Witch’s Cabinet
A new part of our haunt this year will be the inclusion of a witch house. With that in mind, I’ve been picking away at a few of the props needed to make this happen. This past week, we’ve gotten a few things lined up for the witch house.
The bookshelf/cabinet was made from a cheap Wal-Mart bookcase that we no longer had a use for. The sharp edges of the shelves were shaved down to add a more aged look. A front trim was added, as well as 2 foam pentacle rosettes in the top corners. The whole unit was then painted brown to cover the faux wood-grain laminate, then dry-brushed with a light tan to add to the aged look. The unit was then donned with some of the trinkets that we’ve collected up so far.
The chair to the right of the cabinet was picked up at the local thrift store for $5. The broom was made from last years decorative “Cinnamon Brooms”. My wife has a few of these hanging up around the house, and since they had lost their scent, I replaced them with fresh ones and repurposed the old ones.
Celtic Cross Update #2
Well, it’s been a while since I posted the first photos of the Celtic Cross Fog Chiller, and for good reason. The next portion of this project was to complete the front of the base, where the Epitaph was to be bordered by more knotwork. The knotwork border ended up taking a total of 23 hours to carve, which is much more time than I really wanted to spend on it. Nonetheless, it came out looking good, and my peers on Hauntforum.com and HalloweenForum.com all assure me that it was time well spent. The next step is to finish up the epitaph, get it painted up, and give the Fog Chiller a test run.
Celtic Cross Fog Chiller
So after several months of procrastination, I have finally gotten myself moving on a project that has been in the back of my head since Halloween 2009. The original plan was to create an Obelisk Tombstone from Dow foamboard that would double as a fog chiller. The idea was simple; apply the concept of a cat litter bucket vortex chiller into a hollow Obelisk. This would eliminate 2 of the issues facing the use of a cat litter bucket chiller; A. hiding the chiler, and B. insulating the chiller.
The Celtic Cross Fog Chiller, structure and cross details complete.
At the onset of the project, I decided to make a few changes to the overall design. Rather than going with a tall, thin obelisk, I decided to do a Celtic Cross atop a block base. This would allow a shorter, broader base that would provide more stability, and a larger chiller area. This would also give me more opportunity for the detailed tombstone carvings that I enjoy.
After a $40 trip to Lowes for foam, I set my plans in motion. The base/chiller proved to be very simple to build, and took only a few hours. The cross, which proved to be only slightly more difficult, came next. Since the cross was made of two layers, I was able to embed a 1″x1/4″ strip of hardwood down the center for added support. That should prevent the cross from breaking off in any wind. The finished structure stands just over 6′ tall (29″ base, 45″ cross), with the inner dimensions of the chiller being 22″x14″x14″.
Once the structure was finished, I started detailing the cross which took roughly 5 hours to complete. That’s not including the time spent creating the knot-work templates. And now, the hard part awaits. I have just begun carving the knot-work border on the front of the base which, based on what I’ve accomplished in the first 4 hours, I expect will take about 15 hours to complete. Wish me luck, as my eyes and my back are already killing me.
Knot-work details on the Celtic Cross.
Buried Treasures
One of our plans for an upcoming Halloween display was to decorate our enclosed front porch as a Witch’s house. One of the key fixtures for this display was to be a bookshelf of potion bottles and jars of different ingredients and curiosities. Over the past year, my wife and I have visited several Garage sales, and I am always keeping an eye out for old bottles.
While digging a large hole in which to bury some excess stone, I happened upon a few small bottles buried about 18″ deep. My 15 year old son took an interest and took over the dig. Since the immediate area is all slated to become part of our vegetable garden expansion, I allowed him to dig to his hearts content.
After 2 days, we finally gave up on digging up the yard. Within the approximately 100 square foot area that we dug, we discovered a total of 31 jars bottles and medicinal vials, all dating back to the late 1800′s and early 1900′s.
Several of the bottles we found have one type of marking or another, but only 8 of them have any type of labeling print. The three cobalt blue bottles are all marked “BROMO-SELTZER EMERSON DRUG CO. BALTIMORE, MD”, which are apparently very common and worth very little (about $3-$5). 
The others, seen here, are marked with the following (right to left) DR. J.R. MILLER’S MAGNETIC BALM (on sides of bottle), HARRIS PURE FLAVORS BINGHAMTON, NY, SCOTT’S SPRING BOTTLING WORKS SCHENECTADY, NY (“S” in Schenectady is printed backwards and apparently upside-down as well), WEISS SCOTT’S SPRING BOTTLING WORKS SCHENECTADY, NY BEER REGISTERED(on front) THIS BOTTLE NOT TO BE SOLD (on back) A.C.W. (on bottom), and GUARANTEED FULL PINT H.HEILBRONNER & CO. WHOLESALE LIQUOR DEALERS SCHENECTADY, NY.
Anyone who may have information on any of these bottles, or on the companies named on them, please share your info. I plan to bring these all by a local bottle museum to try to gain some information on them all. Ultimately, unless there is any significant value to any of them, they will all be incorporated into the Witch’s personal apothecary in this years Halloween home haunt.
3 Months
Thats right, Halloween is but 3 tiny months/13 weeks/92 days away. We are 3/4 of the way there, and if you havent started on your Halloween planning yet, this might be a good time to start. As for me, I’ve still got a few projects lined up.
