Halloween 2010
11-8-2010
Halloween is over, all outside decorations are down and the yard is now empty and sad looking. Now the task of organizing them and putting them away. We haven't updated in a while, it has been harder than usual to get it done. We are expecting our daughter the beginning of February and this pregnancy has been very difficult, which got in the way of getting everything done this year. In fact, due to the pregnancy, we had to cancel our Halloween party less than a week before hand, this broke our hearts, but we had to take the health of the pregnancy into consideration and make it priority number 1. This only means that next years party will have to be bigger and better to make up for it.
Soon we will get our 2010 pictures up, we unfortunately did not get all the new props done that we wanted to, but they will be done for next year.
9-29-2010
Can’t believe it’s practically October. So much left to do, and this weekend we start on our outside setup, thankfully it looks like we are going to have very nice weather for it. Cemetery fence and tombstones are the concentration for this weekend, hopefully we will get some scene setter up on the house as well. This year we are adding the garage to the yard haunt, and our wonderful neighbors are allowing us to store our camper in their garage to assist with this, you have to love good neighbors! Then the rest of the month will be slowly adding and tweaking the yard haunt until the 30th when the last few surprises get put out for our party and then Trick or Treat the next night.
Our inside setup is mostly done, with just a couple bathrooms yet to go and a few finishing touches. We have unfinished props that still need to be worked on, but at least we have a few more weeks to get those done. I was working on one this evening in our family room, and my almost 4 yr old daughter came up to me and said “I can be your Halloween Helper”, I loved it, made me proud. It has been a rough week due to a death in the family and that is the first genuine smile and happy feeling I have had in days.
We were disappointed with only getting a Halloween Express by us this year, especially since it is in the mall and very small. Thankfully we got a Spirit Halloween that opened up last weekend, nice big store with lots of stuff and a great staff that is so friendly. As soon as I saw the banner go up, I drove by to see when they would open and first it said the 23rd. My daughter wanted to go so badly, so on the 23rd we drove over only to find that they had to delay the opening, and my little girl just about had a tantrum because she so desperately wanted to go into the Halloween store, she is just too young to understand that they were not open. So we had to take a trip to Michaels’ so we could look at Halloween.
We are excited for the last get together of the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio on October 9th. We are meeting at a fellow Cincy Haunter’s home to visit their pre-haunt open house, then we are going to King’s Island Halloween Haunt. We have greatly enjoyed hosting this group, making great friends, learning to build new and exciting props that are taking our yard haunt to a new level. We can’t wait to see what we accomplish next year.
9-7-2010
Well our inside decorating is underway! We have also made some progress, small as it may be, on finishing up props. The season is definitely upon us.
In years past we have always had at least 2 Halloween stores within a few minutes of our house and some years we have even been lucky enough to have three. But this year we are only getting one, Halloween Express inside the Eastgate Mall. We are going to miss the usual Spirit Halloween with the same people running it. This year we are going to have to drive 30 to 40 minutes to the nearest Spirit or Halloween City (previously Halloween USA). This weekend we tried to visit the Halloween Stores but they were not yet open. Some stores have had their stuff out for a while and others are only beginning to put theirs out. We love seeing the Halloween stuff going up and visiting the stores.
We have had another great Make N Take with the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio. We have a great group of people whose passion is Halloween and sharing knowledge about prop building. Looking forward to our last MnT of the year on September 19th, can’t wait to see what we accomplish next year.
Soon we will get some pictures up of this year’s new props and set up.
Vacations are over and it is time to kick things into gear, we will be unloading the attic space in the next week or so to be able to sort through props and see what needs repairs. We have several props we would like to finish up before we do this due to space, but we are hitting a time crunch. We are also preparing to start decorating the inside of the house in the next couple weeks so that we can get that done or at least mostly done before outside setup begins at the end of September, begining of October. This week we plan on hitting the stores to see who has already starting putting things out, Dollar Tree started putting some of their stuff out a couple weeks ago, but we have been so busy we haven't made it anywhere else to see who else is putting stuff out. Can't believe how close we are getting!
7/20/2010
We hosted the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio Make N Take this past weekend and built a pneumatic prop. Pneumatics is something we have wanted to do for years, and now we know how to do it, now if only the parts were not so expensive. But we will add at least one or two pneumatic props every year. We have really enjoyed hosting these MnT's every month, we have meet some really great fellow Haunters and learned so much this year. But with all the new stuff, there is the stress of how in the world will we have time to get it all set up, let the nightmares continue on that one. Only 102 days till Halloween.
6/23/2010
Only 130 days till Halloween and 90 days till outside yard haunt setup begins!
