Halloween Craziness

2009 Theme

2009-01-25T11:23:00.001-08:00

2009's Halloween Theme is to be the Wizard of Oz. If the economy picks up we have a layout planned as well as props and characters for Halloween 2009. We won't make a decision on this one until June or July. Although it's a lot of work and money I am very hopeful that we will have the resources and time to pull this one off. Dad has volunteered to be a character this year and since he hasn't been involved in the past I really want to give him the chance. :)

Fairy Tales Halloween 2008

2009-01-10T14:25:00.001-08:00

I've decided to update this blog to include 2008's Halloween Theme. We had a great time. We built a cinderella coach out in the driveway for photo ops. The first themed room was from Snow White with the Evil Queen and the Magic Mirror. Second Room was Little Red Riding Hood we had red and the wolf dressed up as Grandma in Grandma's bedroom. Third room was a forest with a gingerbread house from Hansel & Gretel and the last room was the forest from Alice in Wonderland with Alice and the Hookah Caterpillar in residence. We had several other fairy tale characters wandering such as The Queen of Hearts, Merlin, Headless Horseman, Mary Poppins, etc.

finished caterpillar

2008-10-23T19:10:00.001-07:00

finished caterpillar
Originally uploaded by bonsid

Mike's costume is finished and ready for Halloween.

Our 2008 Stuff is on Ning too

2008-07-01T17:13:00.001-07:00

View my page on Crazy for Halloween

Fairy Tales

2008-06-03T08:50:00.001-07:00

This year we are going to be using a Fairy Tale theme. There will be a lot of interactivity and surprises for our Trick or Treaters and possibly a canned food drive. If you'd like to participate in the build over the summer, or as an actor on Halloween night, you might wish to visit

http://pumpkinsnthings.ning.com

our social network for the event and for anyone who likes Halloween. :) We will be running most of our updates at ning.

2007-11-07T04:48:00.000-08:00

Now that we are done with Halloween and just clean up remains I thought I would post links to additional photos and video from our Harry Potter Halloween.
This link is to our photos at flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7420144@N07/

This link is to a sometimes dark video walk through posted on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtKG7O_DrDc

The Crazineness Ends, For Now At Least

2007-11-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

We had an extremely busy few days completing our outside preparations for Halloween. The feature on the local CBS channel 9&10 News went really well. Kailee and Corey (the reporter and cameraman) were great, very friendly and very professional. The result was a lot more people attending, at times we had people lined up down our driveway and down the block to the school. Exhausting but fun. With the exception of a few angst ridden teenagers, we had a pretty happy crowd. We owe big thanks to Amanda, Eva, Wendy, Ken, Danielle, Mike, Sam, Travis, and Christine for playing characters and doing such a great job. And of course to Amanda for all her hard work on this project!!!
Danielle helped frequently too. Pics are final of the train, and characters as they finished getting into costume. Also young Mr. Potter gets sorted by Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape prepares to hand out potions.

2007-10-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

The train is about done now. We have 6 wheels painted and ready to attach in the morning.
It will have steam coming out of the stack, it's own light, and train sound effects.

2007-10-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

2007-10-28T18:33:00.001-07:00

Later today all the parts were on the train but we need to router the wheels and the front and paint them before attaching them in final form.

2007-10-28T14:12:00.001-07:00

We are in the middle of making the train. The fog machine and pvc have already been mounted inside. We are going to add routered foam to the front and foam wheels to the bottom sides and then plastic tarping on the tank and everything left to paint black will get painted black. Then we have to hang the dementor in the cemetery, paint the back of the caboose and finishing hanging curtains in all the doorways...that's it folks. Almost ready.

2007-10-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Amanda is working on a stack of teacups for Professor Trelawney's classroom. She started making these from styrofoam coffee cups last night.

2007-10-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

Finally got a refund from Haunted Props this week. Two months after placing the order. At least that's over with.
Last night I started painting the base of the train but ran out of paint so I will have to get back to it tonight (if it doesn't rain - I swear I expect to see Noah around here lately).
I came inside and made the sign for the front of the train. Attached are pics of the sign in its various stages of completion. I painted the gold letters and trim this morning. The sign is made from pink foamboard.

