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.

Trick or Treat?

This one was just a good trick! I was driving back to work from my lunch break, low and behold I see an animal in the road, so I proceed to stop. It's a RAT! I notice it doesn't move. Now let me tell you, I drive a 1963 Ford Fairlane 500 260-V8 engine. My car is NOT quite, you think it would have scurried away.

As I proceed to creep up to it, I realize the eyes are beaming red. I do a double take and actually blink my eyes to make sure I'm seeing this correctly. Totally realize it's FAKE!!! haaaaaaaaa

Such a great story I had to share.

Oh and this morning my husband asked, "when are you going to start working on your halloween stuff?" - This is a sign! I need to push some things aside from my very busy life and get crack'n. My goals this year were to make my tombstones sturdy and finish mounting my corpsed skeletons that I made last year. I've completed so many personal goals so far this year, I can make time for the fun ones.

Motel Hell ~ Room 101

101 days till Halloween, 63 days till set up!

Time is coming near and it's starting to freak me out a bit. I have a lot on my plate for the next coming weeks up and through October. I did get to finish my corpsing and started on a new project (shown below). I also made a fog chiller out of items already in my garage! Next going to work on the peppers ghost. As well as re-vamping some of the store bought ground breakers.

This is me here with the last corpsed blucky!




This is a project I'm currently working on. He will be painted and attached to some sort of body. I will share my step by step instructions within the next week or two.




Last but not least, pumpkins are growing well, no actual pumpkins yet, flowers are there and they are just lush as all hell! My loving werewolf, Tim is also getting into spirit and is making a two headed skeleton 4 legged spider thing. It's massive! Not for halloween though, but just another oddity to add to the house.

I can't smell halloween in the air just yet, but damn it there are scarecrows and pumpkins on the shelves at the store already!

Love,
the madame

Werewolves & Vampires

Got my books in the mail last week. So excited, I totally fell in love with this one.
http://www.howtohauntyourhouse.com Low and behold the 2nd Edition came out just days later. So next on the list is to order that ghoulish delight too!

My werewolf, Tim also loved it. We are going to attempt the pepper's ghost! I'm so excited!!! The Werewolf also gave me a few ideas for this halloween as far as setting up props and bringing some out closer to the day of just to freak out the kids a lil more. I love my werewolf!

This weekend was gorgeous! Was in the garage and fixed my zombie and I'm still working on this guy, but came to the conclusion that I really need to purchase a soldering iron to finish the job.


I also fixed this large animated spider I picked up from one of those craigslist jackpot adds.

This weekend I would like to finish up the corpsing and work on the fog chiller. For you...117 more days to go for me set up starts in 79 more days!!!

You were wishing I was your vampire,
madame jen

Tricks and Treats

So I often snoop around craigslist for halloween stuff. I ran into another good one right before I went on vacation. I think I just might have hit the jackpot (again). Family was cleaning out their basement and the father was super into halloween. They had spent a good penny on the stuff, and I got it for next to nothing. Come October I will send them pictures, knowing their unwanted halloween items went to a good home. Favorites in these pictures is the entrance way to the cemetary, spirit ball (large), small coffin, creepy tree, life size bat, and some ground breakers. More altering and corpsing coming my way, and all unwanted items will be donated to my good friends.

So over the weekend I met a very nice lady via craigslist. She was selling all of her halloween decor for a whopping $50. She had one prop that was used once and still in the box that was worth $60, so the way I look at it is I bought one prop and got a shit load for free. Ok so I have a lot of stuff, but offered to go through the things this lady gave me and give to a few friends after I sort through it all. After all I don’t need the majority of what she gave me, yet then again I’m a crafter and will be revamping and or recreating with some of the stuff.

The thing that makes me peeved, is on two different occasions this weekend I had to hear that I’m a hoarder? Really??? Have you seen them shows? First off, it’s a hobby of mine, halloween, haunting, decorating and the entire essence of halloween excites me. I can recall my parents telling me when I was a child "you can have as many cats as you want when you move out into your own house". Well if by cats they meant tombstones and skeletons so be it! I take great pride in my halloween display and it takes a lot of time (my time with NO help from anyone). FYI: My house is clean, my bills are paid, food is in the fridge, kids are clothed, and I have a job. Most importantly my husband loves me and doesn’t have a problem with it, so mind your own fucking business. It would be like telling my husband he’s got too many paint brushes, or telling my son he's got too many video games, or my daughter she's got too many barbies.

So if your planning on having some type of talk with me or intervention maybe you should re-think this cause your not going to be happy with what I have to say in return... You can always take a step into the complaint department, there are two middle fingers awaiting your arrival.

