I LOVE MY WIFE!

So things have been pretty busy around the Manor lately, but not in the Halloween sort of way. I’ve been feeling very anxious as of late because the blog has been neglected, no new props have been built, I’ve missed like a million Make and Take meetings (ok, maybe two or three actually), and all of our blog and forum friends think we’ve died or fallen off the face of the earth!

So, I’m a little stressed out about a hobby I love and enjoy so much. Feel like I’m letting people down. Then I get this in my email at work from my beautiful, loving, and understanding wife:

THAT’S THE SIGN!

This is like seeing the first flower of spring or the first snowfall of the winter. When Dixie starts thinking this way and put’s pen to paper, that’s the first sign of the Prop Season! My favorite season of the year!

Can’t wait for this weekend to get started!

Easter Bunny Hates You!

 

Have a Happy Easter everyone!

The Best of the Best: Skull Shoppe

It is with great honor that we are finally able to blog about a dear friend of ours with amazing talent and a new online store.

If you ever hang out at Hauntforum.com, then the works at this shoppe will be very familiar to you. These are the amazing works of sculptor extraordinaire Scourge from the forums. The man has a true passion for sculpting accurate and realistic skulls. He has been wowing us in the forums with his talent for quite sometime. He also happens to be an extremely nice guy!

So please support a fellow haunter and show the man some love this haunting season!

Congratulations on your new web store Scourge!

Alice….

Did anyone go see it last night?

Was it awesome?  Everything you hoped for?

Am I going to survive 10 more hours til I can drag Jayson to take me to see it?

Oh and I just love Helena Bonham Carter, that’s why I chose a shot of her and not Depp above (although I adore him too!).  She is amazing!!

FYI

You might have noticed that I (being Dawn) have been a little scarce lately.  Well, just humor me and ACT like you noticed that.  ;)

I started a new girlie blog of my very own, because believe it or not, I really like decorating my home in bright vibrant colors, and I rarely (ok never) get to talk about that on this blog.  Jayson would kill me and use me as a prop in the haunt if I did that.

So, I have been putting some time into getting my new blog up and running, the web design of it all has taken longer than the posts themselves!

Not that any of you would be remotely interested, but the page is called Wacky Whimsy and can be found here.  (Well, except for Frog Queen, who, bless her heart, was my first non-family member follower, LOL  Thank you for that!)

Jayson told me this morning (in a voice that screamed “traitor!”) that since I have all but quit posting on NickolsManor lately, that I should just combine the two and call it Wacky Manor.  I died laughing.

We would be the only blog in the (short) history of blogging to lose every one of their followers in one day.  So don’t worry, he was just joking.  Just know that I’m still here, just a bit scarce for a bit.

Happy Sunday, hope it is fairly warm where you are!

Oh, and….. GO SAINTS!  (sorry, had to say it!)

A Bad Theme Idea.

Sitting around, surfing the internet mindlessly, I somehow start thinking… ok, so here goes – another mental mind train you have to follow:

1.  How much the hubby likes The Davis' Calvin & Hobbes Christmas display

2.  How even though we try to do Christmas yard displays here, they NEVER come to fruition

3.  Wouldn’t it be fun to do something like that for Halloween one year then?

4.  Can’t do cute.  Can’t do grave bloody injustices to Calvin or Hobbes either.  Just aint fittin’.

5.  What other comical characters could I slaughter without warping the mind of a 4 year old?

6.  4 year olds aren’t allowed to watch The Simpsons because Bart is a Bad Influence.

7.  The Haunting of Springfield… Yes, Thats IT!  We can do foam or plywood cut outs of all the Springfield folks – they are easily recognizable, we can still use our graves since some will be Simpson zombies…. (notice, this is all coming out in the same number 7, because my mind was working so fast now) and… and…  Bart can be stabbing Lisa, and Maggie can be killing Krusty the Clown – bludgeoning him with a baby bottle, and… and… I could do all the painting and it will be big eye balls and a lot of yellow skin with blood all over it, and wow, that would be funny AND scary.

I guess someone on the internet already thought of it.  Oh well.

