse.htm

You can truly get lost in the web searching for things, and come to realize there are so many people like myself. Even though I stole an idea or two from this guy and that gal, this was my personal technique. PS: I used a dremel instead of the box cutter because, people that shit is just plain ol dangerous!!!!

1. I cut out the eyes, nose mouth, around the rib cage area and bones.
2. I spray painted (flat black) inside the ribs and skull.
3. After the paint dried, I applied some cheese cloth around the eyes and nose.
4. Went to town with gloves on hands, and used the carpet adhesive spreading it all around the skeleton. I did one side at a time because it's very tacky/sticky.
5. Applied toilet paper to the carpet adhesive. Just play around with it.
6. Step 4 & 5 repeat after 1st application dries - process took almost a week.
7. When he's all dried up then take the wood stain. I used the lighter color first and the darker one to accent areas. Dabbing the excess with a paper towel.
8. Tim and I were totally grossed out and in awww at this point!!!
9. Just wait till he dries. ;)

Right now I'm trying to make my blucky into a ground breaker and mount him so he stays put. Still working on that but he's almost finished.
There are some other items I've been working on corpsing that were some odd treasures from the craigslist ads I came across that I'm working on. To me they looked a bit corny so I had to alter them to make it more gruesome.