I had a nightmare the other night, well to many they would say I am crazy but my haunter friends would agree, A NIGHTMARE. I dreamed I was dreaming, which I can’t say I have done before. Here comes the dream, or at least the short version of it:
I was dreaming that it was Halloween and I hadn’t set any decorations up yet and the TOTs were going to arrive in just a couple hours, I started running around freaking out trying to frantically get decorations out. I woke up from this dream (or so I thought) to breathe a sigh of relief, because it was only July 6th after all. Shortly after I realized this I turned on the TV and they were talking about how Trick or Treat was tonight because Halloween was now going to be celebrated in July so that the kids are out of school and it’s during the daylight always. I again freaked out because I had no decorations out and my family and I started going nuts trying to get things setup in time for the TOTs. Then it was time for trick or treat to start and we were still setting up, I was sending my husband to the store to buy black plastic to setup the garage and kids were putting the tombstones in the yard and I was still pulling stuff out of the attic and I heard it,, , the first onslaught of kids were about to come up the street I could hear then like a raging stampede(like we do every year, LOL, as they run to our house first), and I knew I was running out of time and I started having a heart attack…. That’s when I woke up for real.
It was so real I woke up in a big sweat and relieved when I realized I was finally awake and it was just all a terrible nightmare. Thank goodness Halloween doesn’t fall in July! That would just not be right. But I am sure many think I am nuts, while my haunter friends understand how terrifying that dream was.
6/17/2010
So it has been a while since we updated our site, been busy with life. A lot has happened since our last update. Our shed is up, almost completely done, only need to finish the built in shelf on the inside and a second coat on some trim. Right now it is housing some garden tools, lawnmowers, a coffin, fence columns, parts of the mausoleum, a witch, foam from a hot tub cover and lots of space left to be filled later. It is really going to help out in storage as we will be adding more stuff this year and need this space for storage. So glad we built it!
We love our laser vortex that was built at the April MnT of the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio, it is going to be so neat to use this year! We also had another MnT in May where we learned to make LED spot lights and it is amazing how easy it is to make them , this year we will be primarily on LED Power, so now the Electric Company will have to find someone else to be their number 1 customer. No Meet in June, but July is going to be great as we are doing pneumatics. I can’t wait to add this kind of arsenal to our props! The TOTs are in for a few surprises this year with all the new stuff!
I saved the best for last. The Midwest Haunter’s Convention was AWESOME! We had a blast! It was only our second year going, and the first year all we did was go up for the tradeshow. The tradeshow was a little smaller this year, missing the animatronic vendors that were there last year, and a couple other vendors that I really wanted to buy from, including Minion’s web (I know he’s moving, but was looking forward to the demos and picking up some colored glue sticks without the shipping). This year we went for the weekend and did the Friday night bus tour and Saturday Masquerade Ball. The bus tour was a BLAST! Nothing like getting to visit a couple Haunted Houses in June. The Scar-A-Torium was good, really nice setup inside an old grocery store, and they have a costume store inside as you come out. The Haunted Hoochie at Dead Acres was also really good, they touch you in that one and that added something that reminds me of how haunted houses were when I was a teenager. Over all it was a very fun night! Would definitely recommend the bus tours to anyone thinking about them in the future. Maybe if we have the time and money next year we will do the pre-convention tours as I hear those were really good as well. The Saturday ball was lots of fun, it’s so nice to be gathered together with others who are into haunting as much as we are and to see everyone dressed up and having a blast. So many cool costumes, the Body art was awesome, the entrance mini haunt was really cool. The only problem I found was a lack of places to sit and not enough food. I don’t know if this was due to lots of last minute registrations or not. We didn’t do any of the classes or seminars, I debated all weekend, but most of the seminars I would have liked to go to were all in the same session, so I would have paid the price and only gotten to do one or two seminars that I wanted. Other members of our MnT group did some of the seminars and they learned a lot. Can’t wait for next year!
4/9/2010
3/30/2010
The First Drink and Think of the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio went well. Small group but lots of talent was present to show off some very nice props. We feel very inspired and excited at the stuff we are going to be able to learn with the group. If your in the southern Ohio or Cincy area and would like more information, just join the Garage of Evil and join the group.
3/16/2010
Time is flying by, only a little over a week and we are hosting the first meeting of the GoE Home Haunters of Southern Ohio! Can’t wait!
Cleaned up the garage this past weekend, put away all the Christmas and the rest of the Halloween that had to go up. Now we have room to put a car back in the garage or have room to work on things. Fun thing was, in the midst of the cleaning we found some items we had bought to build some props with and forgotten we had. Now we have a couple more things added to our “prop to do” list.
We are putting in our reservations for the Midwest Haunter’s Convention, can’t wait till June! Now its decision time, what to wear??? Costumes we already have or do we need to make new ones????
2/14/2010
Boy it’s been a while since we have added anything, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been thinking about Halloween.
In fact we have recently started a new group on GoE for Make and Takes for Home Haunters located in the
GoE Home Haunters of