Repeat 1-7 to Hubby without taking a breath, and just WATCH him stare at you like you forgot to take your meds this morning.  (“Not in MY yard, you don’t” I could just HEAR him say, although he didnt say a word, LOL)

Back to the drawing board.

01-01-10

That title looks like binary, doesn’t it?  This 2010 stuff is just freaking me out.  Where’s our rocket ship cars, and our robot maid’s? 

On this first day of the year, I wanted to make a short post, no tutorials, or pictures…. no Prop do’s and don’ts….

I wanted to thank every single person that has become a follower of our little space on the web… I know how precious time is, and I am truly honored that you take even a moment from your day to read what Jayson and I have written.

I have said it many times, and I really believe this – the haunt community has some of the most kind and creative, talented and MacGuyver-Like people I have ever had the opportunity to be around.  Thank you for everything you have taught me in 2009, and know that I am looking so forward to spending 2010 with you.

Happy New Year!

Dixie’s Secret Santa Can Suck It Gift…

I had the awesome opportunity to be able to BUY for our gracious host, Cobwebs of Shadow Manor.  What’s really cool about that is I get to give her MORE because she is our host, so I have an unlimited budget.  The web is my playground and here I go.

The fun part about shopping for someone with an incredible blog, such as Shadow Manor is that her Wish List is laid out day by day… for the last 2 1/2 years or something like that.  So not only did I get to take a step back in time and relive some of her great posts, I got to pick and choose my gifts to her from amongst things I read she liked!

I start off with a stocking by the hearth…. because of COURSE, its a Secret SANTA, and everyone knows he comes via the computer chimney.

PS.  This picture is stolen from the internet.  Use your imagination people.

PSS.  Just imagine that one of those stockings says Cobwebs, ok?  Don’t make me drag out the Photoshop.

PSSS.  Don’t ever type in “Halloween Stockings” into Google.  Some of them aren't the kind of stockings to hang on the mantle, and some of them should not be squeezed onto the leg that is in the picture.  *shivers*

Ok, Cobwebs… open your stocking!

   Yes, the awesome Chandelier nightlight she found at Target.  Coolness.

An awesome Zombie toy.  Who doesn't need a dismantle-the-zombie toy??

Well, and a $1000 gift certificate to Think Geek because she said she has an unnatural liking of the joint.  (And I have an unlimited budget, yay!)

Ok, and last in her stocking,

I mean, that stupid thing goes in EVERYONE’S stockings, right?!!

Ok, onto the pretty wrapped presents.  woohooo!

From The Mourning Sampler.  This one was my favorite, I hope she likes it too!

(And I hope that stupid copyright thing isn’t on it either, LOL)

Then we have this,

Found here...  It appears to work something like a slinky, only its Regan MacNeil from the Exorcist, and I just think that ROCKS! 

Ok, next is a gift certificate to this place, since I know she likes the shirts, but I’m not sure which one.  While buying the gift certificate for her, I’m buying this one for me, because its my horror favorite movie, and well, I can’t resist.

Onto another favorite item – and something that I know she will like, some of the world famous DeadSpider of Arana Muerta.com Witches Kitchen labels for, well just about anything that she wants!  (Excellent blog, by the way, if you don’t subscribe, you SHOULD!)

Another item that Cobwebs spoke of was GoogleGoth, and I thought it would be great to see what it thought I should get her.  So after putting in “Christmas Gift for Her” the first link was the Top 25 gifts to give her from askmen.com!  I don’t know how GoogleGoth knows Cobwebs, but I guess they know everything.   Well, until I clicked on #1.

“Philosophy: The Winter Escape

This limited edition collection of bath products from Philosophy is only available at Sephora. Any woman on your list can enjoy the comfort of a cup of hot cocoa in the shower or bath with new peppermint Hot Cocoa Shampoo, Shower Gel & Bubble Bath and then finish off with delicious Melting Marshmallow Cream Body Soufflé and Melting Marshmallow Cream Lip Shine -- the man in her life with thank you too for this sumptuous Christmas gift.”

So, well, if she doesn’t like that, she will forget when she opens the next one.  I saved the best for last.   I had trouble wrapping it, so I just got a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig bow.

and here it is……..

 

 

 

The only problem is…………… it comes with JAYBO… sitting on it… because he wants it so bad he can’t stand it.

