Not good at prop building and blog writing at the same time!

Wow, I just want to start by sending huge kudos to people like Frog Queen, Captain, Kimily, Grim, GhoulFriday, Dave, Mr. Macabre, Mr. Season of Shadows, and soooo many others, for keeping me entertained daily with such prolific instructional and entertaining blog posts AND being able to build props for haunts at the same time…. man, I’m just so impressed, especially because it is NOT something that I apparently have the ability to do!

Just a quick update – we started September by going to Orlando for a week and never got to leave the Mouse compound – I felt like I was in prison!  Next time I’m actually going to SEE Florida, and maybe work in a way to meet up with one of my haunt favorites, The Captain himself!

Scenes like this were our reality for a week.  Exhausting.

Got back from Florida on Sunday, my dad had emergency surgery on Tuesday, then Jaybo and I came down with the flu on Wednesday.  And that is where we have been for almost a full week now.  Listless, unaware that October is tomorrow.

Enough of the boring stuff…

I have been working on retrofitting last years tombstones… if you are a regular here you might remember that the wind snapped all of my tombstones last year.

  A tombstone base, minus the stone.  Circa 2008.  Brilliant stuff, eh?

After that debacle I started embedding PVC in all of my stones, which will slip over rebar. 

 

As for last years, I had to trace each one onto another layer of foam, then dig out perfectly good painted foam (the back) to make a trench for the pvc to lie in, then glue the new smooth back onto, wood fill the seams, sand, and repaint.  I am still doing that… or will when I can sit for more than an hour without getting the shakes and sweating to death!

 

Speaking of wood filler – did you know that if you run out of wood filler while you are in your pajamas and running 102 fever, you can take wood glue and mix it with sand to make concrete style seam filler?  Works wonders, gives a neat texture, dries hard as a rock, and you don’t even have to go to the store, LMAO.  (Also gives a nice sturdy weight to the stones, which is always cool)

Have a ton of pumpkins (ok, 5) for Jaybo to build bodies for to make static monster guys, and then I think we will finally be in position to get everything in the yard.  

Oh, and finished my Big Lots angel.  I have this way of “ruining” anything store bought, LOL.

Before:

and after:

I’m even corrupting this cute little thing!

Hoping to get everything finished up this week (haha, I am barely making it just typing this) and get it out by Sunday… but then again, this might just be the year of the flu around our house.  So disappointing, but we will work with it!

Today's amateur papier mache tip: Armature…. get the building of the armature right from the beginning…. if the shape is wrong, you will only be making it worse with layers of mache.   (I am always of the mind that “I can just build it up with mache – and end up with STILL boxy shoulders, or a deformed face, etc.  Just build the armature right, use cardboard to build up features, and go from there!

More to come soon… hang in there everyone… this is the time of year we live for!!

A Bear or a Grasshopper?

Have your kids ever played that game… something that goes along the lines of…. “who would win… a ninja or a zombie?”  Well, duh.  A zombie!

Well, here we had the battle between a Bear and a Grasshopper.  Who’s tougher?  Who’s meaner?  Who won the contest?

There will be NOOOOOOO living with the man now.  He has officially bested me at a contest.  Whooped my ass on the internet.

Five minutes ago, I heard, “Make dinner for the WINNER, Woman!”  He should have pounded his chest for effect.  HAHAHAHA

What on earth ever possessed me to compete with my husband, anyways?!?!?!  lol.

 

Congratulations Jayson!!!!

Killer Grasshopper?

So Twisted Nightmares just had a prop contest in which you had to come up with your idea of a “Twisted Nightmare”.

Anyone that knows me, KNOWS I hate bugs, roaches and grasshoppers in particular.  So, I came up with the most twisted nightmare I could possibly conceive, without having to make a roach.  (EWWwWWW!  Roaches!!)

The Killer Grasshopper:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papier mache and clay on a coat hanger armature.

Knife and axe blade – cardboard and tin foil with bamboo skewer handles.

Chainsaw – 1/2” foam carved to shape, popsicle stick base w/tin foil.

Lots of ways to KILL, and lots of nightmares to come. 

Scare Bear

Straight from the misty regions of my recurring twisted nightmare, I present to you MangleHeart Bear!

