Halloween Haunting 101: Outdoor Displays

We decorated the outside of our house this past weekend and man oh man was it brutal! 

Florida heat and sunshine is just unrelenting! 😓

I blistered my foot and scorched my skin so bad 😔 I also had a touch of heat stroke halfway through the day. Such madness! 

In the end, after two days, we finished and I think the final product is well worth it all! ☺️

  
There were a few major issues, for one, Gemmy really needs to consider some sort of long term warranty for inflatables. Our large animated organ inflatable is losing air because the heat down here has worn down the fabric. 😔 makes me sad because it’s beautiful and now it’s only inflating the organ and platforms, but our dancers are just falling limp after a short while. 💔

On the upside, my Dad insisted on rigging it up to at least stand under our porch. ☺️💜

  
Overall, our biggest wow factor are the stand up props and gravestones I made! 🎉😀🎃💜 lighting has also added major awesome points to our display! I spent the money and bought a Fire and Ice LED Spotlight in Toxic Green from Spirit Halloween, and I have to say it may be one of my favorite new things this year!  Great swirling green light with flecks of orange, wide range, and stays cool to the touch! Gorgeous little thing! 💜💜🎃

  
So, itchy sunburn and chaos aside, I really love our display this year! And our neighbors lost it when we decorated! They love it! Their daughter sits in the front yard in the evening waiting for us to turn on our lights! 💜💜💜 So sweet! 🎃☺️

VIDEO: Walk through my yard with me! 

So, what do you think? Did you decorate yet? I’d love to see! ☺️💜

💜🎃💜

-Sarah

Halloween Haunting 101: Prop Building for Beginners

I’ve been swamped (as mentioned in my last post), currently I’m sitting here watching Night Gallery, covered in paint and black dye. 😔

Tired.😴

The last few weeks have been spent working on my first attempts at prop building! 🎃🎉

I was really dead set on finally getting around to trying my hand at making my own spooky decor as I’ve always wanted to, and experience in prop building could prove useful in the future if I finally decide to pursue my dream of owning my own Haunted Attraction. ☺️😌💜

Fun Fact: My lifelong dream/goal is to open my own Haunted Theme park. There’d be haunted houses, cute Halloween villages, kiosks selling candy apples and pumpkin flavored everything, sfx artists doing face mangling, bars, and nightly shows, and parades! Think Disneyland but scary/horror/Halloween all year long!💜🎃💜

I feel as though this first attempt has been fairly successful! 

I carved out these stones in insulation foam and painted them with Rit Black Dye and light touches of grey spray paint. ☺️

   
    
 Overall, they weren’t too difficult, just time consuming. I also learned a lot about the properties of Rit Dye 😂 but, in the end I think it was worth it! 😌

I had remnants so I tried my hand at a tabletop Guillotine for our little visitors Halloween night! 😂🎃💜

  
I also decided to try making a few static standup props. 

  

These were harder as I had trouble stuffing and securing the clothes to the PVC frames. I feel like they would have been way better if I had longer fabric to work with and some Monster Mud to cover them. 😔 in the end, working with what I had and bought on the cheap seemed to still be effective! ☺️👍🏻

   
   
So! What’d you think? Which of these is your favorite? Tips? Ideas for this stuff? I’d love to hear! 💜

💜🎃💜

-Sarah 

After Midnight No. 6

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest and YouTube as of late, due to my Halloween prepping and search for interesting things to share here.

See? I’m always thinking you.☺️💜

I think this year I really want to take our Halloween decor to the next level by adding more props. As of now, I’ve already decided on a a grand to-do list of static props I want to make for the yard, which includes gravestones and figures.

Fun fact: My ultimate goal in life is to own my own Haunt and scare people near and far… all year round. I’d want it to be the horror equivalent of Disneyworld.🎃

I spent 4 hours on YouTube last night looking at Monster Mud videos. Yes, I’m also shocked that interests me to such a degree.😂

I’ve also been pretty into special fx makeup as of late as well. I’d like to up my game on that as well this year and so far, (my Carver makeup was pretty boss) so good.😏

I was on Pinterest and saw these.

Artist: Kyle Pasciutti, Cheshire, CT

I don’t know what it is but the cards are just so aesthetically pleasing to me! 😍 I love both of these makeups. Unfortunately, there are no tutorials but I reckon it’s pretty straightforward and I can just wing it by the looks of things.☺️💪🏻

I won’t be doing that tonight, but I think tomorrow night’s After Midnight will be devoted to a run through of one of these looks.😆🎉

What do you guys think? I’m new to this special fx makeup stuff but I’m hoping to learn some great stuff from these DIY tests! Out of these two looks, which should I try? Or should I make up my own from the inspiration found here? Tips? Tricks?

I’m all ears.💜☺️

💜🎃💜

-Sarah