Enjoy your new couch, my hubby sitting on it, and all of your other gifts!

Thank you as well for such a wonderful and informative blog – I had a lot of fun researching all of your old posts to find just the thing!!!

Christmas Shopping…

We tried so hard to be normal, red blooded CHRISTMAS type people today, and got out with the masses to celebrate Black Friday.  Happened by Big Lots to pick up some cheap stocking stuffers.  Found an angel tombstone topper that I’m sure is supposed to be all Christmas-ey and stuff…. oh, and 8 packs of flicker LED tealights that are probably supposed to be in a cute little Christmas window or something….

Yeah, tried really hard to Christmas shop, but gosh darn we are coming home with more Halloween stuff than Santa stuff!

Hope everyone is enjoying the Turkey Day weekend… this 4 day weekend is just such a blessing for me – time with the family, then time to unwind.  Love it!

As it is November 23rd…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birthday honey… even though I nag you more than I should, and bitch about Halloween related TO-DO’s more than I should… I have always loved you, and always will.  You are a wonderful husband and father, and I hope today is very special for you because you are very loved.  :)

Cloudy With a Chance of Ruined Props.

As the rain starts to fall, I took a little look into my next 24 to 36 hours….

A FLASH FLOOD WATCH is in effect through Monday evening.

TONIGHT: Widespread showers and t-storms. Some possibly severe along with very heavy rain. Low: 56. Winds: S/WNW 10-20.

MONDAY: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Steady temps in the mid 50s. High: 56. Winds: N 10-20.

I don’t know who it was that thought it was such a good idea to just buy polyurethane, instead of the much more rain resistant spar urethane… (oh wait, that was me… Ms. Cheap-Skate)… but it was a dumb idea.

At least the embedded PVC and rebar trick is working wonders, and not a thing is moving a’tall in that yard, even with the 40 mpg gusts we are getting.  And, at least its warm.  I have seen pictures of peoples haunts on the forums, and there is…. SNOW on the ground.  What thaaaa?  :)

So anyways, Here’s to counting our blessings, and our next 4 inches of rain! 

If You’re “Into” That Kind of Thing….

Microcontrollers …. and I know a lot of you that are…..

There’s a Halloween contest going on over at makezine.com that has a pretty substantial prize…

From the page:

“Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner. Use a microcontroller to make anything from themed lawn decorations to creative costumes - the possibilities are endless. The Make: Halloween Contest will run for 8 weeks, and the Prizewinners will be announced on Friday, November 6th. Deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. PDT November 3, 2009. Each entry will be judged based on the following criteria: creativity of idea, use of Halloween theme, technical implementation using a microcontroller, execution and craftsmanship, and quality of documentation. Please see Official Rules for more information on the Winner selection.”

Got your eye on the prize?

One Grand Prize Winner three Runner-up Winners will be selected by the judges. The Grand Prize is a Microchip Starter Kit Bundle, valued at $600.00, which includes:

• PIC18 Starter Kit
• PIC24F Starter Kit
• dsPIC® DSC Starter Kit
• PIC32 Starter Kit
• Memory Starter Kit
• FI Evaluation Platform
• PICkit™ 3

The Runner-up Prizes are as follows:

• 1st Runner-up Prize: PICDEM™ Lab (valued at $124.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.
• 2nd Runner-up Prize: PICkit™ 3 (valued at $69.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.
• 3rd Runner-up Prize: F1 Starter Kit (valued at $39.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.

I would enter, but I don't even know what the prize is.  That’s why I hang out with Jayson and you guys – you know what it is.

Now, go forth, and WIN! 

Details Here.

Busy Bee’s…

 

You can really tell its mid August around here – we have really started kicking it into overdrive on the prop building every night…. so much so that we haven’t had a chance to post to the blog.  (Has NOTHING to do with the fact that I cannot find the cable to my camera so that I can post pictures… nope, not a THING to do with that!)  ;)

But we are still here – and I promise that one of use will put down the drill, or the paint brush long enough to post some of the stuffs we are working on.

Hope you guys are all doing well, we will talk to you soon!

Gotta LOVE Hauntcast!!!