MangleHeart is an evil and loathsome bear who knows lots about helping others share their feelings of terror.
By plunging his claws deep into peoples hearts, MangleHeart Bear helps spread terror throughout the land.
He wears the perfect symbol for his job on his tummy—a lacerated heart.

Scaring Mission: Show people how to FEAR.
Symbol: His heart symbol represents his famous evil care.
Personality: Evil and vindictive.
Motto: Nobody cares like a scare bear!

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I’m Addicted to My Mache Paste

I have a problem, and should really seek help.  Although, I don’t think I will find Papier Mache Paste Anonymous in the phone book.

Now you think I’m crazy, and that’s ok, because I will explain it.  Not that you won’t still think I’m crazy at the end of this post, but you will understand WHY I’m crazy.

First, let me say that when I began learning papier mache techniques early last year, I faithfully followed the instructions and recipes of Stolloween found here.  (His recipe is about halfway down the page in yellow italics print).  I can only say this – I am SO glad to have found him, and benefited from his trial and error of the many recipes out there, because this is the only one I have ever tried, and will ever use… no need for a lot of experimenting.

Having said that, I also tend to over do things…. even directions.  Stolloween said that because it is a flour based recipe, and can tend to mold if left out too long, you can “add mold inhibitors such as salt, bleach or anti-microbial dish detergents to extend the life of paste”.  So, I usually add a bit of ALL of those things, haha… better safer than safe, right?  (I hope he’s not reading this and rolling his eyes at me right now… haha).  Bleach actually gives me a raging headache, if I smell it too long – like, long enough to scrub the entire bathtub/shower… so I was adding less and less bleach each time I made paste.  (it really doesn't take much in the paste, but it doesn't take much to trigger a headache for me, either) so needless to say, I hated the way the paste smelled.   (I’m getting to a point, I promise)

Last week, when making my batches, I was out of dish soap and reached for my hand soap next to the sink – my FAVORITE smell in the whole wide world, Bath and Body Works Eucalyptus Spearmint.   It’s in the “Stress Relief” category of their aromatherapy section, and man, does it work on my stress.  :)

So, I put in about 5 squirts of that soap, and mixed it up like normal.

Oh my.  I’m in heaven.  Every time I pop the top on that coffee cannister, I just thank the stars that I get to papier mache for that moment in time – all the stress goes right out the door.  With every strip, you get a little whiff of that scent… it’s amazing!

(Yes, Yes, I know, its not anti-bacterial.  I don’t care about that part anymore, haha!)

POINT:  If you have a favorite soap scent, try it.  I cant say it will do much for anti molding properties, but… it just might put a smile on your face!

(Maybe this is a chick thing.  Sorry guys.)  :D

Progress… Slow and Steady

I love starting on props in February, it allows for you to work on several projects at a time, going from project to project when you need a break or a fresh perspective, or your kid breaks your gargoyle and you want to throw it in the trash.  Don’t throw it away, just put it in the corner, promise to come back to it next week, when you can do it without cursing, and start on a pumpkin.

Having said that, I bet you can assume that the Gargoyles are currently in the “pissed off” category.  Another project in that (ever increasing) category is the cauldron.  I’m about to make the largest trash bin that our house has ever see out of that thing.

Never let it be said that I’m not an idiot who takes all the stuffing out of a mache project before its ready…. or strong… and that the bottom wont cave in, so that when you lay it on its side to keep from having the bottom fall OUT, it then warps into an OVAL shaped cauldron.  Ugh.  Jayson had it right when he wanted to go buy the garden bucket… NO!  I will NOT give up!  I will put it in the “pissed off” corner, and move on.  It’s April, I have TIME!  (right?!?!  oh dear.)

The candles, on the other hand, are coming along splendidly, I just forgot to take a picture of them.  I am just finishing up the wax drips, then a coat of paint, and then Jayson gets them to do some kind of LED magic on them.  I get to make a kabillion flames out of silicone, and stick a fork in them.  Sweet.  Something according to plan.

Pumpkins.  Did I mention we are doing Zombie Pumpkins as a theme this year?  I liked it because I had not heard of it being done before (and if YOU have, please, PLEASE don’t tell me, or I will wanna change, and then I WILL end up at divorce.com, haha) and the pumpkins could easily be reused in other themes in years to come.

