Anyone Else in the Planning Stages??

 

When it’s too cold outside to even BE in the garage,

And paint wouldn’t dry even if you begged it to…

Then it’s time best spent Planning…. Scheming…. Devising.

So I found the COOLEST website called Incompetech that allows you to print graph paper.

What’s so fabulous about that?

This particular site lets you customize your graph paper, and allows you to save as .pdf form to print now or later, as your heart desires.

Square graph papers, Triangles and Hexagons, Circular and Polar, Asymmetrical and Specialty Graph Papers, and as you are about to read, my favorite: Writing pages.

Choose how many squares to an inch, the color of the lines, etc.  But that’s not all.  (I sound like the ShamWow guy, eh?)

As shown in the links above, they have many different shapes for graph paper, which I’m not smart enough to know why you would need those, but it was this little baby that got me all excited:

Yes, that’s a tiny picture, but I still can’t figure out how to embed a picture of a .pdf file, and I refuse to look like an idiot taking a picture of my laptop screen. 

It’s found in the Writing category, under Cornell Graph.

The page lets you customize the layout of your page – how much graph paper, how much blank space for notes, where the blocks are located on the page, etc. 

I think this is just awesome for sketching out your prop on one side, and putting notes about how to build it, or what colors, epitaphs or motors, or whatEVER!   

I can already see printing out a stack of these and putting them in a 3 ring binder for my prop planner. 

I hope this is of use to SOMEONE… and if so, then have fun making your very own prop planner!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

ThinkGeek :: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Nothing like a reboot of the classics to get you reading again! Perfect stocking stuffer for any haunter who happens to also enjoy Jane Austen!

Honey? You want a copy? ;-)

The Plan Book

First, let me say that Jayson is sick, sick, sick.  I think he has gotten out of bed long enough to take more tylenol, then went back up to sleep.  He will get to the Jack posts as soon as he can hold his head up.  (Wow, I should be taking care of him, huh?  Ok, I will… right after I make this post, haha)

The Plan Book…..

I’m a planner, to a fault.  Jayson is a fly by the seat of his pants kinda person.  Sometimes this causes a train wreck when I want to plan something to death, and he doesn’t.   But sometimes it is the best of both worlds because if I forgot to work it out on paper – he knows how to roll with it, and I don’t.  And sometimes he has no clue how to start, but I already have it on paper.  So, we deal with it.

My plan book for last year was just a simple little spiral notebook that I divided into sections with post-it note tabs.  The sections were:

1. General guidelines and brainstorming.  This included the main theme, characters, layout of haunt, sounds… basically the who/what/when/where/why.
2. Calendar – I kept a diary of our work every day from August until Halloween night.  I stopped on 10-31, because I never wanted to look back and be embarrassed by how long it took us to tear it down and put it all away!  But this section really helped us look back and see the reality of how long a specific prop took to make.  You never seem to include drying time in your estimated completion times!
3. To Do – This was a constantly changing section, where I would just cross stuff off as it got done, and add all the things to do tomorrow as I went.  This kept me from forgetting a million little details.
4. Projects – This section was the detail for each prop, and a place to put ideas for props we had seen, and wanted to do.  It gave us space to pencil in dimensions and measurements as we took them, estimated cost, and a “grocery list” so we knew exactly what to buy when we went to the Home Improvement store.  (Because I *always* had the book with me at the store!
5. Bought.  Man, this was a horrific tab, if I do say so myself.  After a shopping trip, I would take the receipt and write all the Halloween items, and total at the bottom of each page.  Remember, I only started this in August last year, and the 3 month total just floored me!  (But also helps me this year, seeing the price of items, and deciding if I really want to do that prop in my head, after totalling up the cost of it!)
6. Ideas.  Sketches, brainstorms, silly ideas that might not ever work… this section held anything like that.  It was a big section.

So you see why Jayson gets so frustrated with me!  I can over organize anything to…. death!  But, I can tell you this – right now, as we are getting ramped up to start all over again for 2009, I have referred to last years book I don’t know how many times… keeping notes as you go, while building a haunt really records all the little stuff you don’t think about.

I have already started this years book, just on little note pads, since I haven't gotten the official book yet.  I would like to find something a little sturdier than my little spiral, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money on something really cool because it tends to get spray paint on it…. (as you could tell in the shot at the beginning of the post!)

I will hunt around and find something… but I need to hurry… its time for the journaling to begin!  (Sorry, Honey… but I gotta be ME!)

Do you keep any kind of notes, or plan?  (Or am I the only crazy one around here?!?!)