Wow… I’m still in shock!  I’m sitting in the garage with Jaybo, listening to the most recent episode of Hauntcast (very nice tips by Rev in this edition, btw…) and lo and behold, I WON THE DC PROP BOOKS!!!!  I don’t know who squealed like a girl more – me or Jaybo.  He had BETTER let me read them first!  ;)

Thanks to DC Props for donating such an AWESOME prize, and many-many-many thanks to Hauntcast for giving my husband and I something to fight over for years to come :)

More news on the prop front coming soon – been working like slaves for the past few days….  and have another Make/Take in Lewisville this weekend, so there should be plenty of pics coming soon!

Shameless Promotion for Chance to Win DC Prop Building Books…..

 

Not that I really need a chance to win something awesome to promote something I really like… and Hauntcast is something that I really like.

If you have been locked in your garage making props, and unaware of anything that goes on around you, allow me to tell you a bit about HC.

It’s a podcast, put on BY haunt enthusiasts FOR haunt enthusiasts.  If you are a member of the forums, you will automatically recognize the names that go into the production – such as DJChrisb, Revenant, Johnny Thunder, and The Garage of Evil guys.  (Everyone knows how I feel about GoE, one of the first draws for me!)  And Chris has some amazing prop building talent, and is a frequent poster with some great tutorials on a forum or two.

But about the show….  they run about an hour to an hour and a half, roughly once a month, and are a total blast to listen to in the garage while you are working on props.  Some of the items featured in every show:

• Chris Baker interviewing so many of MY haunt idols (and maybe yours too) such as Stolloween, Jeff & Chris Davis of Davis Graveyard, Ghostess Deanna, The Mitchells of “How to Haunt Your House” fame, and Brent Ross from DC Cemetery.  It is a thrill for me to hear the voices of so many superstars in the haunting community.
• ‘News from Beyond’ and ‘Theater of the Mind’ from Revenant.  Boy, I listen to Rev recite the phone book and be happy – but maybe thats just a girl thing. 
• Movie Reviews and a lot of laughs from Johnny Thunder
• Letters to the Garage with the GoE guys – hilarious.  Put your paint brush down for this segment
• Hauntcast Top 10

There’s cool Halloween music in between segments, which really put you in the mood to work, info on what the newest stuff in the industry, including conventions and such… and just too much to list here.  You really need to listen to it.

I personally listen to old ones on my Google phone, you can on your iPod, or your Blackberry, watch tutorials on their YouTube Channel, or even listen to it on your computer while YOU are working.  Its become an absolute tradition in our household!

If you are already a fan, and have a blog, you can also post some Hauntcast promotion for a chance to win..  If you do, send a link to your blog post to chris@hauntcast.net, the winners will be chosen Tuesday, July 28. 

*And if you win, can I come over to your house and LOOK at the prize?  :D

Huge Thanks to Monster Guts!

One of my favorite places on the web is the forums of Garage of Evil.  If you are not a member, but like hanging out online with serious prop builders, then you might want to check it out Here.

Well, recently, we outgrew our garage at GoE and we needed funds to keep the Evil going…  and one of my favorite places for prop parts, Monster Guts, came to the rescue.

Monster Guts is now an official supporter of Garage of Evil, and I rushed to place my Thank You order.  If you happen to place an order with them in the next few days, please add a note of thanks as a member of the Haunting Community… its organizations like them that keep us all connected.

Find lots of goodies at Monster Guts here.

One last thing! No Grasshopper Killer here.

If you are arriving  via a Google Search for “Grasshopper Killer” you will not find any here at Nickols Manor.

No, I am terrified of Grasshoppers, but I don’t kill them.  I don’t even know how.  I wouldn’t dare.  Rather, I make them into Paper Mache Halloween Monsters.

But then again, if you ARE arriving here looking for Grasshopper Killer, you won’t even take the time to read this, but I just thought our Halloween friends would get a kick out of my most recent traffic BOOST.

Hahahaha!

 

*I will try to make this my last post tonight, haha.  “Try”.

Oppressive Heat, Sad Day, Disney, and 128 Days?

A miscellaneous post, in other words.