So, I need a lot of pumpkins.  Not 100 of them like a fellow forum member is doing, but… still… a lot.  Its April, and I’m up to 4.  I think I should be concerned, but, nah.  Not yet.  (Have time?  Right?)

Since these are still in the “working” pile, I haven’t started on the angel in the background yet, or any of the new graves.  But I’m sure that I will get tired of pumpkins and want something new for a week or two.  That's the joy of April.

And speaking of the “joy of April”, I just want to say how appreciative I am to live in Texas, as these were blooming throughout my yard this morning, and I just want to share two of the shots with you, in case your roses aren’t in bloom yet.

Off to a make & take tomorrow, so we will talk to you soon!

Paper Mache Assembly Line

I am quickly finding out that I am not going to be one of those amazing people that can post daily, or even every other day.  I get too busy working on props, and the other time is spent in the forums, so I get overwhelmed with the blog.  I promise to work out a time management system… (and that, I will!)

Ok, I can’t speak for Jaybo, he has his own section of the garage, and I have mine… but here are some of the things I have been working on… I have just been strip mache-ing anything and everything… getting it all built up and dry enough to get to the FUN part! 

 

 

  

 

These candles were inspired by the PVC Flicker candles found on all the forums….  I always have Jaybo cut the PVC for me, and one day I didn’t want to wait (patience has never been a trait of mine) so I decided to paper mache them… that would also allow me to have varying widths, as well as heights.  I used some Plastic Rain Gutter Guard that I had lying around - (thought it would be handy with monster building, but was apparently wrong) and rolled it into various true to life candle sizes… then wrapped in foil, mached, and am now adding clay to give it less of a straight edge feel, and more like well used wax.  I am still going to do the hot glue drips, but after looking at some of my old real candles, none of them had a perfect straight column shape anymore, and got a little warped as they burned down…  I know it sounds like a lot of work for a detail that probably no one will notice, but somehow I do a lot of that.  Plus, it gives my hands something to do while watching The Amazing Race or Survivor.  (Don’t judge, I like reality shows, and will proudly admit it.  Here.  Only.)

 

The cauldron.  I know, it looks funny so far.  Well, other than the fact that in that picuture it is sitting in a green lawn chair.  But this is one of those projects that will likely take months because I get so sick of it, and come back to it.  I actually have finished the mache on it (contrary to the pic above) and have removed the 450 thousand tons of wadded up newspaper… but am having trouble with the bottom now… it was not as stable as the rest of it, and I didn’t know that until *after* I removed the stuffing and made more pumpkins with all that newspaper.  It is now sitting upside down, trying to figure out how to mache the bottom up to strength without it buckling in.  I will get it right, oh yes, I will.  Then I will work on shaping the top, and adding all the awesome detail that is in my head, but will likely look nothing like it on the actual cauldron.

*Note.  I have had to stop Jaybo from running down to the garden center and buying a huge bucket like 10 times, just to put me out of my misery.  I keep telling him that I want to do this from scratch, and he doesn’t believe the “I WANT to” part.  But if this works out, I am really going to love it much more than a hot pink bucket with mache on it.  :D

  

Playing with my new homemade clay, and having a ball… another thing to do while watching TV, making various tombstone embellishments.

And last but not least…. while speaking of this homemade clay that I am in love with – here are one of the pumpkins, (Judy) and my two gargoyles (Brian and Jenny) that are past the mache process, and I am trying the clay on them.  The Pumpkin doesnt really need it – can definitely use pulp mache clay next time, but I was just testing it out. 

 

 

But it is on the gargoyles that I am loving this stuff…. it is smooth, and working with it is a dream.  Easily made with household ingredients, I am super digging it.

(Pardon the gargoyles…. I swear, they will look like gargoyles in the end.  Ok, I don’t swear…. I *hope*.  hehe)

 

So, that’s the status of the garage as of March 24th.  Will update as more items turn up!

Waiting for Water to Boil… or Rather, for Papier Mache to dry.

I am working on nothing but Papier Mache items right now, and here in Texas it is currently about 200% humidity.  It has been raining on and off for 3 or 4 days and it takes a long time to dry anything.  So I am only getting one coat of mache on each object per day… and I like anywhere from 5 – 7 coats per object depending on size.  So, I’m obviously getting frustrated, and wanting to make something.