On a good note there are only 187 days left till Halloween. Within the next few weeks I’m going to be corpsing my bucky’s, exciting!!!! Will post up pics when finished. For now here are some stills from my halloween jackpot I hit this weekend.

OCD

Only 7 more months till Halloween. Yes, I think I have OCD when it comes to Halloween. I've been thinking about Halloween for well over several months now. Where to find bargains online and how to build props of my very own. I want to improve my Halloween display and make it more realistic looking. I've been on this website non-stop http://www.halloweenmonsterlist.info/ gathering up new ideas. I love when people share their projects!!!

Rewinding back to October 31, 2009, we had a Halloween party that turned out great, I used dry ice for my very first time. Next time I wont make so many sweets. I had so many cupcakes and cake left over. All my ghoulish guests loved the hot food I served. A fellow witch by the name of Jessica shared her receipe for pumpkin seeds, they turned out awesome, I winded up making several to-go-bags. Since Halloween lands on a Sunday this year, I am considering having my party on the 29th or the 30th. Oh and note to self not to purchase so much candy, we still have bags hiding in a closet.

Shopping the weekend after Halloween to catch deals! I picked up some spine chilling stuff. Tried to hide most of the things and bought some more plastic storage bins so Tim wouldn't see. *witch cackle* A few items I purchased before Halloween but were broken items in the store I got for a steal, need some love n' care and will be worked on soon.

Last month the kids and I took a little ride through some old cemeteries in Fairburn. Seen some headstones dated back to the early 1800's! We just got back from Clermont, Florida this weekend and to my surprise there was spanish moss growing naturally on the trees. So much of it! The trees looked so creepy, I immediately took notice. Although I forgot to collect some for home, I would love to recreate the look for my tree out front. Make note.... I'll be back!!!!!

Here's a list of my projects for this year:
Corpsing my Bucky's
Making more of the fence I made last year, so the cemetery completely closed in.
Adding finials to the fence
Creating zombie ground breakers - goal is to make things move this year!
(this list will grow, and exists in my Halloween journal)

I think with a little help from Tim's crazy brain and his expertise in art, shits gonna be awesome this Halloween!!!!

Tombstones!!!

This weekend started off pretty dull... the weather wasn't really great, my broom otherwise known as the 61 Falcon was acting ghoulishly evil. So I pulled out paint and started to touch up my walls, doors and boarders. Also take a shot at that glazing project. Well the touchup paint is NOT the same color as my walls and the glazing/faux project kinda went on a sour note because I just wasn't too crazy about it. It looks great from afar but I'm just not sure I want my entire living room looking like that.

So what does Madame Jen do next? She goes back into the garage to put away the paint cans and finds herself staring at (what I thought was 6 boxes) 8 containers of Halloween decor. I took everything down and went through them all. I forgot that I had got some stuff on clearance last year. I had several masks that will work perfect on those mannequin heads! My big ghoul, Dylan's costume from last year is going to be perfect to put to use on my zombie. Oh and my best witch Mandi was on the phone with me, she says I'm a hoarder because I only found 6 bags of moss left over from last year. *cackles* (note to self, you do not need anymore moss for at least 3 years)

Ok so below (and forgive me for uploading these pictures backwards) are the tombstones. As you can see I started off with several tombstones I got at the Dollar Tree, some moss, plastic bugs, and those sticks I steal from my neighbors lawns that come from Scotts lawn service. I used my glue gun to stick the lawn stick onto the back of my tombstone. Remember if your glue gun is hot temp do not put the hot glue on your styrofoam tombstones! Put the glue on your stick and wait a few seconds then place on tombstone. You might want to apply some pressure to ensure it sticks. Remember the reason I use these sticks is because the sticks that come with the tombstones do not do very good in the wind. These sticks I use are perfect and they do not come out of the ground due to high wind and are strong enough to keep them up.

Next, I just play around with the moss. I always like to put some along the bottom. Therefore you do not really see the end of the tombstone touching your grass. It kind of hides it and makes it realistic looking, great effect! I also like to place some green moss into the nooks and crannies on the tombstone and sometimes along the top/sides. I use green moss for the bottom and occasionally I'll use some spanish moss at the top. Just use your glue gun and place wherever...

Last, but not least plastic bugs.... I use spiders, rats, flies, etc.. I didn't use the purple ones only because they don't look that real. I took a close up of the spider on the one tombstone. With my glue gun I made a web effect around the spider. By doing that I just touched the tip of the glue gun to the points and slowly dragged over the glue "string". No need to pull the trigger. Just bring the gun back and forth and down and touch.