I don’t know if you would even know this, but Dallas is in a heat wave.  102 degrees today, 103 tomorrow and into oblivion, for all the weatherman knows.  Add our lovely Texas humidity and you get a heat index of 105 to 106.  Too hot to think straight, certainly too hot to wield a hot wire tool.

Did anyone say 128 days?  Since I am sitting on my duff complaining about the heat, that means I am apparently not out in the garage working on props like I should be, with 128 days left.  And then something even worse than that scared me this morning.  As I’m planning for Disney in mid-September, and realizing that I have 12 weekends til we leave…. I realize that a few of those weekends will be filled with shopping for the trip, packing for the trip, being excited about the trip…. hmmm.  That cuts into prop building time a lot.  Then I thought…. OH HOLY CRAP… we will be setting up the weekend after we get BACK from Disney… that means I am almost out of time, and its only June!  Ok, more like July.  Called Jayson on the phone, he laughed because he had already thought of this.  Talking to him I got even more freaked out, I then started sweating and so I quit thinking about it.

But who can work when its this flippin hot? 

My grand prop plans are starting to dwindle, and I am already counting what I can absolutely get done before September. 

I can’t possibly end this post without some mention of the passing of 3 icons of my childhood… Ed McMahon, who’s “Here’s Johnny” became such a part of all of our lives for so long…. Farrah Fawcett, an original Charlie’s Angel, a kind and caring soul…. and Michael Jackson, a pop icon.  I believe today is going to be one of those “Do you remember where you were when Farrah and MJ died on the same day” kind of days. 

RIP, and prayers to the family and friends of the above mentioned.

PS.  Thanks to all for the funny comments – you guys just make my day.  I really adore my friends in the Halloween community :)

Theme…. argh.

So, last year was our first year to REALLY get into our yard haunt hard core.  It was simple… kicked out a bunch of tombstones, a couple of ground breakers, pumpkins, assorted spooky dudes, etc… and threw them all out in the yard.  Scared some kiddies.  Looked forward to the next year.

We called it Nickols Manor.  We boarded up the windows of our house, and tried to make it look old and run down.  I wore a historic period dress, as if I were the ghost of the Manor.  Jayson was a haunted pumpkin, straight from the pumpkin patch.

Looking back on it, I wondered – who would expect an entire front yard of an old house to be taken up with a cemetery?  And why is there crate in the front yard with a monster (MIB) trying to jump out at people?  Oh, yes, a Grim Reaper pumpkin man ALWAYS stands at the front door of abandoned houses, waiting to scare people that happen to walk upon it.

So this year, I’m already over complicating it.  I want realism.  I want to try and recreate the feeling of walking up to an abandoned house, the anticipation of what will jump out at you… rather than having it all *out there*… in your face, so to speak.

Darkness frightens me when I don’t know what’s coming, so we are considering keeping part of the yard without lights, and then using LED spots to light up a motion detected prop as it “jumps out”…  try to make the HOUSE an actual character in the haunt, and make better use of the windows, roof, etc.  Just trying to be real, and see if we can get the same scare.  I don’t know if it can be done, because we can’t even make it work out on paper – but thats what we are working on tonight.

Til then, here’s the props we are working on….

Well, here’s my cauldron so far…. which will most likely be cut from the plan this year… haha, figures.  I will still finish it for next year, maybe.  Depends on how it looks, it might just end up in the trash!

I’m making paper mache forms for the candles that most people make with PVC… will see how this works too – total experiment, and an effort to not have to buy anything from Lowe’s (pvc) right now

And of course more pumpkins… always need pumpkins. 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend, will talk to you soon! 

Time to ‘Get to Work!’

Jaybo is working on LED spotlights, and some other things I can’t pronounce…

 

And I am getting ready to paper mache… 

Flour… check

Liquid Starch… check

Glue… check

Bleach water… check

Huge trashbag filled with a bit less than a ton of newspaper wads… hoping to become a cauldron…. sorta check.  ;)

I have seen cauldrons done with other types of forms, and have NOT seen it done like this… so that should have been my first red flag… but, like the idiot I am, I’m gonna give it a shot.

I will probably be telling you why this did NOT work later.

Back to the glue!  Hope all is going well for you!