To keep me going, I made a quick batch of bread dough clay today, and made a little primitive skull for tombstones later.

If you haven’t made bread dough clay, it is easy, free, and fast.  My kind of material.  Take a piece of white bread (the older the better) and remove the crust.  Feed a bird.  Shred the crustless bread in small pieces into a paper cup, butter dish, or any kind of container.  Per one slice of bread, use one Tablespoon of white or Tacky glue…  (Note:  I personally don’t like mixing this in a baggie because it is sticky at first, and almost impossible to get it all off the plastic once mixed).  Mix the bread and glue together with a craft stick, plastic spoon, or whatever you have.  Mix til it makes a ball and holds together, remove from dish and roll/knead in your hands.  You will get a non sticky, firm, workable clay.

Shape as desired.  If you notice it starting to dry out, you can wet your fingers and it will become pliable again.

Once you get the shape you want, you can carve out any details you want.  In the picture above, you can see a toothpick at the top right… I get these at Cracker Barrel restaurant, and they are my favorite craft tool.  One end is sharp like a normal toothpick, and the other end is a little barrel shape with a flat end.  So I use one end to dig out the clay, then use the flat end to make a smooth surface.  Sometimes you might notice after digging the clay out, it might get brittle or start to ball up, thats why I have the thin paint brush in the photo – I will wet the brush and run it along the rough areas to smooth them out.

Let it air dry, there is no need to put it in the oven.

Note on color – The skull is bread dough as it is, without color.  You can also easily tint the clay by adding a drop of acrylic paint during the mixing phase.  Just note that your hands will get paint all over them during the kneading process.  I make a lot of bread dough roses for various girlie things, and I always tint that dough, because who wants to try to paint all those swirled up petals later?  But for this skull, it will just be glued to a styrofoam tombstone later, and can be easily painted with the rest.

This method is definitely not for items with small details that need to be carved out.  (Although it rolls well, and I love using it to make tiny little roses to embellish boxes, etc… they are small enough to fit on a dime).  There are numerous homemade clays out there, some recipes use flour, water, and oil… some use salt, some use powdered corn starch…. and of course the recipes that use paper mache paste mixed with fiber insulation (which I love too)… this is just my easy go-to recipe for a fast clay when i want a good strong piece, quick and cheap.

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!

Smilin' Jack Pt. 2

I'm back! Sorry to be gone for so long. Had a serious eye infection which made it next to impossible to look at the computer screen. Now, where was I? Oh, yes...a head with no body!

Well, since my newly created pumpkin couldn't really stand on his own too well, I decided to create a Monster Mud creature using Jack. I soon realized that to make Jack proportionate to his head, he was going to be quite large. Mwuahhhhaaaa! Excellent!

                                           

Off to Home Depot to gather the materials. It just so happens that the gentleman working the plumbing supply this night is a Scout Master with experience in making paper mache masks! Once I told him what I was planning to do, he came alive! Boy, I've never had so much fun in the plumbing section in my life! We literally spent two hours brainstorming on how to build the body, gathering materials, changing our minds, putting everything back, gathering different materials, deciding we were genius' for improving the original agreed on design, and solving world peace. I congratulated the gentleman on such a successful collaborative effort and told him I would save a seat for him in Geneva, Switzerland when we accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. At this moment I took my materials and headed for the lone open checkout lane.

I then changed my mind and put everything back.

Did my wife mention I'm kind of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy? Yeah, it drives her nuts.

Seriously. She's going insane.

Ok, this is what I got:

• 2   8ft metal T-Post fence posts (The kind used to build barbed wire fences)
• 2   10ft length 2" Schedule 40 PVC pipes
• 3   2" PVC T-connectors
• 2   2" 45 degree PVC elbows
• 2   2” 90 degree PVC elbows
• 2   2" to 1/2" PVC adapters
• 1   8ft length 1/2" PVC pipe
• 1  Can of PVC plumbing cement (Looks like purple goo)
• 4   Rolls of 3ft x 24ft Burlap (It's in the lawn and garden section)
• 3   Rolls of 3ft x 25ft Poultry Fence (chicken wire)
• 1   Roll of Duct Tape (Greatest invention ever!)
• 1   5 Gallon bucket of Joint Compound
• 1   Gallon of oops paint (this is actually mis-tinted paint I got from Wal-Mart)
• 1   Gallon of Thompson Water Seal Multi Surface Clear