The two tombstones shown at the top were bought on clearance last year. They are about 2x bigger than the Dollar Tree ones, I added some larger spiders and a black crow I purchased at the Dollar Tree to them.

Of course that's not ALL I did this weekend.... there's plenty more where this came from! I worked on some creepy jars, worked on my zombie and played with some skulls. Coming soon....

60 more days till Samhain!

Project Pictures

I promised some pictures on the projects I am currently working on and here they are....

The first is my zombie head! Keep in mind this is my very first time using chicken wire. Tools I used was a wire cutter and needle nose pliers. I took the chicken wire and made the formation of a head, using the pliers to bend the ends to close it. Covered it in newspaper, use newspaper and some tape and wrap it like a present. Take your papier mache and go to town. Note: I have done these in all separate steps. One day I made the zombie body (you will see below), another day I started my first layers of the papier mache, and just over the weekend I built the eyes and nose. How I built the eyes and nose, was I took the cover of the phone book bent it into the shape of a circle and taped the end, then taped (masking tape) it to the face, same thing for the nose. Then papier mache and build up the sides of the eyes and nose. That's where I left off as you can see below. This weekend I will make a mouth and build from there until dry, at that point I will paint his face.

This is the zombie torso and arms. I created with chicken wire. Really easy. I'm on the fence right now about doing papier mache over his body or just leaving it be and covering it with his clothes. Depending on what it looks like I don't think I'll have to take that extra step with the papier mache. I'll keep you posted...

Here are some of the mannequin heads we found on craigslist. In the meantime I've placed some cheap fun wigs on her. Still haven't decided exactly what I want to do to her just yet. She eventually will be a zombie but not sure if I want to make it more permanent or use face paint wherein it could be washed off when I'm done and can do something different to her in the upcoming years.

Below is the papier mache skull. I used a plastic skull for the base and wrapped it up in tin foil. The tin foil will keep the papier mache from sticking to my mold. I have done about 5 layers here, I will do a few more to be complete. I will then take an x-acto knife/razor blade and cut the skull in half to remove my mold. Hot glue the skull back together and papier mache it just several more layers until complete. I will then paint it and seal it. Pictures will follow when completed.

Last but not least the cheesecloth! Right now it's folded up. I explained my dying process in my previous blog. I will wait until the 6 storage containers are out of the garage and everything is set up outside to be displayed before I cut/shred it up. I think I'm going to use some on my zombie too.

Hope your all having a ghoulish week!

Cheesecloth and Papier Mache

This weekend I worked on dying the cheesecloth. A fellow witch named Cynthia gave me a great idea to put the cheesecloth in my cauldron and add some tea bags for an old yellow/lt brown look. I added 6 tea bags into the cauldron, 5 yards of cheesecloth and left it sitting overnight. The following morning I took it out and it wasn't as dark as I would have liked so I just added some more tea bags. Thanks to Cynthia I saved a few bucks buying tan/brown dye. :)

I had picked up some black RIT several weeks ago and put that into my sink and added the other cheesecloth's that I had and that came out a really neat grey/purple color. I had about 9 yards in there and left it sitting for about 30 min.

Started back on my papier mache zombie face. I added eyes and a nose and more layers to the head.

Cleaning out your fridge makes for good halloween finds too! I took several condiment glass jars that were almost empty and maybe had one or two pickles left in it. I think I had about 3 glass jars of pepperoncinis. I cleaned them out, submerged them in hot water and let them sit for a while, until the labels came off. Glass jars make for great witch potion jars and/or specimen jars for a lab scene.

On Sunday morning I was helping one of my ghouls organize her room. In her toy box I found some rubber snakes, rubber roaches and some vampire teeth! I was excited and thought it would make great additions to some of my skeleton projects.

So pictures will be uploaded this week. My Frankenstein left the cord to the camera at his work but, will return it this evening so I can upload some of my projects thus far. Can't wait to share!

Until next time... happy hauntings!

Hunt for Halloween

This past weekend I took the kids on a Halloween Hunt, we basically hit every store in town for Halloween goods. The big stores, like Target and Walmart only have "fall" stuff out. No Halloween goodies but, low and behold Michael's had all their stuff out. We checked out Big Lots and Dollar tree too. Big Lots and the Dollar Tree just started to put their stuff out. So there was little on the shelves.