2007-10-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

We're putting the finishing touches on things, installing lights on walls, adding decorations, and trying to finish the engine and the caboose. Above are pics of the lolly tree I made (ugly but effective) for the candy cart, and the smoke stack for the train (made from a plastic waste basket). We will be feeding the pvc from the fog machine up through the stack where it will vent out. Breaking news, I may have to remove Dumbledore's eyes as we may have a person to play the part of Dumbledore and a person playing Mad Eye Moody. Will know more within a day or so. Also we are to be featured on the local morning news. Not all of the actors/Hogwarts staff members can be present for this but hopefully a few will be.

Cemetary almost done

2007-10-20T23:23:00.001-07:00

Tonight we finished putting up tombstones and cemetery fence. The only thing missing from the cemetery room now is the hanging moving dementor. Pictures are with and without flash to show detail and effect.

2007-10-17T17:28:00.001-07:00

Dumbledore sitting in his chair finally.

Time is Running Short

2007-10-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

We built Dumbledore's chair tonight and as soon as the paint is dry on it he will be seated there...we compromised on the spires for the outside of the chair and instead used some bedposts that had not gone on the ship last year. Jim built the car front and wired it tonight as well, but until we have it painted and the bumper and tires are attached I'm not taking a photo.

2007-10-13T22:14:00.000-07:00

Amanda and I finished the walls in Dolores' office tonight. I added eyes to Dumbledore's mask today as well.
Animation of finished Dolores office without desk.

2007-10-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Amanda and I painted most of the lines for the bricks and Amanda airbrushed using a stencil on the curtains.
They look much better now.

2007-10-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

Did some airbrushing on the curtains in Dolores' office tonight. I have one area that you will see on the window curtains that needs to dry and then get a touch up..for some reason I hit a patch of paint that was more watered down at that point.
I still have to put the stencils on the curtains too. Then paint in the lines for the bricks and airbrush in their detail.

2007-10-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to putting out a body for Dumbledore and dressing him so that his mask can stretch out a little. I also put Voldemort's mask out to stretch as well as the Sorting Hat. Don't like the table cloth I originally got for the long table so I used a large piece of red fabric.
Pics below.
We are just now getting cold weather after the heat wave last weekend and I think it's time to put the outside summer lights and swings away. Maybe this weekend.

2007-10-08T17:50:00.001-07:00

We built the walls for Dolores Umbridge's office and foam boarded them in. It will be brick with pink patterned curtains, a stone archway coming in and a flatter archway leading out.
The outer door will be the doorway coming out of the caboose of the train.
I have some stencils and after all the base paint dries I plan to start painting in the bricks on the walls and the texture and patterns to the curtains. I have another small project to finish that has nothing to do with Halloween and that might hold me up this week.
We also put some of the masks out to stretch on dummy heads...need to get Voldemort's out and stretched as well so will have to dig out a skeleton to place it on.
Last night I found out we lost our Voldemort character, he suddenly realized he was using all his vacation time for a trip to China and therefore could not take a day off to play Voldemort.
More notice would have been greatly appreciated...only 3 weeks or so till Halloween.
Anyway pics attached are of the base coating on the walls of Dolores' office and of the masks sitting out to stretch.

2007-10-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

On August 24, 2007 I ordered 2 Howlers from HauntedProps.com with the understanding based on the website listing that they would actually ship out September 1st. It is now October 2nd and they still haven't even shipped to me. I've tried a couple of times to cancel the order with no response from the company. The website just says call or email for status. Now I've had to file a credit card dispute to try to get my funds back. I'll never order from this company again. Everyone else that I have ordered from this year has been GREAT, Alivans, Buycostumes, Amerimark, WarnerBrothers, MonsterMakers, just to name a few. I thought HauntedProps would be ok because they advertise that they've been featured by Jay Leno and Discovery Channel, once again I've been taken in by advertising.

2007-10-01T17:05:00.001-07:00

We made some changes to Trelawney's room and the greenhouse last night. Hung the beaded curtain in the doorway which will also have a black curtain behind it, hung some more curtains on the walls and ceiling, also took pics of the newly painted teapot and cups and a view looking back at the Greenhouse now that the huge table is out of the way and some plants are beginning to appear on the shelves of the greenhouse.

