It has begun....So far!

I wanted to get these pics up to let you all see what the front lawn looks like so far. We began this past weekend and got right to it in setting up the circle of ghosts first. This was a bit difficult as I really wanted it in the cemetery itself so no one would mess with them, but as we began to set the cemetery fence, I realized I didn't have enough fencing. So we had to cut off the size of the graveyard to fit. I wanted it a lot larger but I really do not want to buy more fencing, not when we have learned how to make our own and I'd rather we replaced all of these with ones we made ourselves.

I chose to put the ghosts there alongside the blank wall of the house and we have them lit with two green floodlights. I also had to use a shepherd's hook so that the skeleton hammock guy could be stretched across the open area there by the front door. The only bad thing is that it makes the post man and UPS man have to walk around, through the graveyard. Once I close up the gap that we have, they will have to go all the way around or just slide the box under the hammock skeleton. This is the hammock skeleton you see in the stores. It is A LOT smaller than you may think.  

I did add the skeleton wooden chimes I picked up from the Seashell Shop in Rehoboth Beach. They have some awesome fudge there too by the by.

 

Here is the fencing I mentioned. You can see the gap where it ended there in the upper right corner. I want to enclose it at that point so that kids won't be tempted to just walk on thru and trip over all the cords that I know will end up on the lawn.

I adore those solar tubes, you can see the one there in orange next to the sign. I have another yellow one you can just barely see in the upper left, that isn't working and I will have to see what I can do about fixing it or replacing it. 

In the center there to the right of the pumpkins has become a tribute to Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen from New Orleans. I have a tombstone for her, a voodoo doll I made and some zombie heads there near her and this year, we added some solar weeping willow LED lights to frame it. I really love those willow trees! They are really great and I don't remember where I got them! 

Under the tree to the right is one of those garden gnomes all skeleton, digging. I may make this sort of like the fairy mound and put more gnomes there or something. Honey bees are all over this tree and I can only guess they are after the sap because it's a non-flowering tree. 

The three pumpkins you see are fake and on a haystack. These will be lit with the pumpkin projections I got and I'll do a review of them later on once I get it all set up. I have to build a tomb for in front of it so it can house the projector and iPod and the speaker receiver.

I've added more tombstones to the graveyard and will get some pics tomorrow when the sun comes out more. We got the graveyard lit however with some color changing LED lights. I need to replace the green floodlights under the ghosts with those so we are not drawing so much electricity.

We also were able to set up the Hallowindow/video projections in the windows above the garage. That took some doing as I had picked up new cables and they didn't work for the iPod Classic, only for the touch, so be careful when you buy the A/V cables, make sure everything will work with the type of device you have. I updated that blog post from before too.

I also dry brushed all the skeletons so they are all ready to go for corpsing. I hope to do that this week. I need to get them done, skinned and painted and then attached to their poles so they are out of the way.

We did manage to get a lot of boxes taken over to storage and I began to look through the boxes in the house and found more tombstones so I will get to place those as well hopefully tomorrow. I ordered a few more things that I needed and checked off items in the to-do list. Everything is going pretty well tho' I am starting to run out of time and won't be able to do all that I have been wanting, as usual. I still need to redo my tombstones. That's a huge project. I have all the tools for it, just need time but there are other priorities first so for now, I touched up what I have with some gray paint and the new tombstone I made at the Davis Family's tombstone class, I was able to glue in the pvc pipe to the channels they had cut and painted the back and will sand down any glue blobs and finish painting that area too and then I can place that one out into the graveyard. It's one of my favorites now! 

Eventually, I will redo all the tombstones and get rid of the old ones or commercial ones, resell or give them away.

I do want to say too, that I really feel more like a real haunt this year. Made a flyer and dropped it off at the community center so that kids will know we are here.

I still hope to get to make the paper mache monsters for the cave! For now, still need some rest and want to conk out. Busy day tomorrow!

More pics and updates to come!!