We picked up some black crows from Michael's because it was 30% off. Michael's had some ok stuff. Not worth buying at the original price though. If you buy something from Michael's they will give you a coupon with your receipt to come back the following week for 40% one regular priced item. Not bad... Or you can even go online, sign up for their newsletter and every week they will email you with basically the same coupon. Sometimes they email you with a 50% off coupon or like Sunday they had a 25% off your entire purchase coupon. Oh and by the way they had a Martha Stewart Halloween collection of craft stuff which was actually pretty nice... we all know Martha is a true goth at heart!

The Dollar Tree simply amazes me. We picked up some cool skeleton heads, more moss, fall leaves, Halloween signs, a bag of plastic bugs, skeleton garland (which was super cool), and the most amazing was the butchered bloody hands and feet. Those things are at least $10 at Spirit or Party City. Oh and picked up some super kewl skeleton plates, bowls & cups - cause that's just good all year round!

Last place we went to was Home Depot, we picked up some cheesecloth which was $2.59 for 4 yards! They sell that at Michael's for at least $6.99, not even as big. We also picked up some wooden stakes to build our fence for the cemetery. The cost on the fence will run us about $34 (which includes fence, posts, nails, and black flat spray paint.) Oh and I picked up some chicken wire, because I started making the body to my zombie. Pictures will soon follow....

On Sunday, we went to this ladies house and picked up mannequin heads. She was selling them for a few bucks a piece so we picked up 6. They kinda look like Trya Banks but we will morph Tyra into a zombie. Pictures to follow...

So word of advice for today is: If you shop at a particular store, go online and sign up! They will email you coupons! Check your local dollar tree store for creepy good finds! Last but not least, do your homework on the smaller stuff like for instance the cheesecloth. Gives a super cool effect to your haunted house/cemetery and adds great ambiance. Buying things at the hardware store is MUCH cheaper, maybe you have to put some of your time into it but, think of the quality time you get to spend with your ghouls at home putting it together.

Happy Hauntings!

Halloween

I know we're still in August but, I guess because I live in Georgia now I can actually sense the season change. I wanted to start a blog about the stuff I'm doing for Halloween and since I've gotten some ideas from some really nice folks who shared their own ideas online. I figured it would only be fair to share some of my own.

Since I've been on my own and out of my parents house, I've always wanted to have a spookiest house on Halloween (besides the spookiness that's inside all year round). I wanted to be just like those Christmas freaks that dress up their houses in lights, reindeer's, and Santa's, but having skeletons, blood, tombstones, coffins, etc.... I recall being a little girl and there was a police officer at the end of my street and he had the scariest shit in his yard. His whole sidewalk was lined up with bloody heads. I guess you can call it a fascination. Any hoot, I've lived in apartments up until I moved to Georgia (3 years ago) where I could finally unleash my fascination. You can only decorate the outside of an apartment so much. At your own house and your own yard you can do what ever the hell you want!!! *evil grin*

So here it begins....

About 2 weeks ago I got on a Halloween kick! Searching on props & decorations online. Some props can be super costly, and some you can just make on your own! My thought on starting this was to give some tips, maybe some people can even share their own tips. Tips on creating, diy, ideas, saving, etc...

For instance, a few years ago I purchased some of those foam tombstones from the dollar store. Well last year I got some moss and plastic spiders and dressed them up a bit. Just by taking a glue gun, a bag of moss from the dollar store and some plastic spiders I had from the past years spider web (which we always throw out when we're done, just keep the spiders it comes with). You can pick up the same bag of moss from the dollar store, they sell it at Michael's or any other craft store for $2.59 and up! One bag of moss will go a long way.

The other thing I did last year was I kinda stole the Scott's Grass notifications off my neighbors lawns. It's just that stupid black stick with a flag (people throw it in the trash anyway). Ok back to the point. You know how those dollar store tombstones never stay in the ground or the metal prongs it comes with to stick in the ground is super flimsy and/or break? Well I took the Scott's Grass sticks and glued them with my glue gun to the back. It works PERFECT! PS: If your using a hot glue gun make sure it's cool, hot glue will burn right through that foam. ;)

Another thing that was pretty cool that the kids discovered was when I was playing with the glue gun and tacking the spiders on the tombstone, the glue made a web "look" as I would take it away and attach. So I actually started playing with the glue gun and made a bunch of spiderwebs at the corner of the tombstones. FYI: They are selling webcasters (freak'n glue guns) for $50 bucks! You can buy a glue gun for several bucks at a craft store or you might have one handy around the house.


So that's it for this discussion. I'll continue with another blog on great Halloween dollar store finds! Finding coupons online, and my prop creations.

Feel free to leave spooktacular comments!