TV Corpses – Chester Copperpot
Another TV/Movie corpse to inspire all you halloween home haunters and prop makers. Chester Copperpot’s corpse is discovered by a group of kids, several decades after his death. Copperpot, an apparent victim to one of One-Eyed Willy’s boobie traps, met his demise while in search of the pirate’s hidden treasures. This is one of my favorite scenes from the 80′s movie “The Goonies”.
With only a minimal amount of flesh remaining, this look should be very easy to accomplish. A Bucky, a can of Minwax Gel Stain, a little bit of Liquid Latex and Cotton balls, and some shreads of well soiled cloth.
Related Posts: TV Corpses – Wolfman
Gravedigger – Completed
After several weeks of on and off work, I’m happy to report that My Gravedigger prop is finally complete. With this being my first attempt at Latex/Cotton corpsing on this scale, I am very happy with the outcome.
The skull used for this prop was a Lindberg Pirate Skull model which was purchased from My Atomic. The Structure was built entirely from scrap wood, newspaper, duct tape, wire coat hangers, and a few pieces of CPVC. It was then covered with a layer of duct tape, 3 layers of newspaper mache and 2 layers of paper towel mache. The final layers of skin were made from cotton balls unrolled and coated with Liquid Latex, and hand painted with hobby acrylics. The eyes are made from wooden craft balls (see our Projects pages for a How-To). The jeans were an old pair of mine that no longer fit. Special thanks to my friend Tracy Carpenter for the donation of the boots, and to her husband Al for wearing them out so well.
So without further ado, here are the photos.
Tidy Monster
This is probably one of my favorite animated shorts out there now, and probably one of the most bizzare as well. It often reminds me that my workshop could probably use some tidying up. Personally, if one could pull it off, this would for make one hell of a scare in any Halloween Haunted House.
Enjoy
Source: YouTube user, tcmarchant
Hitchin’ a ride
The other day, I was chatting with a few of the officers after work (for those of you who don’t know, I work in the Communications div for our local Police dept) and the suggestion came up that I should have one of my Skeletons riding shotgun in my personal vehicle. My sister had recently sent me a photo from a local Walmart of a similar scene, and I had thought to myself at the time, “how cool is that”. Since I have a spare Bucky hanging around waiting to be corpsed, I figured why not. The next afternoon, I strapped him in, gave him some eyeballs and a hat, and set off for work.
The stunt was well received by the guys, and we all had a few good laughs about it, but for me, that just wasn’t enough. In efforts to catch the reactions of passersby while driving, I decided to leave him strapped in for a while. That was a week ago.
My kids all love the idea, and graciously take a back seat for “Bubba”, a name he earned from the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. hat that he dons. They love checking the reactions of people on the street as we drive by.
The best part of this story came when I returned to work yesterday after a 3 day weekend. I was informed of a call to the Police dept, received a few days prior, from a concerned citizen. The caller was reporting a black 4 door sedan with a human skeleton riding in the passenger seat.
Looks like Bubba will have to spend a few more weeks in the car. 
2010 Pumpkin Garden
Our 2010 pumpkin garden
I have, for several years now, tried to grow pumpkins in my vegetable gardens. Until last year, success had not visited my patch. Small gardens of too few plants, under-watering, and a lack of knowledge the likely culprits in much of my failures. Last year, my success was limited to 4 grapefruit sized (or slightly larger) pie pumpkins that, due to a late planting, never turned orange. Incomplete pumpkins, but pumpkins nonetheless.
This year, I decided to do things a bit differently. I remembered from several years back that some of my best pumpkin plants had emerged from the remains of an un-carved pumpkin left to rot over the winter. Those plants grew at an amazing rate and, had they been allowed to keep growing, they would have likely fostered my first successful pumpkins. Sadly, the pumpkin that was left to rot over the winter, was left in my mother’s flower garden. I did transplant a few of those plants, but they failed me thereafter. my assumption, both then and now, is that the meat and guts from the pumpkin fed the plants. So this year, I put that theory to the test. I saved all of the remains from the 15 pumpkins that we carved last Halloween. Shortly after Halloween, I tilled the meat into the soil, spread the guts and seeds around in a 4′ x 8′ section in my garden, covered it all with straw, and just let them be. Winter came and went, and in the spring several dozen plants emerged.
If you look closely, you can see one of the pumpkins up against the chain-link fence near the top.
This year, I’ve also learned that the way I’ve been watering my pumpkins in past years has been all wrong. Allowing the leaves to get wet during watering encourages this type of leaf mold that these plants are very susceptible to. With that in mind, I wet out and bought a soaker hose, which seems to be working out quite well.
It is now nearing the end of June, and I have my first pumpkins on the vines. 2 so far, each about the size of a baseball, with several more female flowers about ready to open. While this is by no means indicative of success, it is a promising start.
Plans are now in the works to increase our gardens real estate. My wife and I have decided to expand our garden by several hundred square feet. In fact, we will be increasing the size of our garden by nearly 200%, from the current 182 sq feet to a total of 544 sq feet. Now I’ll have room for more pumpkins, and maybe a small crop of corn. SWEET!
With that said, I wish all of you home pumpkin growers great success!
One of our first pumpkins for the 2010 growing season.