Time for assembly! There really isn’t a hardcore way to do this part. In the pictures below you can get an idea of how I proportioned everything. Do NOT go nuts with the pipe cement on this thing. Just dry fit everything until you are ready for final assembly. Actually, you may not want to use the pipe cement at all. The cement will make everything permanent. No going back. If you look closely on the build of the frame, you will see I drilled woodscrews into all of the joints to lock them in place. This was probably all I really needed. I figured this part out a little too late. On a side note, the frame was extremely solid.

The hands were made from 1/2” PVC pipe, coat hangers, duct tape, and paper mache.  I admit the hands could have looked a lot better, but I was a little rushed at this point. Besides, after painting and in the dark…no one ever notices. The fingers are very thin and long, so they tend to crack and break a little. So, it looks like I might have to do a little repair work next season.

 

I now had the hands and forearms for Jack. These I did not cement into the PVC frame. They fit into the ends of the 2” inch to 1/2” adapters I used to cap the ends of the arms. This allowed me to reposition the hands whenever I wanted. I placed the 8ft T-Posts inside of the two PVC pipes that came down from the shoulders. It’s not rocket science. You can get the idea just by looking at the pictures below:

I played with the 90 degree and 45 degree elbows to get the arms positioned just like I wanted and then cemented everything in place. Once the cement had cured, I carried the fence posts and frame to the yard along with my ladder and drove the fence posts into the ground with a carpenter hammer.

Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. My forearms were on fire! The neighbors thought I had lost it at this point. Which might have had something to do with the constant “PING! PING! @$!#? PING! PING! SONOFAB****” that was coming from my yard and my mouth! Next time I’m getting a Fence Post Driver like this:

Finally got the !@#$% fence posts in the ground and slapped Jack’s head on the top. The frame is complete! The neighbors are calling the police. The children have learned new exciting words. We are no longer anonymous in the neighborhood. Life is sweet!

At this point I am having a hard time getting any work done because EVERYONE is stopping to ask me questions! No one in my neighborhood does anything remotely like this, so I caused a little bit of a stir in the neighborhood. We are now known as “THOSE PEOPLE”, since no one actually knew our names after three years.

Chicken and Mud

This is where I got act like a three year old in the mud. Of course, the neighbors think I’m the eccentric guy next door all covered in suspicious brown “stuff”.

That up above ladies and gentleman is Monster Mud. It is nothing more than Joint Compound and exterior latex paint mixed together. It is a most wonderful, magical, and useful thing. Oh, and it’s very messy!

I covered the frame in chicken wire. I had to make a wire hood to cover Jack’s head, and then two wire tubes to go around his arms. I wired all of these together after I covered the main torso in wire. I then covered the thing with burlap the same way. I had to wire the burlap to the frame in places to keep it from shifting and blowing away in the wind.

Now all of the hard work is done and I can sling brown goo like a monkey and his poo!

 

I originally planned on painting Jack solid black or dark grey and then come back and dry brush him with white paint. But I noticed he showed up much better at night under our blue spot lights just like he was. Plus, he’s freakin’ HUGE! Do you know how long it would take to dry brush THAT?!?! I simply did not have the time.

It took him about a day to completely dry and harden. On the next day, I applied the Thompson Water Seal. Which was such a good idea, because we had a torrential down pour three days after I built Jack. He came through without hardly a scratch on him.

So below is the finished product posing with my boys during the day:

And here are two action shots taken at night. One with flash, and the other with a spooky blue spotlight.

 

 

Jack ended up being a HUGE success! My house is on the corner of a major road and everyone in town couldn’t help but notice Jack. I had several High School kids wanting to know how I did it. One guy showed up two nights before Halloween to show his Dad. I ended up talking with them in my front yard for a couple hours. All joking aside, this has been the best way to meet my neighbors!

The one downside to Jack? He was just too large. I had to destroy him after Halloween. I kept the frame and the head, so I can always rebuild him again.

I’ve seriously got the Halloween bug now! Can’t wait until 2009!! Bigger, better, scarier!!