2007-10-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I got out to the garage and finished painting in scenes in the cemetery. We are leaving a couple of walls blank so that people can focus their attention on the main scene and along the outer walls...it will be as if they are walking outside the cemetery fence, safely out of reach.
I'm attaching 3 pics...The walk through begins with the riddle tombstone, then the tree in the corner and then along the wall to the continuation of the physical fence (painted on the wall for the last section due to space constraints) and the dementors on the wall. There will be tombstones and voldemort in the main cemetery behind the fence and an animated dementor hanging above the painted ones. The pictures are in order bottom to top, the last picture shows our physical cemetary fence and some of the tombstones from previous years which we will be using in the display...note the physical fence matches the painted fence in size and look.

2007-09-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Greg, Amanda and I did some more work in the dining hall, we put in the star lights, the night sky, and the floating candles as well as cleaned out bikes and put up what will be the dining table.

More Pics

2007-09-29T08:44:00.001-07:00

Pics are of our little Harry Potter, the owl is cut and repainted to be Hedwig, plates decorated and strung together for Dolores' Office, brooch for McGonagall costume, Hagrid costume, 3.5 inch platform boots for Hagrid, part of the cemetary walls, a corner of Trelawney's room. Update, all cemetary room walls are up and painted deep blue, 2 walls have murals, the tree is standing in the corner as can be seen on an earlier post, and I am preparing to paint an extension of the cemetary fence (we will have a physical fence there) and possibly the maze on the cemetary walls. We will probably have 2 walls in the cemetary that are just plain blue with no murals on them, total walls in that room are 7.

2007-09-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is just going to be a post with older pics since I removed all the previous blogs. Pics are of Trelawney's room, one walls has chairs and tables for students..have since added tea pot and stacked tea cups to that wall, second wall in Trelawney's room with wanted poster of Sirius Black, Dobby made from clay, cotton, latex and a cheap store skeleton, Mandrake made from clay and latex with silk leaves, Wendy in costume as McGonagall, Riddle Tombstone with reaper statue for cemetary wall, fireplace with Sirius Black's face in Trelawney's classroom (I know it belonged in the common room but we wanted to replace the existing fireplace pic.

2007-09-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

We're making progress. I started putting up wall decorations in the dining hall. When it is done there will be a long dining table, food and platters on top, a dark blue night sky with stars twinkling in it and floating candles above the table. Dumbledore will be seated at the table and possibly Professor Snape as well. McGonagall will be standing next to a stool with the sorting hat in front of the table.
Placed some fall leaves on the greenhouse roof for color and depth still have to skirt the workbench bottom and place the remaining greenery in pots to go with the mandrakes.
I put the last of the cemetary room walls in place including the archway and now we can paint those dark blue to match the rest of the room and possibly paint some murals on those walls. We have 2 of the 4 walls up in Dolores Umbridge's office. The last may have to be modular to allow access to that garage bay as the other bay is closed off for the season.

2007-09-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Had way too many other posts before...and not enough time to maintain them.
This may become sporadic, since I try to spend every spare moment working on our display, which makes it harder to update posts. We've got 4 out of 5 rooms in the garage built. Some minor decorating touches remain to be done on the first 4 rooms, and of course we will add characters closer to Halloween. Here are some views of interior walls, it is impossible to get a full picture of the inside of the greenhouse as there is no room to stand back far enough to take one...perhaps when we are done using workbenches for tools I will have the necessary room. The tree was the brain child of Christine and Amanda and I worked on completely it during the week. I have to repaint the hill line to the left of the tree to make it look right. The pink foam walls you see are the outside of the greenhouse. We had to wall in above the roof line to prevent the bright light inside the greenhouse from spilling out into the darker area of the cemetary. The space between the front of the garage and the pink walls will be enclosed to become Dolores Umbridge's office, the outside of which will be the caboose and exit from the display.
We have re-used drywall and some studs from last year, but had to purchase many more studs and lots of pink foam board to be able to put up walls this year. Went from 2 rooms to 5, plus all of the actual garage walls are being foamed or drywalled up too.