Goodby Izzy

We had to put Izzy down today. He was not going to recover and he was suffering. I will miss him greatly.

Halloween!!!!

Halloween was a success this year again. I did not get every thing done that I wanted too, but that is normal. I prefer to wait till the 31st to put up some of my decorations to keep them safe. But I now have too much stuff to do in one day. Next year I will need to decided what I can safely put put earlier.

Day Time Shot

My wife carved a really nice pumpkin. This pattern is one of my favorites. I should have taken a better picture. A night shot would have been a good idea too. I need to review my shots before moving on.

Next up is the crow in a bird cage. His eye glow green and am MP3 player plays a sound track of crow sounds. I made this prop a few years ago. I found the cage on the side of the road. The bird I bought on clearance. I then downloaded several crow sounds  and mixed them into a single mp3.

This prop I made this year. It is a Gibbet cage. It is made from strips of PVC plastic spray painted black, then dry brushed with silver paint. It needs more silver dry brushing and maybe some dry brushing with some rust covered paint.

The entrance to the Crypt.

More to come

The Mausoleum.

My grave yard, like all good grave yards has a mausoleum. It will have a black light lit ghost that moves around. It is my version of a common ghost prop is called a Flying Crank Ghost (FCG). I don't have any videos of my ghost in motion, but here is a YouTube video of someone else's.

The mausoleum will also have a flaming cauldren hanging on each side of the doorway. I don't put them on until Hallowen night.

I will try to get a good night time picture of my mausoleum this year and post it.

The wood pannel's are in real bad shape. The wood was not meant for exterior use but did last serveral years.I will patch and repaint them soon. Maybe next year I will replace them. It costs about $10 per sheet of 4x8 Luan plywood. I would need at least two new sheets to fix the mausoleum. I also could replace a couple sheets on the Crypt as well.  Luan is not meant for outside either, but if you pant it real well it works OK. I used Luan for the Crypt and it has lasted for over five years. Several of those times I have left it up till spring.

Here are some in progress photos of the mausoleum.

I am thinking about adding a gate to the doorway of the mausoleum. I also need to rebuild the FCG. I bought a new motor for it and the frame needs done better.

The Crypt

Last weekend I began work on The Crypt. Every year I enclose part of the front porch to make crypt. I am getting a late start on this project this year. We are having gutters put on our house and I could not start until they were finished.

Normally I frame out the space with 2x2's and cover the frame with sheets of thin plywood. This would take most of a day and maybe more.

This is a picture of part of the frame from a few years ago.

Partial frame.

This year I am making some changes to speed up the process. I have permanently attached a frame of 1x2' directly to the sheets of plywood. Not having to build a frame for the sheets of plywood each year should speed up the process. This also makes nice and sturdy panels. The wind and the rain this time of  year can get rough on the sheets of plywood. I anchor these panel's to the corner post of the porch and to each other.

See our new gutters and down spout. I will try to cover the down spout with black cloth to hide it.

Three panel's from the outside

Three panel's from the inside

Four panel's from the inside

Part of doorway panel

When two panels meet without a corner post to support them, I do something like in this photo. See red circle.

This year the project still took a long time because I spent a lot of time triming the sheets of plywood and attaching the frame pieces to the plywood. But next year it should go much quicker.

Next I will need to finish the doorway, paint all the new wood, add some exterior molding I made to hide the gaps to the top of the panels, and wire the inside of the crypt for electricity. Then I can begin decorating the inside of the crypt.

The Experiment

Part of my Halloween display is  the crypt. The crypt has some shelves with jars filled with ghoulish items. Below is a picture of last years items.

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After Halloween last year I bought 3 "Freaky Growing Skeletons". They expand when you place them in water. It can take up to 72 hours for them to grow to to full size. When done I will place some florescent fluid in the water and shine a black on light on the jar to make the water glow.

Label From Package

The Setup

The skeleton starts out about 9 inches tall and according to the package will grow 600%.

I just added it to the jar full of water.

After 24 hours....

And finally three days later.

I think I will try put him in a smaller jar. There is still to much empty space.

My Visitor

This is Izzy, the neighbors 100 year old cat. He and I have been buddies for a long while but it took a long time before he would trust me. But I wore him down

He spends most of his time hiding in the bushes across the street. Many times when I am in the front yard he will meow at me. I meow back and comes running over to see me. He lets me pet him for a while then sits down a few feet from me and just hangs out.

This is the first time I have ever take a good picture of him. He would look cool sitting in my grave yard but I can't lure him in when I have the camera. But I will keep trying.

Cemetery Gate

I finally added a gate to my cemetery. Previously I had a single piece of fencing across the space. For the past several years I have had to climb over the fence or disconnect it to get through. This will be much better and look nicer.

I will be adding handles to the gates and then painting it all black soon.